Lifestyle

Hill Country Artist: Dane Winslow Ellsworth – Can You Feel It?

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Tony Maples Photography

 

This unusual painting tells something of the salt of the earth people of the west. “My painting is more about my life experience than copying what I see verbatim.” Dane is a frontier history buff, and his subjects reflect that interest as well as iconic symbols. The beginning of his formal training as an artist was in New York City when he was 26. “New York was a real culture shock, it really opened my eyes.” Dane has worked as a cowboy and a finish carpenter, but now he devotes himself to painting.

Experience is the best teacher.

Dane Ellsworth Cowboy

Photo: Dane Winslow Ellsworth

“When I was a kid I helped my Dad on lots of jobs. He was a much better painter than I’ll ever be. One time he was painting the front window of a business with water based tempura paint – it was so cold that the paint would freeze, so I put paint cans on the floor of the old Ford pickup truck under the heater vent and kept them stirred. When the paint in the can he was using froze, I’d get him another from the truck,” Dane explains.

Dane Ellsworth in the Field

Dane Elsworth Plein Air

Photo: Dane Winslow Ellsworth

Sometimes Dane paints “plein air” on the location, other times it is in his studio west of Fredericksburg. His work is available at Artisans a Texas Gallery in Fredericksburg. Some of the images presented in this article are cropped to fit the format of this article. Go see his canvases in person for the full impact!

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