Take one glance at the work of local artist Paul Steinberg, and you’d no doubt think he practically emerged from the womb with a paintbrush in hand. Steinberg, whose work is featured at the Daily Grind coffeehouse, says his skill did not come naturally. In fact, his initial motives were quite humorous. “When I was young I just liked to draw,” Steinberg explained. “I was never very good, but I just kind of kept at it. In sixth grade, there were two particular guys in the class who were naturally gifted, and the truth of the matter is, I noticed that the girls in the class seemed to hang around the guys who could draw. I thought, this is something that could work! It took me a long time to figure out that it was the guys [they were attracted to], and it had nothing to do with their drawings.”
Steinberg, who started his art career in elementary school, drawing mere stick figures, is a true believer that anyone can become an artist if they take the time to develop their skills. “I’ve talked to a lot of people and they say, ‘Oh, I could never do that.’ Well, first of all you’ve got to want to do it. Just like anything else, you’ve got to put the time into it. But, that being said, if you know how to manipulate a pencil, you’re gonna be able to draw. Painting is just an extension of that. A lot of people have this expectation the first time they start drawing or painting, though, that if they don’t turn into Micheaelangelo in their first effort, then why bother? The truth is, only about five painters in the history of the world have ended up doing [that level of work].”
Many of the artist’s works center around landscapes and city scenes. Rather than taking the approach of sitting with a canvas on location and painting the scene, he takes photographs, and then paints from them. “The great thing about a photograph is it doesn’t move, it doesn’t change, and it becomes very easy to see patterns of shadow and light, and texture and contrast.” He would love to paint on location, but with a career and a family, his time is limited.
Besides landscapes, Steinberg also paints portraits. One of his most complex paintings to date, which he worked on in bits and pieces for over a year, depicts all of the usual customers at the Daily Grind coffeehouse (displayed before completed below). The painting is extremely detailed and captures the individual stories of more than twenty individuals in the coffee shop during a live concert.
Steinberg plans to display his work at a meet-and-greet event at the shop on Saturday, October 25, 2008. He also plans to have a live demonstration of his work, where he’ll work on a painting of one of the Daily Grind baristas. Some of his other new works, which include a series of paintings of the coy ponds at Short Pump Town Center, will also be displayed. The event goes from 8:00 a.m. until 2:00 p.m.
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