Alan Bean: Astronaut & Artist
Apollo 12 Astronaut Alan Bean left NASA in 1981 to pursue his weekend hobby. Bean is the first astronaut-turned-artist to create artwork based on the otherworldly experiences of space exploration. His paintings are currently on display at the Air and Space Museum until January 2010. Alan Bean: Painting Apollo, First Artist on Another World features roughly 40 paintings, space artifacts, his spacesuit, and a video with interviews on his process.
Alan Bean’s Apollo paintings may not be for everyone, but the fact that the paintings exist as an artistic dialogue of human spaceflight is astounding. I hope that each viewer finds a small aspect of inspiration from his paintings because this is precisely why I am pursuing a degree in Arts Administration. 
It was fascinating to see his acrylic studies in preparation for his final painting An Astronaut’s Journey. I was really drawn to the studies because of their series-like nature using different color combinations and slight adjustments, as if looking at an unseen page of his sketchbook. If he sells his studies, I desperately want to own one. 
These studies for An Astronaut’s Journey show how Bean achieved his final results, with his varied approach to color combinations, different uses of light and shadow, and rearrangement of shapes in the overall composition. This series is a rare example of Bean’s work without the technical rendering of his finished paintings. (via)
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