Keith Rust
Roycroft Renaissance Artisan

Newsletter: July 18 – July 31, 2018

Can you tell us a little bit about what you do?
I am a landscape painter that works in the style of the arts and crafts, and was recently accepted as a Roycroft Renaissance Artisan. I spent several years developing my style of painting which pays homage to the Arts & Crafts movement through the inspiring beauty of the great outdoors. I love traveling and capturing the spectacular beauty found in nature. I usually start off with an idea of a location I want to represent and then work on capturing the ideal composition as I scale and arrange all of the elements. After the design is finished, I begin blocking in the sky colors using layer upon layer of transparent acrylic washes. Once the sky is completed, I move to the background elements and then gradually progress forward. As the image comes together, I will often remix colors and repaint sections to better unite the whole. The final stage is to outline the middle-ground in darker variations of the colors and the foreground in black, giving the painting a sense of greater depth.

How did you first become interested in art?
My mother was a multimedia artist and painter, and my father was incredibly creative. From an early age I was always creating art, but it was through my first art professor, Mr. John Kaneko, that I discovered a real love of painting. With his recommendation, I attended Art Center College of Design in Pasadena to study illustration. And after graduating with honors, I began working in the computer game industry as a game artist before advancing to the position of Art Director and Vice President of Creative Arts. Eventually my interests shifted to becoming a high school art instructor and fine arts painter.

How do you think art can enrich a community, and what are some ways people can become engaged with art in Burbank?
Art is a creative process resulting in a unique form of expression that can serve to enrich the lives of those who interact with it. Within diverse communities, art has the unique ability to be relatable across culture and language, because art is a visual expression. I appreciate how businesses around Burbank have incorporated art in public spaces when designing their facilities, sharing enjoyment with others.

If you could share with our community one thing about art, what would it be?
Art is everywhere. If we look around our environments, just about everything that is not found in nature has been touched by an artist. The clothes we wear, the transportation we use, the homes we live in and the visuals we see were all designed by artists. The art we choose becomes an expression and extension of who we are as individuals.

To find out more about Keith’s work, visit http://www.keithrustillustration.com/