"Another Grown Up Tonka Toy...Number 4!

Another Grader... of sorts!

On the same empty lot just outside the Folsom city limits, I found, on a drizzly Sunday afternoon, this "grader." It must have been one of the many "toys" that was being used to repair a stretch of LA highway 40, which was in dire need of repair and re-asphalting. I added a bit more "soul" to this sketch than the previous sketch because it wasn't drizzling as hard as it did on the second sketch.

Copyright 2012/ Ben Bensen III

"A Grown Up Tonka Toy"...Number 3!

A quickie CAT steam roller!

Just south of Folsom city limits, which doesn't take much to get out of, I found on a drizzly Sunday afternoon, this steam roller. It looked like this was one of many "toys" that was being used to repair a stretch of LA highway 40, which was in dire need of repair and re-asphalting.

Copyright 2012/ Ben Bensen III

"Finding Lost Art"...

Well, I searched and searched for this sketch that I did in a Boston Starbucks a few months ago. The subject of the sketch was a woman complete in a shawl, high laced up leather boots and a "Aussie" hat, who sat for at least as long as I did plus some time ( she was knitting feverishly when I walked into the cafe to pass some time with a cup of coffee while my wife shopped. )

Since I didn't have much else to do except read Starbucks literature and since she seemed so preoccupied with her knitting and amenable to my sketching her, I looked to find some paper since I didn't bring the sketchbook with me. Never mind that she looked like she was from, well... another country... she was interesting enough for me to sketch!

I decided to used the receipt from the coffee I had just purchased since that was all I had available at the time and naturally, as time passed on and the vacation that spawned this piece was only a memory, I lost it. I thought, surely, I'd find it when I gathered up all my necessary papers, receipts and brochures from the trip, but it was not to be. Eventually, I found it in a zip lock bag where I kept my toiletries for travel and evidently threw the entire bag into my gym bag for use later.

Funny, how things pop up when you've given up looking for them.

After all that investigative work over the period of a month or so, I decided to spray mount it into one of my sketchbooks for safe keeping.

Sometimes, the story of the art is more interesting than the actual art, ha!

Copyright 2012/ Ben Bensen III

"High Tech Lawn Tractors"...

Right in My Own Back Yard...

Well, I thought I'd have to go off the beaten path to continue my "man toys" sketch concept. The first one I found, I found biking on a country road. Since then, I have only found one interesting "toy" to sketch and I haven't gathered the nerve to park along side a busy highway to sketch this old, rotting 1950's style Plymouth tucked neatly between two large oaks.

But just this morning, these three shiny new lawn tractors with bushhogs attached and straddling the driver's enclosed and probably air conditioned cabins sat in the early morning dew as I took the dog for a walk around the bird sanctuary.

I returned the pup home, grabbed my sketchbook and, in the time it took me to do that, the tractor operators were getting ready to crank'em up! So, this is my twenty-five minute sketch with an almost dry Pentel.

Maybe, I'll return in the evening and try again... without a "deadline" and for fun!

Copyright 2012/ Ben Bensen III

"A Grown Up Tonka Toy"...

This morning, August 8th, I went biking on one of my favorite country roads and spotted this quiet, construction scene with a bright yellow John Deere crane parked neatly against a cloudless, blue sky... and a torn up landscape. Apparently, someone is getting ready to build in this quiet little six mile stretch of asphalted and dirt road that has become a short cut between LA 437 and LA 40 into the village of Folsom. Arriving at the south end of Factory Road around six thirty in the morning pretty much gives me a nice, uncrowded and shaded twelve mile jaunt that usually takes me about one hour to complete.

I passed this scene up a few times over the past two weeks and decided to bring my sketchbook and draw some real live "Tonka" toys. I actually thought about drawing the word Tonka where the John Deere was, but basically forgot!

Truth be told, I brought my sketchbook to sketch this dead armadillo completely intact in the middle of the road, but when I finally remembered to bring my book, the buzzards had had they way with it.

Copyright 2012/ Ben Bensen III

"The Magic of Art That Really Isn't, But Is..."

What's left!

 When I fly, I usually stare out from the window seat into the confusion of our earthbound world until the clouds obscure my view. I must have been a bird in my other life... and probably got sucked into a jet engine, then poof... Ben Bensen III.

Well, it's one way to look at being born, right?

On this trip, en route from Houston to Los Angeles, I pulled out my torn, tattered and well-traveled sketchbook and began to draw. Seated fairly way back in the aircraft, I scanned the seats to see what I could get interested enough to draw. In front of me about two rows up was a pretty scuzzy and wasted roustabout. He'd awaken, and changed his "pose" in the seat and I'd have to start all over again. So eventually I looked for additional subjects and decided to sketch two of the flight attendants.

The male, was a long, lanky African American with a high cheek bone and a rather angular face. I thought I captured him in three different poses quite well given it was a three hour flight. The other flight attendant was a dark- eyed, bespeckled, young woman with beautiful skin and a smile that could tell some stories, I'm sure.

I guess I was sort of "smittened" because I just couldn't make her look as good as I imagined. When  she saw me alternating from one "sleepy-eyed oil rigger" to the male flight attendant, she asked...

"Are you an artist?" I replied in the affirmative as she rather awkwardly passed to me another cup of coffee and smiled.

"Do you work in Hollywood?"

"I used to," I said. "I'm going to LA to document Air Force life at March, AFB in Riverside!" I enjoy drawing aircraft," I continued.

"That's nice,"she said, as she noticed my improving sketch of the roustabout dozing. "People who can draw like that... well, it is just "magical."

"I guess," I replied rather sheepishly.

As she continued further up the aisle to the front of the plane, I returned to my sketch of her, but still didn't feel good about capturing the real her.

An hour passed and I was intensely involved in drawing her to my liking, having sufficiently sketched my other two subjects. On further observation, she had a goofy, Marlo Thomas thing going for her like she hadn't yet succeeded in gracefully walking in high heels.

It wasn't a bumpy ride to SoCal, so I assumed it was just her but with her personality, it all seemed quite endearing.

Somehow, while I was absorbed, she got behind me without me seeing her. I was a few rows behind one of the restrooms and occasionally one or two patrons waiting their turn, would check out my progress.

"Hey, I Thought, You're Blocking The Way"...

A bad shot of a sketch I did...

Not that this is any earth shattering thing, but this is the only version of this sketch, which was taken with my cellphone, of Cranberry Island in Maine. Before I could finish the drawing, a crew member came over and stood in this doorway unaware that I was sketching it. Being that it was the last run of the day, he probably didn't care, had he really known, so I didn't ask the "rum soaked seadog" to move...

And, that's about all I can say about this sketch.

Copyright 2012/Ben Bensen III