What inspires you?

Near Battle Lake, Minnesota, Paul Eidenschink sits upstairs in his home and paints vivid nature scenes, all inspired by what he sees out on the trail, experiences he has on the many lakes of Minnesota, and stories from his childhood.

See what it means to keep your brushes wet.

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I’m Paul Eidenschink.

I am a husband, father, painter, writer, fan of nature and travel.

And, I grew up in central Minnesota, Brainerd was my hometown, and went on to college in North Dakota and have a career there today as a business leader for a manufacturing firm, based in North Dakota, and, family owned business, and it's been ... it's been quite a journey.

Yeah.

So art for me, painting is a recently acquired hobby.

So just since Covid like 2020, I started painting and it's, it's kind of a funny story, but we we purchased a lake cabin, on Otter Tail Lake, and the, the previous owners owned an art gallery, and they had the home built around that.

They had recessed areas in the exterior walls with accent lighting where they put art pieces up.

So when we bought this place and had all of these spaces, you know, we had to find some art.

So one of the things we did before they had moved on is we looked at art that they had had, in their house, and I asked about one of the pieces in it was an oil painting of some sailboats moored in the harbor, and it was a misty scene.

It was really gray, and I really liked the piece.

And I asked, I said, “Well, what would it cost to buy that?” And, and I was informed that it was an original art, an original piece and in oil.

And it was over $20,000.

And I thought my, my reaction was, “Well, how hard could it be?” And so from that point forward, I started painting.

So it actually was a piece of art I couldn't afford, and I thought, I can do that.

So that's what inspired me to to just dabble in it.

The mediums I use, I started with watercolor, you know, and just trying to capture the scenery around the lake, you know, sunsets and sunrises and and boat scenes and all sorts of things.

And then I moved on to acrylics.

I do acrylics as well, and oils.

So those are the three for me.

This is kind of a fun project.

So I did a little sketch, you know, Julie said, well, you know, she was thinking of a truck, I've done a lot of old trucks, and so I put our home, the home you're standing in is in the is in the painting.

So that's what we did.

So anyway, but I had I had done this larger sketch of it and she said, “Well I like it,” but she said, “I just want like ... Like you’re on a phone ... like zoom in.” So I folded all this back, stapled it off and said, okay, that's the part I'm painting.

So that's sort of a new ... But I’ll grab ... Let's see.

There's a tub of water down here.

You don’t have to move a thing I’ll just kind of reach around here ... Get that out here.

That guy will work ... All right.

So in this particular shot what I'm doing, the light source I don't have a moon in this one.

I oftentimes use moons, but the light source is this horizon that's still lit, so it's coming from this side.

So I want to side of the truck to be darker and then over ... over here where that light's hitting, and this will be kind of a brighter red is what I'm shooting for.

We'll see how that all comes out, but ... I'll just start out with some some red on here and see what that looks like.

I can also let it dry and then darken it later.

If it's ... There's some areas here that I've used some masking fluid and, masked off so that stays white even when I'm painting over it.

So you can see these, these rims will look like chrome after when all that's painted.

And I'll flake that off there ... the bump the glass in there and then, the various things here, also these, these birch trees have been masked as well.

So I'll, I'll flake that off that rubber cement and then I'll paint in the birch tree later as we go.

So that's kind of what I got going on here.

From the start, I was, we lived in a rural setting, and so I was an outdoor enthusiast, so I would spend all of my time outdoors that I was allowed to.

Summer fall, spring, winter all year round.

I'd be out there if it wasn't, cutting a trail through the through the woods, or it was building a fort or was riding a snowmobile or ... You know, we had, a dog ... It was kind of interesting ... We had a breed of dog that was part Alaskan Elkhound.

And so when I was small, we had a sled, and that dog would pull me on the sled.

So I would take rides through the woods, you know, and it really snowmobile trails, but it would it had enough, enough strength that it could pull me around.

And I really got a kick out of dog sledding at that age as well.

When I was, a little bit later on, when I was a teenager, for example, I’d hunt waterfowl, I was into duck hunting and that sort of thing.

And I remember spending a fair amount of time sketching in a notebook, you know, I would sketch, you know, waterfowl with their wings cupped, you know, coming down into a set of decoys.

And that was very inspiring for me when I couldn't hunt and that hunt was a week away, I'd start sketching, but it was something I did often.

I had old notebooks and I had, you know, maybe some school notes in there, and then it has some sketches and things that I had done.

But yeah, yeah, certainly enjoyed that.

A lot of writing as well was another creative area for me.

See if we can liven up the tops of these a bit, and ... lights hitting that more ... I debated on whether to put that spruce tree on the, on the truck.

You know, before all the tailgate and everything was painted, but I thought, you know, I'll probably mess up the tree if I try to paint around afterwards.

So I'll just do that ... Now, I also debated on whether to ... sometimes I'll include, you know, like, the specific brand, like, you know, if it's a Chevy truck or a Ford truck or something like that, some of these old ones.

But then you get people that, that buy it because it's a Chevy or a Ford, then they don't want your truck, if they're, if they don't, if they’re not a brand loyalist for that particular, whatever you use.

So ... I’m probably going to ... try to keep some of that definition where the fender meets the box, and so forth there ... The light’s coming down this way, so probably the higher up in the truck we go, we'll probably do some, some straight up crimson and then we'll switch to some of that mix of the black.

So it's ... We’ll go kind of vertical here ... A lot of the trucks that I paint too, I kind of bring out some old engineering tools.

I have some French curves and things in the drawer here, and I'll try to get the curve of the truck.

This one's pretty straightforward, but, some of the old trucks they, they're tricky to get the sketch or to draw them right ... Just a quick update ... Like I said, I'm going to I'm going to peel off those big ones and make some, some of them starbursts and things.

But it's just kind of a the next step in that one.

Probably switch over now and let this thing kind of rest while I do the work on the loon next.

We'll get, I'll bring in another little portable easel and we’ll work there.

So So I would I would still consider myself an amateur painter today.

And, I like I like writing just as much, but I have a harder time selling written words today than is as opposed to paintings.

But I would say, I've always said “keep your brushes wet.” So I talk to my sister, who is an artist from way back when, and I'd ask her, “When's the last time you did a painting?” And and she would say something, “It’s been a while since I've gotten my brushes wet.” And I'd say, “I keep mine wet all the time You know, if you just keep keep trying things and perfecting that craft, you just get better and better and better.

So there's certainly a level of mastery which you can, with some educational help, could probably accelerate the journey, but.

But, I'm on a journey and it's it's, it's fun, I enjoy it.

I enjoy when people purchase something, because someone else's found the ... sees the value in it as well.

That's satisfying to me.

So, but keeping my brushes wet just means keep improving.

It's a journey.

It's not.

It's not an end in itself.

That, “Oh, I'm a master painter.” I'm not anywhere close to that.

Hate to even use use my refer to myself and master in the same sentence.

But, it's it's just something that you continue to refine your craft and get better as you go.

So inspiration for me comes from, like, experiences.

Get outside, try some things.

When I travel, I would say too, I take hundreds of pictures and I delete many of them, but I just take pictures.

I'm annoying that way to travel with.

I take a lot of photos because I see, I see light and shadows and colors that inspire me, and it might inspire me, the color mixture for a completely different topic.

It isn't necessarily that scene.

I might apply it in something in my backyard as well.

There are a lot of times it's just along the way, like we're all busy say we’re hiking and it's kind of a fitness hike, but you look down and there's some of the most beautiful flowers you've ever seen in your life.

and something unique to you ... And you just got to literally stop and take time to do those photos.

And, and my wife is used to this, a lot of times we'll be walking and then she’ll realize she's walking by herself because I've stopped along the way.

Yeah.

So that's me.

It’s a hard one to answer ... Why I keep coming back to doing painting.

But I would say that, it's it's like telling a story.

It's capturing something unique in nature, maybe not everyone would see, so I do, I do paint some subjects that, more the some of the animals you don't see everyday, like bobcats and timberwolves and, and, you know, river otters and things like that that not everybody is privileged to see.

And so those, subjects I think are just fun ... People want to put them on their wall because they're unique and they're something you don't see all the time.

But it's also just telling a story to me.

Like I said, there's there's usually a conflict where, someone's someone's caught a big walleye, they they're bringing it in, and just as it's getting to the net, it gets loose, right?

You can see the line is come loose, the jig is flown off the the minnow is in the water and they're scooping for that fish.

And it's, it's like it's balanced on the edge of the lip of the net.

Are they going to get the fish or not?

But it's like people like to tell stories, It's like I'm telling this story over and over again, but, but different, experiences that are unique, wildlife that's unique, and, you know, landscape scenery that's beautiful and inspires you or takes you away when you look at them.

Art can be you know, capturing the joy and capturing emotions in, in, in video, in paintings and pictures.

It can be capturing, like I said, the, the time and place.

I love going to, to like the art galleries in Europe and seeing what things looked like.

It's like photographs from the, from centuries ago.

It's just amazing how that captures that.

It could be, paintings on a rock wall as well, a pictographs or something.

But, I think it's, it's it's it's sharing, with people that .

And so the beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

And so I don't know if this is relevant, but one of my, my, my first art festivals I did was rather large one, I kind of bit off a big chunk, and I went to a festival that attracts a lot of people every year.

It's near Underwood, Minnesota here, outdoor festival, and I got a booth and I set up and my goal was to sell one painting to someone that wasn't a family member or friend of mine, so didn't know me and buy it because they, they, they, they thought it was worth buying.

And I had the great privilege of selling 20% of my paintings that day.

So it was really, really, a success in my terms.

My goal was to sell one.

And, what was interesting, though, is, was I found is if I could tell stories and speak to the potential buyers, I sold a lot more art.

So it wasn't just the someone walking up to a painting that doesn't know me, but I'm - there's part of me that's in that painting.

There's a message in that painting.

And so, being able to tell the story and when I can visit with people and say, let me tell you the story of each of these paintings that you're looking at, almost always they will buy something, because they can relate to one of those, one of those stories, and they want to - now that they understand what it means, they’ll put it on their wall, and it just has more value.

So this is obviously very simple subject matter.

I don't have a lot of background in it at all, but there's a chickadee on a branch, and there's, there's a there's a pinecone here.

And I was I was looking for just not any pinecone.

I was looking for a pinecone with a bad hair day, you know, kind of a roughed up pinecone.

But there's some, there's some symmetry with the bird and the branch and the cone.

The branch.

It's like he's got a companion or something like that.

So I did this one, and it was just kind of horsing around, and I showed my wife and she said, “Hm, maybe you should put that in a frame and we'll put it on the bathroom wall.” So, so I just cut the cut the matte with the scissors and took an old frame, and it's not even a real piece of paper that artists would use and put it on the wall, and it was just one of those that kind of was, symbolic that I can do better.

And I just and it was inspired to, to try again and to do more.

See if I can do ... I’ll get that darker on the bottom ... I might have to paint the white portion on afterward, because I didn't ... I didn't rubber cement it in advance.

I'll leave it light colored ... I'd like to also take a little bit of the white dollop around the outside, it's just like moisture.

It's like reflections of the water around your eyes.

But a loon is wet all the time, who knows if they really have that or not, but it seems like it adds it as an effect to it ... if you can ... just put the littlest bits of ... I sometimes I have to smear them around afterwards ... a dry brush.

Maybe a little black and ... inside there.

So using a very fine liner brush with just a couple of hairs I guess, seems to be the way to get at this.

And, uh ... Trying to see if I can get that ... I had it, I lost it, yeah.

Okay, well, I'll do, a dash of white on there for the moment and see if it works, or else I just have to let it dry.

Try some of that Chinese white.

You can spend a lot of time, but it seems like on the abstract ... type ... bird pictures, if you can get the eye really clearly defined, that seems to be like the focal point for the for the person viewing the painting, so ... I just went and painted them all, and I changed the style of the, of the, the clip on here.

I made it round and I did a couple of those little things, little minor modifications is obviously it's a fish cleaning board to start with, and so I did that and I painted the oars and the old fishing rod in their fiberglass rod and it's a rowboat and you know, it's got all the, all the charm of the, the days gone by, but it's just sitting on the shoreline waiting to be pushed into the lake.

And, and instead of putting like, the name of the boat or something, I use my signature on the boat.

It's it's got my name on there instead.

So that was the way I signed the painting.

So yeah, I forgot I had that here.

Lighting is is very important.

The background is very important.

And I think of it as like a nice photograph where you've got your subject very clear and the background, is this, this blur, you know, but if the colors are there, right?

So I think of it as doing it like a photograph would be as I did it, I did a bit of photography.

But then a lot of what I do, even if it's abstract in nature or there's motion, let's say the fish is throwing a big splash of water, but then very clearly paint like the eye detail.

So there's a detail in the in the wildlife, it could be the eye, it could be a lantern in a boat, whatever that that is your it's a, it's a point of clarity and it's, and it draws the viewer's eye, you know, focused right to that spot.

So you, it's not just all blur, but there's usually some point of clarity.

It could be the mouth, it could be the gills on a fish, a few scales on the nose, but a specific area within the painting that is quite focused and the rest can be action driven.

So it just it's like you captured, captured the motion, if you will.

So.

So this one here, I call this the Lantern Series.

And it's one of those where I had planned the light, I had made a sketch before I did the painting.

I just happened to ... the sketch ended up staying around in my desk somewhere, so I was able to show this, but ... But I actually was thinking about a lantern that you you hold in your hand, giving you like a yellow glow.

In this case, I had a full moon as well, so there's white glow in the background.

So.

So this painting, has got two light sources.

It's kind of a simple painting.

It's a couple guys fishing at night.

They're holding up a trophy walleye that they caught.

And the one gentleman is holding up the lantern, so there's a yellow glow and and lanterns to me have always been kind of an intriguing, light source.

So as a kid, we had some antique lanterns in the basement.

It was like my mom and dad from their farms maybe when they grew up or those ages.

We also had a hunting camp that didn't have electricity.

So every year we'd go and we'd sit in the glow of this lantern and we'd eat meals together and tell stories after a day in the field and so forth.

And and it always was kind of this, it just gave it gave a it's like the golden hour of the sun being high and low, in the day, it just it just adds a, it adds a, kind of a feeling to the room.

That it's closeness you gather together under the lantern, whether you're ice fishing and you have one sitting on the lake, or you're, in this case, they're sitting in a boat.

So I've always liked lanterns, and it's kind of a nostalgic thing of the past and, you know, and they're still in use today.

They might have LED bulbs, but people do them.

But but the yellow glow of a lantern I just thought was a different, a different light source and just added some variety to the paintings.

And so, yeah, kind of an old fashioned, it's an old fashioned boat, a couple of older gentlemen and, and, and this old lamp.

So the moonlight would be in white in the in the lantern of course, the glow on the, on the fisherman, the net and in the lamp itself.

Part of the motor here is, is, in yellow and the bow of the boat, though it's got the moonlight.

You see the waves, there's two different colors on there, on the ripples are on the boat.

So, yeah, trying to capture the two light sources and.

I was trying to paint a lantern in this boat painting that you see.

And so I started with this, a side profile of a lantern and said, what does that look like?

And then they started drawing it at various angles until I got it right.

And I got really close on this, and you see the question mark I wrote.

But the top is too round and need to be more elliptical.

And so I went at it again and I drew this, and I said, “ Ah that looks like the perspective on a lantern from the top, but it still looks like a lantern.” You got the globe and you got the wire.

And so that's, that's what I, that's what I captured and put in the painting was this perspective.

But it took me a long time to figure out just the lamp.

So I even do some sketches, in advance of some of the paintings, or I’ll plan the lighting I want, you know, there's an axis there where it's light and there's an axis where it's dark.

And of course, the contrast is where you get some of the vivid, features.

And so and there's, there's some, some art forms even you study in Europe and see some of the original masters, the oils, where they have a very black background and a very vivid foreground.

And I do some of that even in flowers and things.

So I'll do a black like a forest background, but then the flowers just pop and the colors stand out in the contrast.

So the lighting is everything to me.

And then if you can capture motion actually in, in a, in a still painting, that's interesting to do, but fish that are thrashing at something on the surface and spraying the water and trying to capture, you know, birds, their wings in, you know, in motion when they're in flight and, and so forth.

I would say lighting and then motion, if you can capture it.

And then any kinds of themes that where it's, it's man versus nature, but nature wins, you know, the fish getting away, just getting out of the net.

Those are things that I love to do, you know, versus just saying, I painted a fish and it looks like a fish.

I try to show - tell a story.

There can be a conflict where there’s a ... I'm painting one right now where there's a, a cow moose crossing a river and a bull moose following her, and there's a larger bull moose on the other shoreline.

So there's there's a love interest here.

So there's going to be conflict.

It's wolves fighting over some old bones.

It can be, you know, things like that.

But I just like to capture, more than just a picture of something that looks realistic, I believe that all people are creative at their core.

It can be very different.

It might be visual arts, it might be performing arts, it could be culinary arts.

You know, I had ... When my mother was alive, she was just a wonderful cook.

And going to her house was a gift to be served her meals.

They were just phenomenal.

She would also paint her yard bright with flowers every year, just the gardens she would have, you know, she'd paint blooms in her yard, if you will.

So it's a different kind of art, but I think everybody's an artist at some level or another.

And it doesn't matter what your trade is or what your ... But I think you can learn a certain amount of technical skills and everybody could paint if you will.

But some people may not enjoy it as much.

They may not ... That may not be their creative release.

But I think everybody has a creativity bone in their body that that, if you, if you, develop that competency, you find satisfaction and joy in it.

It's personally satisfying.

I think if you get to know a person enough, you could you could help them say that “This is what your creativity might be.” You know, it's obviously their personal decision, but I think it's just a matter of, you know, looking at what they do, what they find joy in and their passion, what they do in their free time.

And it should speak to, it should speak to that, you know, that that creativity side.

Yeah.

I would want to encourage you to, to, to pursue your dreams.

I mean, really, whatever you find joy in, there's art, and it doesn't have to be a painted art.

It could be in any number of ways.

But I just think people are their best when they're at their creative side, and they're in touch with that as well.

I mean, we all have we have to have a, you know, some kind of a job that, you know, feeds us and puts a roof over our head.

And those things are required in life.

But but aside from that, there's a creative side of you that just waiting to be developed, and and there's great joy in that, too.

So I just encourage you to go after it and try it and start with your family and see if they if you've got refrigerator art or if you're ready for The Louvre and, see where, see where the journey takes you.

Production costs for this program have been made possible by the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund, and the members of Lakeland PBS.