Ryan Clark

@ryanbclark.bsky.social

2488 Followers 1344 Following

Writer. Worker. Teacher. Coach. Dog lover. Cook. Union Member. Vinyl Maker. Poet. Painter. Artist. Ojibwe Kin. Tucson Native. #NowSpinning, #RockLocal, Music Lover (Post Punk), #musicchallenges #booksthatmatter. Movie Lover. No MAGA.

Reference photo is 5.75 x 6.75 inches. I drew a 1/2 inch grid, and blew that up to a 1 inch grid on the 11x14 canvas. Made slight adjustments on width of left leaves to leave more room for framing.
An oil painting on 11x14 canvas panel. The background is a horizontally orange creamsickle horizon, the cowboys western shirt is white but creased with blues and grays and deep shadow cast by the straw cowboy hat he wears. The hatband is woven native american bead work in Starburst patterns. The cowboys head is a black cosmos, void of features, but in the depths of his head, stars, constellations, planets and comets.
An 8x10 oil painting of a Habenero, Poblano, Fresno, Banana, and Yellow Hot pepper.
Reference photo taken in a shadowbox of a Fresno Chili with several chili seeds.
For the Simplify Step, squint your eyes, look for big shapes, and be sure your positioning is correct. Do not worry about details at this phase. Just large shapes of color.
A 5x7 canvas panel oil painting showing a red onion with torn skin, allowing a look at the purple flesh beneath. The onion is also sliced by a knife in one quadrant. Next to the onion is a yellow bell pepper. The composition is completed by three cherry tomatoes. 5 hours over two afternoons.
Video shows my blacking over a cosmic orb that is the face of a cowboy with medium length brown hair and a white western style shirt. Cosmic Cowboy 11x14 oil on canvas panel
On the left is a tutorial landscape reference photo from Chris Fortunado's (Paint Coach) Fundamentals of Oilpainting course. On the right is my 9x12 canvas panel oil painting. At this stage I have completed the SIMPLIFY step of Paint Coach's Method.
Study of a lemon. Part of the online Paint Coach Fundamentals of Oil Painting course.
A 30-45 (forgot timer) lemon study in oil paint. Foreground is orange, background is gray. Lemon is set at a 3/4 tilt and is depicted with a range of vales created from Cadmium lemon, Cadmium Yellow Hue, Ultramarine Blue, Alzarian Crimson and Titanium White.
Other than two other small studies, this is my first landscape painting. I am following along with Paint Coach's Method of Oil Painting course. It is a scene from Italy with a small vineyard nestled between a hill and s small but dense forest next to a pond. The reflection of the trees radiates across the water of the shallow pond.
Lee painting a model of a still life, painting from life instead of a photo. Most of the other students worked on a picture from home. The still life from this side is two bottles, sunflowers, an old coffee pot, and a couple of pears.
A painting inspired by the still life portion of Chris Forza's "Paint Coach Method of Oil Painting course. Painting depicts a wooden bucket of apples that has been knocked over on a table allowing three apples to roll out. One is still deep in the bucket. This is the first full practice of The Method. SIMPLIFY. SHAPE. SHARPEN. This is the second of my Paint Coach paintings. If you've been following along the sunflowers 18x24 was also from one of his courses. I'm impressed with my growth in terms of speed after taking my Mesa Center for the Arts class. This painting was much easier for me to keep up with the video class, than the previous. Much less pausing than Sunflowers.
A bundle of bananas on a pile of books with a half peeled, much more ripe, singular banana half way down the stack. The books are The Oil Painter's Color Handbook and The Art of Still Life by Todd M. Casey, Drawing Techniques, Curepedia by Simon Price and About Time: Poems by David Duchovny.
2 5x7" oils on canvas panel. Top: A collection of different varieties of apples painted in a bowl. This painting took me 11 hours as a brand new painter. I still love the colors, but I did it with drying layers. Bottom: A collection of three varieties of pears resting on a black velvet cloth with a battered brown fabric in the background. This painting I started today at about 8:30 AM and I was done by 12:30 PM. The improvement is obvious.
I took the reference photo in a homemade shadowbox. It features a red pear, a Bartlett, and a Bosch pear on black velvet before a textured reddish brown cloth background. The painting is an oil on 5x7 inch canvas panel. I used Ultramarine Blue, Yellow Ochre, Cadmium Yellow Medium, Titanium White, Cadmium Red Deep and Light, Cadmium Green Light, Sap Green, and Lamp Black. I attempted the front where the velvet folds by tapping in texture of both Titanium White and Lamp Black with a mop brush.
A sphere I painted on about my fifth day painting. This sphere is better than all of my pearls from class. But this practice took me three hours.
Three shopping carts of soda for vending machines bought fraudulently through EBT. Once a week. But we need to have UCE concentration camps to get rid of who again? How many people got thrown off EBT/ SNAP again? We're DOGE?
A vandalized little free library. But they left bibles. Murica
Futility 5x7" oil on canvas panel February 2026 In "The Open Boat" by Stephen Crane, a man is going to die in a dinghy on the ocean, and he deeply wishes he could throw things at God, Nature, Fate. These rocks were meant to be simple and unrealistically bright. I started painting as therapy for a ravaged soul. This painting "felt" good.
Sunflowers and Coffee 18x24" (Jan 26) Brittle Winter 8x10" (Feb 26) Cosmic Cowboy 11x14" (Feb 26) Desert Fragility 9x12" (Jan 26) Lynch: Cadmium Red Deep 5x7" (Dec 25) Dem Apples 5x7" (Dec 25) Please register at www.ryanclarkcreates Website launches soon.
This is a picture from Mesa Arts Center this week. Fifth week, and we were working on clouds. The reference picture is in the TV at the back of the photo. My clouds started off in dark purples and blues. This is before getting blending-itis
This was 2 of 2 offerings for my third Basics of Oil Painting class. I did the first choice in class (a large green pitcher with three oranges) in class on canvas paper, but I took this one also to do at home. It is a brittle mellowed leaf, mostly flat, but with one "leaf" of the Maple Tree Leaf is bent away from view. There is a curl at the very top of the "top leaf". The leaf is placed in a painted salt jar. The background is Ultramarine Blue with some scrubbed in Lamp Black. The foreground is a soft baby blue. Brittle Winter 9x12 Oil on canvas panel February 2026
Still life of a brittle dried leaf in a painted salt cylinder on a baby blue table with a deep Ultramarine Blue and Lamp Black background. Pre Glaze.
Killers of Alex Pretti, unmasked, with names. Make them famous.
A hyperlapse video of painting s nebula. As you can see, I had some real dynamic color and movement going. I should have stopped blending. And flipping the stars with a fan brush and a pallet knife takes practice.
I started with a base layer of flat black. Put on thin, left to dry for two hours. This is a practice on media paper, the lamp black dried quickly.
Victor meets Elizabeth shot from del Toro's Frankenstein. Composed like an oil painting.
A realistic model of a human heart. The plan is to replace the upper left quadrant (the aortic arch area) with gears and machinery. I survived an aortic aenyrism in October of 2020. My aortic arch was replaced by a mechanical one. I low-key tick, like the crocodile from Peter Pan.
My first independently produced compilation of Arizona inspired ghost stories, Spirits of Jerome. Jerome and Bisbee Arizona like to argue about which town is more haunted. I wrote a book giving the reason for my vote. The forward is written by long time Arizona folk singer, Stephen Ashbrook. Please look up his music.
Safeway cashier in Awatukee Foothills Arizona wearing an Hawaiian shirt decorated with bald eagles carrying AR-15's on Superbowl Sunday.
In the early 2000's I was an English Teacher. Charles Ellsworth turned up in my Sophomore Honors class. Then he appeared in my Junior CP class. Finally, he was in my Senior English class. He played soccer and football, and I had a hard time convincing him to join my Speech & Debate team (he never did), but we had some great conversations in my classes over the years. Now, he lives in Brooklyn and has several albums. You should check him out, he's wonderful. He writes poetry I wish I'd written. His new record is called Cosmic Cannon Fodder. This painting is a gift for my friend. This is my first surreal piece, and as soon as I lay in the face you will understand.
Cosmic Cowboy (wip) Oil on 9x12 inch canvas Painting shows a cowboy in a white western style shirt on an orange background. The face is a Lamp Black void (for now). The cowboy wears a woven straw hat, with a beaded headband.
An oil painting on an 8x10 canvas panel of a single, brittle, mellowed leaf, in a white painted Mason jar. The background is Ultramarine Blue with Lamp Black, the foreground is just a touch of Pthalo Green and Titanium White. After drying, I will apply a very lightly tinted yellow glaze to the leaf to unify.
12x16 inch oil on canvas paper Deep Cadmium Red background, sandstone rock base (which I had just begun at the end of class) with a green pitcher and three oranges. I'm happy with the blending. The piece was called whimsical in class. Really working at developing my direct painting skills.
Oil painting on 9x12 inch canvas panel. Pallet; Cadmium Orange, Titanium White, Cobalt Blue, Pthalo Green, Burnt Sienna, Yellow Ochre, Cadmium Red Light, Cadmium Lemon and Lamp Black. Based on the Charles Ellsworth 'Cosmic Cannon Fodder' album cover. Work In Progress. Only the hat band is left to cover the canvas.
An oil painting with an ancient native bowl, a desert wildflower, a cholla, and a desert willow beanpod. The turquoise color was achieved by attempting glazing for the first time.
A tome of a book for any Painter's studio, this beautiful book is hardcover and just absolutely gorgeous showcasing a great deal of the author's personal work, and, like his other book, complete with exercises throughout. Highly recommend.
An 18x24 oil painting on canvas, turned on it's side to better see and focus on the draping fabrics at the bottom of the composition. It is still not correct, but I simply think that's my skill level right now. It's probably time to do a series of studies just on draping fabrics.
ICE OUT GENERAL STRIKE gathering at US Capital now.
A protest sign painted with Lamp Black on 18x24 canvas
A hardcover copy of Simon Price's Curepedia. Robert Smith silver silhouette cover. Pictured above a few oil paintings in progress.
A bouquet of sunflowers in ann old metal dairy container with a mug of coffee, an apple bucket and two granny Smith apples. Oil painting on 18x24 inch canvas
Tucson Federal Building 2 pm National Strike
This is the assignment painting for Chris Forza's (Paint Coach) Basic Drawing for Painting course. He gets his painting to this stage in about an hour and 50 minutes. It took me closer to eight hours, but I'm really happy with my progress. This photo is also a cool juxtaposition of the final form of the objects versus the straight line stick Drawing to place those objects. I learned a lot during this quick online course, and it is well worth the 47 bucks it cost.