The Art Of The Beer Label
Sean Dominguez is a surfer and artist, not a man of the cloth. Yet, for the past 13 years, he's been a faithful devotee of The Lost Abbey.
At this San Marcos brewery, the 49-year-old artist creates labels with images drawn from Bible stories and the history of Christianity.
PACIFIC: You've been a painter for about 30 years. Did your work always have religious overtones?
SEAN DOMINGUEZ: My style is kinda all over the place. When I started with Pizza Port, I turned out kinda cartoony, kitschy art. But when (founder and head of brewing operations) Tomme Arthur started Lost Abbey, he wanted something more biblical. So this took me out of my box. I had never done that style before.
How did you switch gears and capture the Lost Abbey ethos?
I come from a long line of artists. My grandma is an artist, my mother is an artist. Actually, my dad is not bad. My grandmother had given me a book of the painter Titian, and a lot of his paintings have to do with aspects of the Bible. And Tomme gave me direction.
What's the process you use to come up with a new label?
Tomme usually has an idea and he'll put it in words. We'll go back and forth, and I'll make some chicken-scratch rough drafts, getting the perspective and composition, see how the subject is coming on. Then we'll have meetings and look at them. After that, I work on the colors. Finally, I apply everything to a canvas.
What medium do you work in?
Mostly acrylics, but I have used other mediums – pastel chalks, watercolors, pen and ink, charcoal.