Ric Della Bernarda
Frances Mahoney and I ventured to Ogunquit, where Cliff House Resort is located, driving a 2021 Toyota Prius thanks to Berlin City Auto Group. The vehicle was quiet and its navigation system was user-friendly as it told you when you were running out of gas and where the closest gas station was located (glad it gave me a reminder).
I was so excited to interview artist, Ric Della Bernarda after seeing the work that he does at the Cliff House in Ogunquit, Maine. Ric is an oil painter, a plein air painter who also does a lot of studio work. Ric has been doing this work for 25 years, I found that amazing!
“I have really concentrated in the past five years in my craft and I teach a lot of plein air painting, which is outdoor painting,” says Ric. “I have beautiful scenery here in Southern, Maine that has been painted by so many famous painters.” He both teaches classes and has his own private studio right at the Cliff House.
Photos by: Frances Mahoney
Ric Della Bernarda started his career as a fashion illustrator - the drawings in the newspaper for clothes at a department store. He studied at the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York City and then moved to work at different department stores in New England.
“But when you are taking fashion illustration at FIT, you have to take a couple of painting classes. The most interesting thing that I've learned over time painting, is that painting is not drawing. That's one of the things that I do teach in my classes. It's not tracing something on a canvas and filling it in, you're actually painting light,” said Ric.
What I took from this portion of Ric’s interview was how important light is for painters. He describes looking at various photos to create your painting but really noticing the light in each scene.
Photos by: Frances Mahoney
Ric even studied painting for one summer at the Florence Academy of Art in Florence, Italy, where they taught very traditional painting techniques. He says about his experience there, “it was fantastic because I actually have family in Italy. I travel quite often and I'm fluent in Italian. I've admired the paintings that came out of there. You live there. I went to school full time and walked a mile and a half to get to class. You really dedicated full time to learning classical painting. It was a fantastic experience, and I would recommend it to anyone.”
I had to ask him, why plein air? He has done so many styles of painting, so why is this his specialty? He shares that this part could be because of where he lives, Maine. There are so many beautiful scenes to paint every season. I don’t blame him for wanting to paint these gorgeous scenes - especially the ones he sees from his private studio in Ogunquit. “One of my instructors told me that you have to love the process, as well as the final result, right? So I love painting outdoors, I want to share that love with other people.”
Ric feels that his career pivot was due mostly to the environment he was in. He had jobs in New York City, Laguna Beach, California, as well as the Boston area for 20 years - but he had maintained a house in Maine for 25 years. “I think COVID was the catalyst to have me really move on and really just do my art. Many people had encouraged me to just do my art over the years, but when you get into that corporate cycle, you just kind of get on that train and it's really hard to jump off.”
Photos by: Frances Mahoney
So now, Ric shares what he has learned through the years in workshops at the Cliff House. If you are hoping to attend his workshop in the future, or wish you could and want to hear about it, Ric shared the process with me.
“The very first thing I do is I have them do a rudimentary sketch with a fat marker on paper, to really get down on paper what they are seeing. It's really an observation exercise. I want to see what they're seeing, I want to hear what they're seeing. This would be the basis of their start of the painting. From there, we work in a very limited color palette. We do what we call an under painting and I teach them about values. We want two or three values and I start off with purple and maybe a little bit of yellow and white. Many times the underpainting is really beautiful. I've had students say, ‘well, I don't really want to make the background green, I really don't want to touch the field there.’ Then we take a break and I have the students walk away from their painting, for two reasons. One, I do you want the underpainting to settle in for 15 minutes, but more importantly, I want them to have a fresh view when they come back. Although we're all doing the same scene, everybody comes out with something different, which makes it unique and special.”
I was pleasantly surprised by how much I learned taking Ric’s workshop recently - the time flew by! If you want to take his workshop, you can sign up for Ric’s workshop here.
Photos by: Frances Mahoney
Cliff House Resort highly supports local makers as they showcase art and photography in their facility and we have recently partnered on a Maine Maker Monday series where we hold a workshop with a particular maker one Monday each month. This resort truly captures the culture of Maine through its coastline, cuisine, and craft. Their rooms are filled with nautical decor, everything is clean and crisp, the pools allow you to relax and take in the scenes and the workshops they hold in their conference room area with shiplap walls are to die for. Learn more about the resort here.
Listen to this episode to hear all about Ric’s workshop, creative process, career and more!
Thank you to Berlin City Auto Group for sponsoring this episode.