Inertia and the Cellphone...

One in a series of chubby cellphone victims!

My mother was a pretty big woman and I found myself always catering to her needs. It created a rather disdainful opinion of fat people. Eight out of ten grocery baskets strewn in parking lots are left by people who can't walk the thirty feet or more to put the basket in the stall where it belongs and most of them are fat! I won't get on my high horse about it. I think the drawings say all that need to be said.

And, for me, that's a rare occasion.

Copyright 2012/Ben Bensen III

Another Geometric Graze...

Behind the Fence...

There are many horse farms where I reside. Until Katrina, my next door neighbor raised thoroughbreds and once or twice a year, the mares would have their foals. We'd get see them grow until it was such time to ween them away from mom and transport them to another farm where the young thoroughbreds learn to race.

Many times, driving by large estates, I'd see horses in parts or pieces as the fences they grazed behind created a strange, almost mathematical, Mondrian. I thought it'd be interesting to use the fence as a negative space that only allowed us to see just enough of what was behind it. In this case, a grazing horse. The sketch isn't actually what I was visualizing, but it is still kind of fun to play around with.

Copyright 2012/ Ben Bensen III

A Sketch From My "No-Geaux" Plane Ride...

Sketchie Thought on my plane ride home...

Once again, I am finding sketches I haven't seen in a while as I discard old stuff from my new studio space. This is a real basic idea taken from my "Getting My Ship Together" graduation illustration at Art Center. It was crammed into a folder ( a real live manila folder, not the folders we all have crammed into our computers! ) from my visit at Langley, AFB in Virginia.  It was in the side pocket of my Air Force visitors packet which was deep inside one of the draws of my flat file. The missing sketch, which I drew in flight, was gonna be used to accompany a blog post about my trip and the two attempts to get airborne in an F-15D.  I created this caricature of the pilot who was gonna take me up for an hour or two flying around the Virginia coastline, but the plane malfunctioned, not once but twice on two separate days. His code name was SCUBA, but not because he liked to dive. All of his cohorts were sworn to secrecy, so we artists, never did get the complete scoop on SCUBA!

I plan to tell the whole story and show a followup sketch in my GraphicGumbo3 blog. It's pretty interesting. I'd love to actually take this to a finished, color illustration to present to SCUBA, but right now that might me asking too much of my time!

Copyright 2012/ Ben Bensen III

Monster Sketches and Thought Processes...

Thoughts drawn on a paper tablecloth...

I found this folded tablecloth with Pentel sketches from about a year ago. I was listening to a prospective client and as he spoke about the project, that's still in negotiation, ( Ha!) I was trying to impress him with my interpretative sketches. The guy was big on humanoids with tentacles. You know, that H.P. Lovecraft stuff!

Anyway, I have more to this "tablecloth thought" but couldn't edit out the food and coffee stains,, ha!

Copyright 2012/Ben Bensen III

I Work Small...

A sketch one and a half by three and a half...

Well, it has been a while since I last posted anything on my two blogs. I've been busy renovated my garage and turning it into my new studio and turning my old studio into another bedroom. But that's a story for another time... and believe me, eventually, I will get into that story.

Thankfully, I have had a few good jobs in between the renovation, which made it quite a challenge to complete, but was so very fortuitous and profitable. ( So many tales to tell and so little time to do so! )

Anyway, getting to the point of why I am posting this sketch is to explain how one line can make or break a piece. The sketch, which was eventually not used, is but a small part of the illustration and yet a pivotal piece to the concept. The image was drawn in an area of basically two inches by three inches and each line had to be delineated in the most simplest, graphic way possible and yet represent reality. I couldn't sharpen the pencil enough to render the surprise in the girl's eyes without making her look terrified. My goodness, all it took was a slip of the finger, any five of them, to totally change her emotion.

As it turned out, I eventually had to redraw this scene in a larger size and then "photoshop" the details before pasting it into the spread layout. I would have done that to begin with had I known their would be alterations. I am constantly amazed and mystified how the slightest slip, can make or break a drawing. All it takes, at any size, is for one line to not define the shape and it becomes all wrong. 

Still, I am pretty impressed with my ability to pull this scene off and actually prefer this sketch to the one I later had to "redefine."