Danika Ostrowski - Making Originals Accessible, Artist Residencies and the Austin Art Scene

Hello out there, George Irwin here, also known on Instagram as Western Gallery. I'd like to welcome you to Horizons, a series of talks with people who make, collect, and present artworks that represent the American West. Mostly painting-focused for now, we'll zero in on the people involved with works depicting the Western landscape, cowboys, Native Americans, and wildlife. So saddle up and join me as I venture west. In this episode of Horizons, I'm talking to Danica Ostrowski, painter of mostly US National Park landscapes. Danica discovered her talent at a young age and has been building her career and fan base since college. Wisely having left Bryan-College Station, Texas for Austin— Danica has found a community of artists and a bright voice that resonates throughout the West. To see a sampling of her work, Check out the show notes or look her up on Instagram @danica_ostrowski_art or on the web at www.danicaostrowski.com. I dialed into her studio to catch up.

Can you kind of talk about your path to becoming a painter?

Yeah, sure. I've kind of painted my whole life. My parents are both architects, so I've always been around art and they've encouraged me, which I feel really lucky to have had. I've always done art, you know, in school growing up. And I went to school at Texas A&M, which is not most people associate with fine art, but—

Yeah, I actually, when I was going to college a long time ago, I remember looking at Texas A&M because that's where most of my school friends went. And they just had basically no art program.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So I was like, well, I guess I'll go to UT Austin.

Oh, is that where you went to school? Okay, very cool, because I'm in Austin now. But yeah, they have a program there. It's called Visualization. Okay. And most people that go through it end up going into game design or computer animation. A lot of people I went to school with work out in California now in the film industry. But they also have a graphic design track. So that was kind of where I went with my studies. That was my cat, Georgia O'Keeffe.

She wanted to be part of it. Yeah, totally.

Um, so I was studying graphic design through the visualization program and just the foundational classes there, a lot of fine art and all of my electives were fine arts. And I don't know, when I graduated, I graduated earlier than I thought I was going to. And I really wanted to paint. I had a— I did a residency the summer before I graduated. Okay. And it was kind of like a test run for me of, is this something I really want to do as a career?

That's a really cool idea of a way to try it out, I think, is to go do a residency somewhere. And then I was gonna ask, I saw that you've done a couple of these. Which one was that one?

So that was, it was different than the ones I've done recently. It was through the Arts Council that was in Bryan-College Station. Okay. Where Texas A&M is. Basically is a program that kind of fosters people who are in school for an arts-related program. And so it basically does kind of what I was hoping to do. It kind of gives you the resources to start your career, start getting into that realm of being a professional artist. Right. And it ended with a solo show, which was really awesome as well. So that was a great experience. And then when I graduated, I decided to kind of pursue that.

Sure.

Yeah. So that's kind of how I started painting.

That's really cool. I didn't, you know, I would not have thought about looking at like, and I think probably a lot of artists probably would not have thought about looking at civic resources as a way to further their career, I guess, for beginners.

Yeah, and there's a lot of opportunities like that out there. You just have to kind of do some research and there's, I think there's a lot of opportunities for young artists, especially that are kind of trying to put their toe in the water, test things out.

Sure, so then you just decided to start painting after college and went for it?

Yeah, yeah, I graduated and I moved to Austin and I rented a studio space and just kind of went for it. Cool. I don't know. I was very brave. I don't know if I would do that again, but I did it and it worked out fine.

That's great. So from there, like, you just started painting and at that point, were you thinking like, I'm going to— this is going to be like what I do, I'm going to make a living doing this?

Yeah, that was— I mean, that was the hope, right? That was my goal. I at the time was still kind of figuring out what my style and what my personality and what I was doing with my art, like, what is my art? What is it? What is the purpose of it?

Sure.

And I took a lot of trips out to Big Bend in West Texas, which growing up my parents always took me into the national parks over in the West. Okay. Always loved it. And I think everyone has probably some sort of natural environment that is, it speaks to them.

Yeah.

For me, that's the desert. I don't know what it is about it. It just is, it speaks to my soul. So I went out to Big Bend, started some paintings. And they are a lot more geometric than what I do now, but I just sort of started playing around with it and it was more of an experiment rather than anything, which I think is probably the best way to start a new body of work. Um, just playing around with it, not having a deadline to meet or anything. And at least in my experience, that's been the case. So yeah, I started working out with some paintings from Big Bend and then I just kind of evolved into what I do today, which is landscape work from all over the Southwest. Yeah.

Gotcha. How long ago was that that you started, would you say?

4 years.

4 years ago. Okay. Wow. That's been pretty quick.

Yeah.

So you started exploring and trying to find your voice. And I think you're pretty close to that now, at least like you have a pretty clear voice, I think, or style or whatever you want to call it. But on the way there, like, how did you feel like that it was going to work? And, or like, was it a first sale or like a project or commission or something like that? Was there, is there some moment where you're like, okay, this is going to work out?

Like, you mean like as a profession or—

Yeah, I think as a profession.

That's a good question. I think, yeah, I mean, I started selling work pretty quickly and I had a lot of positive feedback on social media and I don't know, I don't know that there was ever like a turning point where I was like, this is really going to work. It's more just kind of an evolution. It still is for me, I guess. Yeah. I don't know if any— I mean, I guess there are some artists that get to a point where they, you know, you've made it. I don't know if anyone feels that way. I don't know if anybody feels that way either, but there's always something else, you know. It's not— I don't know, it's an interesting way of life, I suppose.

Yeah, you know, as long as you've got enough, you know, feel like you're successful enough to continue doing, like, to do the next painting, right?

Right, yeah. I mean, I don't know, that kind of gets— I've been discussing a lot with artist friends lately about your business versus your artistic endeavors. Yeah, this weird line that you have to wobble along.

Definitely.

Am I making this work because it's gonna sell, or am I making this work because I really want to do it and I'm trying to say something through it? And it's sort of a line I've had to like walk from the very beginning. Because at the end of the day you do have to make a living. But I've always done what I feel is my inspiration and my creativity. And I think that that authenticity probably is part of what is an appealing part of my work, for any artist's work. So I guess that's—

I would agree with that. So sticking kind of like along that business versus fine art or art for art's sake kind of topic. What was your first sale? Oh man, you do like, do you sell like, was it like in person or online or?

Yeah, so my first sale was very different than what I do now. It was actually a figurative piece.

Okay.

It was, it was, so it was before I had opened my show at the first residency that I did. Okay. The work that I had submitted in my application to be in the residency was published and part of that was some figurative pieces. And someone sent me an email and said, I saw this painting online and I would like to buy it, please.

Wow. That's pretty wild.

Yeah. I'm trying to think of what my first sale when I started really doing landscapes and kind of creating a brand out of that was. I don't know that I really remember it. I had a show, I had a solo show that opened with a lot of my work, and I think it was probably during that show that my first landscape Okay.

What was that solo show? Was that through a gallery or did you do like put that on yourself or how did that work?

Yeah, it was through a gallery also in Bryan when I was still living there.

Oh, right. Was this the one associated with the first?

It was separate. It was another show about a year later after that. It's called the Seed Gallery in Bryan.

Cool.

Very successful show for me. I guess that would be back to your other question, kind of what was the point where I felt like this was working? I had a lot of success at that show. And it was well received. So that was kind of, at least for me, a big hurdle of, okay, I've shown my work, it was not terrible, it went well.

And that gave you like enough confidence to move to Austin and, yeah, you know, rent a studio space and start doing it.

Yeah, for sure.

Cool. I have a note about like commercial art versus fine art, which is kind of what we're talking about, I guess. Do you have any thoughts? And I know you sell prints through your website. What are your thoughts about, I guess, selling art that way versus doing solo exhibitions and selling originals?

Yeah, I have a lot of thoughts. I don't know that I have a feeling about, I don't know what other people should be doing. I think you have to find what works for you as an artist. And like I said, I kind of walk a line there. I do sell reproduction prints. I recently started doing these little mini tiny paintings.

Are those the little postage stamp ones?

Yeah, they're in the shape of a little postage stamp.

What's the dimensions of those?

They're 1 by 2, I think.

Okay, so a little like bigger than an actual postage stamp, but not a lot.

It's about the maximum. It's like, think, you know, when you get a giant wedding invitation and they have the giant stamp on it. It's just a tiny bit bigger than that. So yeah, they're, they're little though, which I usually work so large and it's been a fun little experiment, but I would consider that Is it fine art or is it more of a commercial item? I don't know. I don't know the answer to that. But I don't know. I have a lot of conflicting feelings about it would be my answer.

Sure. Yeah, I think a lot of people do. That's why I like to talk about it.

Yeah.

I mean, there's so many discussions about whether or not selling prints devalues your original paintings or people who buy prints early on might buy originals later. And, you know, like there's a whole realm of thoughts around that.

Yeah, there are. I also, for me at least, I think it's really important to have art that's accessible to people. I don't know, there's something about having an affordable option for people who want to be able to appreciate and learn more about art. I think that's really important. And, you know, not everyone can afford a $1,000 painting. So for me, part of, and a part of my little originals that I'm working on, is that someone can own something that was handmade. It's one of a kind. But at the same time, I sell reproduction prints, but they're much smaller than the originals and they're on paper. I don't do canvas prints because I do, that sort of gets into that. It does feel like, they look so real these days. The imaging technology is so incredible that it's almost hard to distinguish a print from an original if you're not looking closely. So I don't know that I've found an answer yet. I'm still kind of working that out, I guess. I think.

Question, so for your little, your little postage stamp paintings, Those are actually like pretty intricate. How long do they take you to make?

Well, I've done about 25 of them now, and the first few took me, I think, an hour to do one. I've gotten down to about 25 minutes.

I think that's good.

They're, they're really fun because they're kind of a good exercise for my larger work. And this is partly because my style is not realistic. It's very stylized and somewhat abstracted. So the little ones are kind of a fun little study on what is the most important and crucial information to get across the landscape or the image that I'm trying to create. So they're kind of a fun exercise for me to do that. And yeah, they're, I mean, they're fairly intricate and small. It's been different.

I mean, I can see them. That makes sense that they would work both as like an item that you can sell at an accessible price and then also, you know, work as kind of like a thumbnail sketch for working out composition and color ideas.

Yeah, yeah, definitely, definitely.

How long do you like your larger paintings take you to paint?

That really depends on a lot of things. My mood, the weather.

How many times Georgia O'Keeffe comes in wanting to be—

How many times the cat comes in and bothers me. Typically I would say I spend like several sessions of 4 hours. I like to have a block of time and I work pretty quickly. So I can sometimes get it done in 6 hours. I'll whip out a 30 by 40, 6 hours, no problem, depending on how intricate and complex the composition is. But sometimes it takes me a couple of weeks. So it just sort of depends on a lot of different things and how many times I get interrupted. And yeah.

How about instead of me asking you these specific questions, can you tell me a little bit about like your process in creating a piece or a body of work and then kind of like what your painting schedule is like? Kind of, I know you said like blocks of 4 hours, but if you want to elaborate anymore and as part of your process, process?

Yeah, sure. My process starts— I definitely— it definitely starts with me visiting a location. I always work from my own photographs. I do work from photographs, but with the exception of commissioned work, they're always my photographs. And because a lot of what I'm doing is conveying my emotion and my memory and my feeling of a location. So I like to go visit all sorts of public lands out in the West and I photograph. And when I can, I like to do color studies, like small little plein air color studies. And I do sell those as final pieces of work, but not kind of in the traditional sense that you might think of as a plein air painter. For me, it's more about when I'm out in a new location, every place to me has a very specific color palette and there are certain colors and color combinations that kind of define a place. So what I like to do is really capture the pretty realistic colors while I'm out there. And then when I bring that back, it's not necessarily the same image that I've painted that I'm doing large scale, but I reference those as as sort of my color. I use it as my color palette. And then I, of course, abstract the color a lot, which I'm sure you've noticed in my painting. I basically look for that most vibrant color that is present in a rock and I exaggerate.

Yeah, that comes across. That's really—

that's—

I mean, that's one of the things that drew me to your work was just how bright they are. They just have a vibrance, right?

Yeah. So a little more into my process of actual painting. I always start with a really, really vibrant background base.

An underpainting, like a solid color, or do you do—

I usually do a solid color. It's usually either really, really vibrant magenta or bright orange, kind of depending on which way I'm going with the colors.

And you always work in acrylic right now, right?

Yeah, I do. I occasionally work in oils, but for the most part I'm working in acrylics.

Yeah, I mean, I think I just wanted to point that out because that makes a difference, I think, in like what kind of background.

Yeah, totally. Yeah, thank you for saying that. I should have mentioned that. So I usually roll out one solid color on the canvas because with acrylics, the layering, that color is always sort of going to have a presence there. And then I tone down the painting, obviously. And I'll usually do an underpainting of kind of big blocks of color to sort of set my values. And then I tone down basically whatever major color is in the background as I'm working. And then I allow that color to shine through. A lot of people, when you see my work in person, it sort of has a glow to it sometimes people say, and that's partly because of that background color, which is not, it's not a unique unique thing to me. It's something a lot of artists utilize. And then I can kind of readjust values and colors and bring back those little pops of color that really make the vibrancy stand out. Yeah.

So when you're painting like beyond the big blocks of color and getting values set, do you work dark to light colors or light to dark colors? Or do you kind of do sections of the painting or do you just continue like overlapping and I don't know, like re—

No, no, yeah, I totally get it. I generally will put in all the like my darkest darks first, and then I'll put in highlights and then do midtones. It's kind of my process. I'm not going to say that every time. And then I generally work background to foreground, and but sort of in passes. So I'll get shadows and highlights of the back, and then the midground, and then the foreground, and then I'll go back and put in midtones sort of in that same pattern and repetition. And then sort of at the end, I'll just adjust what I need to, to make the composition kind of work as a whole.

Do you do a, um, a drawing on your canvas before you get into it? Or do you just paint directly?

Very roughly. Yeah. Generally speaking, I mean, it'll be like the mountains are going here and the plant is going here.

It's not a big block of color.

It's not, it's not a super intense drawing. Sometimes I will work out a sketch before, depending on how complex the composition it is though, just to kind of figure out my value tones, or I'll do a little quick painting about 5 by 5 inches. But most of the time I just kind of go for it. Cool.

Yeah. So do you, I mean, this is like your full-time job, right?

Yeah. I mean, I, well, that's kind of a question. I like everything. My mom and I have a store.

Oh, cool.

So I do that part-time too, but this is really my, what I consider like my profession is doing this.

Yeah. I was just asking that because I know most artists have other work that they do as well. And just in addition to kind of like your specific painting process, I was curious how you manage your like work-life balance and, you know, make sure you have time to do your work.

Oh yeah, well, I'm not great at it if I'm being honest.

Do you paint like every day?

I'm still figuring that out, so if you have any advice— I like to paint every day. I think it's a good practice to do that. I'm gonna say I do it. Yeah, it's— gosh, time management is a hard thing, isn't it? I think it is, no matter what your profession is. Anyone that's creative especially and has another job of any sort, it's hard balancing your work and your other job and your family and taking care of yourself. And I like to get up and I like, if I can, I like to paint in the morning.

Oh, cool.

But that doesn't always happen. But I find that my mind is fresher and I can take that time in the morning to paint regardless of whatever else is coming my way during the day.

That's good. You can kind of get it going before it gets too many other things start happening.

Yes, yeah, exactly. I'd like to say, you know, I think it's probably, if I really sat down and made myself a schedule, I would not check my emails until later in the day.

Yeah.

I would not get on my computer. That is usually the best kind of workflow for me. It's just get up, paint, don't worry about anything else.

Before you get totally derailed by— yeah, I hear that. Sorry, I'm trying to cut a thought that I had a second ago. I think I lost it out the window. All right, well, I have a couple more questions that are not necessarily super related to what we've been talking about, but you're based in Austin, Texas. Can you talk a little bit about the Austin art scene in general.

Yeah, sure.

There's a couple like other points that I'd like you to include, I guess, one being what you see like the market for like landscape art being like in Austin. And then if you could talk a little bit about your creative community, I know you were showing recently with like kind of a collective.

Yeah, well, I think if you're talking about the art scene in Austin, you have to talk about Big Medium. They're an arts organization here that puts on probably most notably the East Austin Studio Tour, which is a self-guided tour of artist studios, galleries, anywhere that has ever shown art is probably open during that time. It's actually going on right now. It's two weekends. And I think there's over 500 different stops on it this year.

Wow. It's getting big.

It's huge. Yeah. And definitely the East Side is where all the arts happenings are going on. It's a great community. I've found that it's super welcoming. It's not competitive. And well, yeah, if you want to talk about my community here, I am showing currently during the studio tour with a group called ATX Gals. It's kind of a collective of women artists, young women artists. And they sort of have a network of people that they do pop-up shows with. And they do a really great job. When you talk about community, something that I've really found is helpful is not just finding a community of painters or landscape painters or Western artists. I like to connect with, you know, interior designers and photographers and people who work in the film industry. I think just being around a diverse group of creatives has been really helpful and it kind of gives you perspectives of things outside of your own little bubble of painters, which of course I think you should find a community that is in the same medium as you. But I found that there's a lot of people doing a lot of creative things. You know, it's Austin, Texas, it's the weird place in Texas, right? So as far as the market goes, I'm gonna say for me personally, connecting with people who have a love for the national parks, who have a love for the landscape in the West, there's sort of this weird connection. You know, people will see a painting of mine and say, "Oh my gosh, I've been there. I took a picture right standing here." Right. Which is like one of the coolest feelings ever for me as an artist. And so showing my work as much as possible and meeting other people who have a love for those places is sort of my network of people that I sell to and that I connect with.

Yeah, that's great. Yeah, the East Austin Studio Tour, I went on a few some years ago. I lived in Austin for a long time. I went to school there and then I stayed, stuck around, and it was just starting out at some point I went on it and now it's The size of it is like astonishing.

It really is. I know, because it started out, you know, it was really just a few art studios and then incredible now. It's that, you know, they've expanded it to two weekends because you still can't see everything, but one weekend isn't even enough to see most of it.

Yeah, that's a cool show. Do you do other art shows?

I do a lot of art festivals.

Art festivals?

I do. I show around Austin whenever I can. I'll do pop-ups and group shows around here. But I've been started doing a lot of festivals traveling around, which is working for me right now. I really like it. I really like connecting with my collectors.

Yeah.

I think that's a really important relationship. And I've had been lucky to have some really, really great collectors who have supported me over the last few years and who get my love for the public places that I'm painting and who care about the preservation of those places as well. And I don't know, there's just kind of a nice connection that I have with those people. So I really like doing festivals and connecting directly with collectors. And I've gone up to Fort Worth and done some.

Did you do the Main Street Festival there?

Yeah, I've done that one 2 years in a row. I mean, I kind of go all over the place. I'd like to start going outside of state a little bit. And then I, you know, I show there and then I have a lot of online following too, which has been good. I guess you have to do it, you know, you have to do it all these days. You have to have a social media presence and you have to show. It's a good thing though. It's, you know, there's a lot of opportunities I think for people to connect with artists. And the internet has definitely changed things. I think it's made it easier, I think, to connect with people who are interested in your work.

Yeah, it would seem so. I mean, it's made it really easy for me to connect with a lot of artists that I admire and really quickly, like over the past year, I just kind of have been renewing my interest in visual art, I guess, and starting up this Western Gallery project and seeing where it's going. And it's been really, really fun. And then all because of, I guess, like all through really mostly Instagram for the most part.

Yeah, but I mean, well, and I love your feed. I mean, it's like I'm just like drooling over all the photos and I'm like scrolling through your Instagram page. So you're doing a great job.

Oh, thanks.

I mean, but yeah, I mean, like you said, like it's made it so easy for you to find people and, you know, accounts like yours help, you know, the artists connect with people who are doing similar work, which I think is really cool.

Yeah, it's kind of like an example, I guess, of like, um, of, well, of like attracting like, you know, like Yeah. Let's see, what were we talking about? Oh, art shows. Do you have any favorites that you've done? Are they all the ones that you're talking about traveling to? Have they all been in Texas or around?

Yeah, no, it's always been in Texas. Main Street, I mean, it's notoriously one of the best in the country. I've done the Fiesta show in San Antonio. That's a fun show, partly just 'cause it's during Fiesta in San Antonio and it's a lot of fun people and it's not far from Austin. So it's kind of an easy one to do for me. Yeah, if anyone is interested, if any artists are interested in doing it, it's kind of an undertaking. You got to have the right display and you got to get there and travel with all your work and it is a lot of work and I don't know how long I'll sustain doing that, but I kind of love it. I kind of love being on the road and hauling my art around and showing all sorts of different people and seeing the differences between cities and the people of the cities and what they're attracted to and what they're not. I think it's really interesting.

That's cool. So kind of along those same lines, I guess, like we're talking about favorite festivals. Do you have any favorite galleries that you like to visit in Texas or elsewhere? Or, and, or do you have, let's do galleries next. Do you have any favorite galleries?

Oh, favorite gallery. Well, I'm from Houston originally and I love going back there. That's not a gallery. Well, the Menil Collection would be probably my favorite place to go see art. I guess it's not really.

I was going to say museums.

Okay. Okay. Well, here we go. The Menil Collection is incredible. I love pretty much all all of the arts museums down in Houston. Obviously here in Austin, the Blanton is an incredible place. And the Contemporary out at Laguna Gloria is— if you're ever in Austin, you want to just go somewhere really cool, go out there. I don't know how to answer the gallery question. I think my answer would be my favorite thing to do is when I'm traveling to new places is to just check out the local galleries, no matter how small of a town it is. Most towns have at least one. And I think it's really fun to see. They're usually showing local artists. There. And I always think it's really cool to see the local artists of different places.

Yeah. Awesome. I guess real quickly, off the top of your head, can you name 3 influences on your work?

Okay, just 3.

Yeah, yeah.

Especially right now, one of the biggest influences is all of the vintage posters that were created as part of the Works Progress Administration. Especially with my background in graphic design, I studied those a lot and did a lot of projects with kind of an inspiration off of those in school. And my work is very graphical and somewhat geometric. And I approach when I'm putting together, you know, flat planes of color, a lot of times I approach it very much like I would if I was getting a screen ready for a screen print. So that's a huge inspiration for me. And then I basically take a more painterly approach. I'm going to say I'm incredibly influenced by, well, Maynard Dixon, like who isn't? His plein air work is incredible. And I would love to keep working on my plein air craft because I'm very new to it and it's so difficult. His work and the color in his work is unbelievable. And then, you know, when I go to museums and the bigger museums and stuff, I think I'm always attracted to the Fauvists. Their use of color is almost jarring in a way, and I love it. I'm attracted to just the brightness and the colors they use. I don't know. I have a weird connection to color. When I see certain colors, I just have like, it's almost like a physical reaction of like, I just feel somehow attracted to it. You know, I don't know. Right.

I don't know if that's weird.

I say that to some people and they look at me like I'm crazy.

Well, yeah, I think, you know, there are people who are artists and there are people who are drawn to the arts. And then there are people who are like, can appreciate sort of the arts. And there are people who don't understand what they're for.

Right.

Some people will get that and other people won't. Well, cool. That's a nice—

It's a really wide variety of inspiration, I guess.

Yeah, but I mean, all those points kind of come together to make sense with your work. Oh, I wanted you to talk about your national park residencies and how you figured out how to do that and your experiences with— have you just done the Badlands and the Petrified Forest?

Yeah, those are the two that I've done.

Well, that's more than most artists have done.

Yeah, I did them both this year too, which was kind of a lot, but it was awesome. For anyone who doesn't know, a lot of the national parks and a few national monuments as well have an artist-in-residence program. And it varies pretty greatly from one park to another, but they bring in artists of all disciplines to come in and work in the park and be inspired by the landscape. And there's a long history. You can go read on the national park website about, you know, artists working with parks to create awareness about the landscapes throughout the years. So yeah, I feel incredibly fortunate to have done two of them this year. In March, I was up in the Badlands National Park in South Dakota, which is a little bit different landscape than what I'm used to working with, but it was a nice challenge. It was also very cold. I'm from Texas.

Still kind of like the tail end of winter.

Yeah, it was very snowy. And so that was a new experience as well. It was awesome. I sat there for about 4 weeks. Okay.

Wow, that's a long time.

Yeah, it was a long time, but it's incredible to spend that much time in the park and get to see it from dawn till dusk every day and see how the light changed over time and the colors changed over time and really getting to spend time seeing every part of the park. A lot of times I think people travel and they will spend a day or two, and I've found that some of the most interesting parts of the parks are the kind of the off-the-beaten-path areas. Right. So that was really awesome. That one also had an educational component or I was teaching at local schools, which was really cool. I think arts education is super important and a lot of the rural communities out there have minimal arts programs. That was fun to get to interact with kids and kind of teach them about art and art can be fun and you can be inspired by this beautiful place that you live near.

Yeah, what age range were you working with?

I did some workshops with pre-K through first, which was fun and messy. And then I did a couple up through middle school. Okay. So yeah, it was fun. And then I recently in September was in Petrified Forest out in Arizona for 2 weeks, which was incredible. I mean, that park was— it has so much there. There's really so much there. And the other thing I really enjoyed is not just from an artistic perspective is learning about all of the scientific and historical and archaeological points and importance of those places. And then of course just being in the environment that you're working with and you're painting is— there's nothing like it. Getting up and being immersed in the place that you're painting is— there's really nothing to compare it to.

It was direct inspiration.

Yeah, so I'd love to do more in the future. You know, you have to kind of plan out a year in advance, so it can be a little bit difficult timing-wise, but it was truly incredible experiences, both of them.

Wow, that's really cool. It was fun to kind of see your posts and updates about where you were hiking to or what you're seeing and then some of the paintings that you're working on or studies, I guess. Yeah, yeah, kind of see it all happening on your Instagram feed, which was cool.

Yeah, that was my connection to the real world was all my Instagram updates, right? No TV or internet really, so it was using my data. Oh man, yeah, but it was, yeah, it was awesome. It was awesome to basically just take a break from my normal life and do something different for 2 weeks. It was an interesting experience.

Do you see, and maybe I don't remember, but do you see like a body of work coming out from these different residencies?

Yeah, definitely. And something I'm working on for next year, at least kind of, I'm starting to goal set for 2019. I'd really like to work with like a single location for a few months at a time, which is not something in the past I have. I've done, you know, I've worked really solidly with Big Bend and I was working with the same colors and then I would work with Zion and kind of do a different collection of work. And then this year I feel like I've just kind of been all over the place. So next year I'd really like to create a body of work from the Badlands and really work with the landscape there. I just think when you're working with the same location over and over again altogether, it kind of helps that each painting kind of influences the next one. So, you know, I'd like to do Badlands and Butchford Forest and then the Sedona area, kind of release collections of work at a time. That's kind of where I'm heading, at least in the near future.

Yeah, I mean, I could see like you doing that and then having a solo exhibit for each.

Yeah, that would be sort of the ideal goal that I'm working towards.

Yeah, very cool. Um, switching from handwritten notes to computer notes. Yeah, that I closed while I was restarting. So would you consider yourself— I mean, I guess, you know, you have your training in graphic design, but as far as painting is concerned, would— do you have any formal training within painting, or are you more just exploring and figuring it out?

Some combination of the two. I was able to take some painting courses in school, but I wasn't— I didn't complete like a full Bachelor of Arts in painting or anything. So a lot of my work is just exploratory and partially self-taught. So some sort of combination of some technical training and then just working in my own studio and figuring things out on my own.

Next random question. Do you listen to any music while you paint usually, or no?

I do. I used to listen to podcasts, but then I would just find myself getting way too enthralled in whatever the podcast was talking about. I was like, what am I even painting right now? So I listen to music now. Let's see, I listen to all sorts. I listen to a wide variety of stuff. Right now I'm listening to a lot of Christmas music because I'm one of those crazy people. And I'm also like getting ready for some Christmas shows, so I just have— I'm like trying to get pumped up for it. Yeah, but I listen to some country music, like pop country, like George Strait. Okay, good country, the good, the good stuff, you know. Um, yeah, I listen to like— sometimes I'll just go on, like, I'll listen to George Strait all day.

Awesome.

And then I'll be tired of that and I'll listen to, I don't know, Michael Bublé. Very different thing. Okay, very different thing.

So whatever the mood, like, whatever mood you're in.

Sometimes I wonder if it like influences what I'm working on.

That was what I was gonna ask too, is if you've noticed if it does.

Like, if I'm listening to something pretty mellow my painting is like pretty mellow. But like, if I'm— I don't know, if I'm listening to something like really upbeat and fun, I'll— I don't know, I feel like it probably does influence it.

That's interesting. Figure that out over the, you know, over the coming years and then you can just use it as a tool. Might ruin it though. All right, jumping backwards. You mentioned you were setting goals for 2019. I guess that's the year we're about to be in. Do you set longer-term goals too, or do you just kind of think like, what's the next year going to be?

I usually do have longer-term goals. I'm sort of at like a point where I've set a bunch of goals sort of at the beginning of starting out, and I've kind of gotten to the end of those. And so I'm at a place—

Congratulations!

Yeah, well, I guess, yeah. So I'm kind of at a place where I'm trying to decide where I'm going long-term. It's something I've been thinking about a lot recently that actually, now that you mention it, and I don't— I don't know, I'm still trying to figure out, kind of going back to that, how commercial am I getting with my work? What is my long-term goal? You know, the other day I thought to myself, like, Oh my gosh, am I going to be painting like Western landscapes when I'm like 60? Like, am I doing this like forever and ever? And I think so. I think that's what I want to do. But like, I'm not going to be painting— like, it's going to be different. So I've been recently thinking about what does that look like? How does that progression go? I don't know.

That's interesting to think about and try and really sort of define how you hope to evolve or like how you will evolve your style.

And I'm sure it will be completely different than whatever I plan, you know? Sure.

But I think, you know, thinking Thinking about it and figuring out like how to give yourself space to do that is really smart.

Yeah, I suppose.

Because I think a lot of people that probably just happens naturally, like they get more detailed or they start to abstract things more or pick out pieces of what they're doing that they like the most and kind of emphasize that. And the progression can happen naturally. But if you say, like, give yourself some time to just completely explore, then maybe you find something you wouldn't have found otherwise. Totally.

Yeah. Well, that is a good point because I feel like my work has changed a lot over the past 4 years. Has happened very naturally. I have a much more painterly style and a little more— I used to have some really geometric flat plane work and that has happened very naturally. And I think because of that, I'm having that realization and that's sort of where I'm sitting down and saying, where am I going from here? And make it a little bit more of a conscious effort instead of not quite so natural. I don't want to kind of go off on a tangent anywhere, but yeah, creating blocks of time to just kind of create and do something fun. When I was in Petrified Forest, actually, I was able to have that, you know, I was able to take a day and say, I'm going to do something different. I'm going to do something weird and not at all what I normally do. And I did these weird little gouache illustrations that were nothing like my other work, but they were really fun and they're very geometric, kind of like my older work. And I don't know if that— I think that somewhere in the way, like, that's going to kind of come back into my more serious— more serious in quotations— work. So yeah, I think— I don't know. I think artists are constantly having to come up with ways to re-inject that creativity and kind of that childlike playfulness of just having fun with it instead of getting bogged down with deadlines and upcoming shows.

And yeah, I think it's so important to keep an element of playfulness in it and not— and for art to not be too serious.

I do too. And I think there's totally a place for super serious art and it's really important culturally, but I think you always have to not— I don't know, I think it's really important not to take yourself too seriously. You know.

Yeah. Back to your process and how you work. Do you have any— I've been asking people, do they have any favorite brushes or like a secret weapon you use?

I buy all my brushes at Michaels.

That's cool.

And I feel like that's like not a normal place to go buy like my fine art brushes, but I love them.

Actually, I was looking at— I saw them like over your shoulder.

Yeah, the green ones back there.

I was like, oh yeah, the green Michaels brushes. Yes, yes.

I like them. They're like, they're real stiff and I don't know, it's great. I definitely have a specific color palette that I work with and it's really limited. I usually only work with 5 colors and that's helped me because color is such an important part of my work.

Does that include neutrals?

So I work with a white, a titanium white, a pretty warm red and a cooler red, a pretty medium yellow and a blue. And then depending on a piece, I'll add in some greens, which is mostly just so that I'm not constantly mixing. But I do a lot of color mixing. I try to work with the same colors every time because I have found that I really understand my palette that way. Does that make sense?

Yeah, and how they work together.

That's probably the most unique thing that I have. I don't have a secret weapon or anything. That sounds cool though, I wish I did.

It sounds like maybe it's your palette.

Maybe.

Maybe your palette and then maybe your super bright underpainting. Here's a really detailed question. When you're mixing your acrylic, you know, from your limited palette, how much paint How much paint do you mix up?

That's a good question.

Because sometimes you get a certain color and then you have to end up coming back to match it, or—

Right, especially with acrylics. And it's really hard to match an acrylic after it's really dry because it's a lot darker than when you first put it on. So it depends. A lot of times I buy these little plastic to-go cups at a restaurant supply company.

Oh, that's smart.

Yeah, they're like those like small dip— I don't know, they're like about 5 inches across, and I'll pretty much fill that with a color.

Okay.

Like especially if I'm doing like the sky color or like a big— if there's like a huge amount of color on the ground in the foreground of a painting, I want to make sure I can always come back to that color. So I like to have certain ones that are mixed up and I know I'm not going to run out through the end of the painting.

So do you put a cap on?

Yeah, I put a cap on it and you'd be surprised. I know everyone hates acrylics because they dry so fast, but if you keep them covered, if you keep them sealed up, they will last at least a week. And I like my paint kind of gooey, so it doesn't bother me if it gets a little gooier over time.

Gotcha.

But for the most part, I just mix a little bit at a time. If I'm working with oils, it's a different story, obviously. But because I work mostly with acrylics, I'm not going to pretend that I know what I'm doing on the oil side of things.

Okay, so do you feel like less, or do you just feel more competent with acrylic, or is it just like a choice on how the medium works?

Yeah, it's a combination of both. I definitely feel more confident with acrylics, but I think that's just because I've used them more. I don't like working with oils. I feel inhibited when I'm working with them because of the drying time. I really like working as fast as I do. And I don't know, I have a preference for acrylics and I know that's fairly unusual. Most artists that switch over to oils, you know, never go back. And I'm not saying I will never work predominantly with oils at some point.

Right.

But I really like the process of working with acrylics a lot better. And I think I've found ways to overcome some of the negative sides of acrylics. Such as figuring out a way to save a certain color of paint for a certain period of time, you know. Yeah, it's more just a personal preference, I guess.

Cool.

All right.

Well, you know, we may have touched on this a little bit when we were talking about goals or whatever, but what's next for you?

Well, yeah, we kind of touched on it. Yeah, I guess for me, like, I'm really hoping at the end of the year I'm going to sit down and kind of really think through what my longer-term goals are. I think that's going to help direct what I'm doing next. And next year I really do hope to have more of a release of a collection at a time from the same location. And I'd like to be producing more work than I am, which is again, a time management thing to touch back to that. But I also really like the little paintings that I'm doing. I really like these little mini, and I just started doing them, I guess, a month ago. And I'd like to explore that some more. I don't know. I feel like I have several avenues that I've, I've kind of started getting comfortable with, and I like to just pursue all of them and kind of see where they take me.

Cool.

Well, sounds good. Um, another question just popped into my head that's completely unrelated to the last one, but so what service do you use to power your website?

I use Wix.

You use Wix? Wow, for the shop part and everything?

Interesting. And I have been told that that is not a smart thing to do, but I love it. Um, because I'm a visual designer, it's basically like working in Illustrator, Adobe Illustrator. That's great. And I like it. I can make my website look exactly like I want it to. And I've had great experience with processing orders online. Awesome. And I used to run on WordPress. And since I switched, this is, sorry, this is like, I'm not trying to plug Wix or anything.

No, it's okay. I do web design and development.

Yeah. Since I switched to Wix, I have had so much more traffic on my site.

Really?

Which is, I've been told is not normal. So I don't know why that's the case, but that has been my personal experience. Maybe I'm just really bad at it. Really terrible at using WordPress.

When was that that you switched?

Last year, about a year ago. Huh, interesting. Yeah.

Did you do anything else then? Like, did you start like writing your blog-ish thing then?

No, I actually had to like copy over all my blog posts, which was not the most enjoyable process.

Right.

Probably won't ever do that again. I was posting probably more on my blog when I was using WordPress, so.

I wonder if your WordPress just had like bad SEO or something.

It probably did. It probably did, 'cause I'd had it for a long time and hadn't probably updated it. From that side of things. Been a while. I don't know.

Very interesting. All right, well, Danica, thank you so much for chatting today. Uh, I'm gonna keep you here all day. And, um, this has been really fun, really interesting to talk to you and to learn about your process and all that. And I wish you the best.

Well, thank you so much. I'm looking forward to hearing what all the other artists you're interviewing have to say.

Great. Yeah, I'm looking forward to publishing that, and I'll let you know when yours is coming up.

Okay, awesome.

All right.

Thank you.

Talk to you later.

Yeah, keep in touch. All right, bye-bye. Bye.

So that's it for this show. Thank you for listening, and thanks again to Danica Ostrowski for her insights into her painting process and the independent art business. If you're enjoying the show, please leave a review on iTunes or share an episode with a friend. If you have comments, suggestions, or for sponsorship opportunities, please email me directly at info@western.gallery. Or direct message @westerngallery on Instagram. Horizons is produced by Western Gallery for the love of Western art and artists of all genres. Music in this episode is by The Georgian Company, courtesy of Pants of Fate Records and How You Like My Moves Music, all of whom you can find on iTunes and Spotify. Thanks again and tune in next time.

Happy trails!