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(national) contest, much less win, was just amazing.”
Austin is quick to point out that oil painting requires strict discipline and methodical application. “There’s an order to it,” he said, demonstrating how he takes concept to finished product on canvas.
The process begins by scouring for an idea, often on the glossy, full-color pages of Polo Magazine. Tbdd Burdick has a 0-rating in the arena; Austin and Tyler are rated -2 each. They all play with the Great Meadow Polo School.
“They all read that magazine religiously,” Jane Burdick said with a smile.
“Once you’ve chosen a picture, you draw it in pencil,” Austin said, lightly brushing a lead pencil across the canvas as he worked on a new painting.
Next, the canvas is sprayed to set the pencil sketch, then toned, using an “imprimatura” technique that soothes the bright white of the canvas and prepares it to accept the first layers of oil.
“You add more detail as you go,” Austin said, with Tyler adding, “You don’t start with the detail. You add that with each layer.”
The entire process, not counting time for layers to dry, can take weeks,
Surrounded by dozens of stretched canvases - some wildlife art, some portraits, but mostly polo - Tyler and Austin agreed that oil painting is an important part of their active days. “Practice is what makes you better,”
Tyler said. “You have to keep at it.”
In addition to the national critical acclaim from their contest victory, the Burdick twins are already seeing more benefits from their art skills: original oil paintings sell for about $250. “That is going straight into their college fund,” their mother said.
Though they share a bedroom and agree on almost everything, Austin and Tyler said they are careful to develop separate interests, to retain a hit of autonomy. Currently, Tyler is branching out from their shared affinity of nlnaaioal animal portraiture and action oil painting to a new regard for the eerie mythological oil paintings of Frank Frazetta. “I like .his style,” he said.
Austin shuddered. "Ibo weird. Snakes and dragons and naked people. Not for me.”
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