Portraits from "Escape From New York"...

Inset portraits to the movie,"Escape From New York."

Sometimes, I wonder what the hell happened here. Sometime in late 1981 or so, I was contacted by a design firm, Butler and Associates to design and illustrate the seven cast members of the movie, "Escape From New York." When I originally came into the upstairs studio, I noticed a movie poster with a large destroyed head of the Statue of Liberty between two buildings and New York pedestrians fleeing for their lives. The painting was quite large and very well done. At the time, the LA based illustrator, Stan Watts, was all the rage and I was told the painting was his. 

It was beautifully done...

Apparently though, as it occasionally happens, another artist doing another "comp" gets the gig and  gets the piece printed. I've done a bit of research and remembered that the poster that was used was Barry Jackson's version, which he created for a rival design studio. It too, was very well done and very well received. So, why do I now bring this all up?

I was asked by an educational film company to send some samples of my portraiture work that is created traditionally... in paint. I've done quite a bit of movie work back before the digital age, but I was maybe a bit too blase about the work I did back then. I couldn't really find too many of my painted portraits. Ah, youth!

The digital age provided art directors and designers the flexibility of creating with little knowledge of how to draw or paint. You just cut and paste and push a few buttons. The computer cut out the cost of using a comp artist for presentations or even an illustrator for the final poster. The studios could just pay one or two on staff designer's to illustrate whatever would be needed. I can't be bitter about it all because I found the computer to be a pretty cool tool, too.

Of course, the difference is, I can paint and draw. 

But, in my search to find print worthy samples, I ran across these inset portraits that were originally painted as comps. Only later, when I received a pretty handsome check for the portraits, that were each illustrated at about four by eight inches in diameter, was I told that it was going to be used for the original poster. I was excited about the check, but once again, wish I had known it was gonna be used as illustration. I would have asked for more time which would have afforded more of me to be put into it. It probably wouldn't have made any difference anyway. I was only given a four day weekend to produce these pieces, regardless.

When the movie came out, the Barry Jackson poster was in the marquee and my work was nowhere to be found. When I asked the designer at the studio about what happened, I was told that they decided to use it for the European market. Today, cruising the internet for pics and posters from the low budget movie, I am amazed at all the reference and the many various treatments to the basic visual premise. I wish that I had had access to all this reference material at that time. And yet...

I never found an ad or poster or anything of my inset artwork.

Like Barry Jackson's story, who apparently never got the original artwork back, I never saw the poster my art was designed for. Maybe it was used... and maybe, not! It's just classic Hollywood. 
But hey, you got paid, right? 

No hard feelings, you know?

Yeh. Right!

Copyright 2013/Ben Bensen III

"I Can't Imagine How Jack Would Have Done It!"

One in a series of storyboard frames for the original Spiderman trailer!

This is a comment I made in a conversation with a fellow Art Center College of Design student.

Yeh Karen, Jack would have given me that smirk if I tried to tell him my problems with this piece. I remember how he would jokingly say create an obvious mistake that would be easy to correct so that the art director would have something to say which would validate the art director's job.

When I first did this piece it occurred to me, someone would have a problem with the kid since it was the focal point of a dubious concept. So, I did it in two pieces and the original "kid" was more in line with the atmosphere of an early urban morning. There were no contrasts.

The many folks from art directors to movie execs made me beef it up and add wind blown hair and shirt...

Three more times.

I started to wonder if doing it separately was a mistake. Maybe, if I would have drawn it all in one piece, they would have been more receptive to approve it. Doing it in pieces just seemed to spur them on, perhaps! Sometimes, you can out smart yourself by anticipating possible scenarios of disapproval.

I must say having the computer to cut and paste was a godsend regardless of how many times I had to change the kid and reassemble it into a composite piece of art. Looking closely at it,  I thought I did a pretty good job of selecting the kid and pasting him into position.

Today, they'd probably "google" a NewYork skyline and pose a buddy, if they couldn't find a pose that worked with the layout. They'd then, photograph the buddy and assemble it... if they needed to go to that extreme for a presentation.

And every time I see and relive this frame, I wonder to myself, " How would Jack have done it?"

Copyright 2013/ Ben Bensen III

"And A Good Time Was Had By All... I Think!"

My first serious Plein Air painting!

About three weeks ago, before the rains came and the colder weather returned, me, Mary Monk, Carol Hallock and later, Louis Morales, drove our rolling studios out to the end of a road through Big Branch nature preserve in LaCombe, LA as far as the shell covered roadway could take us before dead ending into Lake Pontchartrain. 

It was a gorgeous afternoon just right for a Plein Air outing. It was my first serious outdoor painting attempt and I learned a lot just getting reacquainted with acrylic paint and a few flat brushes. But, later on, I was invited to watch Carol attempt to capture a gorgeous setting sun. Carol moves very quickly with very decisive, bold strokes capturing, if not the reality of what she sees, most definitely, she captures the mood, the color and the intensity of the moment. Her style seems to embrace the kinetic energy of her subject matter. It was fun to watch her work! Also, I learned when you paint outdoors, you can't afford the time to render a painting unless you want to return two or three times to the same site and hope you can get the same kind of environment you had on your first visit.

Pretty much, that's what I did with this 11x14 canvas board painting. Like Carol, trying to capture the spirit of a setting sun, I could not stop the waves or the gulls and pelicans from their perpetual motion.  It took me three visits to finish this piece and, classic Ben Bensen, it probably will never be considered finished! All tolled, I think I put in about another three hours in two more visits to the site before I announced to myself that the painting was completed.

I'm pretty satisfied with my first effort. I acquiesced to the need to have a definite focal point, which is  the landing pelican. The artist in me said leave it out, but the salesman in me demanded it be put in. Oh well...

Watching both Mary and Carol record their visions was a real treat. One this first day, I put in almost two hours of setting up, painting and packing up, but in between paint strokes, I sauntered over to Mary's van, where she was working on a rather huge horizontal pastel drawing, and, while she worked, we talked about each other's art and sensibilities, selling one's work, art gallery etiquette, and goals. As it grew darker and Carol had finished two of her paintings, we later went to dinner where I got to meet and speak with another pretty good outdoor artist, Louis Morales and his wife Debbie. Apparently, Louis is a regular with this group and pretty much keeps in touch with the art scene here in the Northshore area. It has to be a scene I'll have to get more acquainted with too if I am gonna pursue this type of painting.

As I drove away, having said our goodbyes, I assessed it was a very profitable experience. It was nice to be the student again and be with people with similar yet divergent interests.

All things considered, a good time was had by all...

Copyright 2013/ Ben Bensen III

Just Some Early Morning Observations...

A ham, tomato, swiss cheese and onion quiche...

Just some observations in the morning. I'm sitting here with the laptop, staring out the kitchen window, enjoying a third cup of CDM and a large slice of quiche which I made for my wife. She had to leave before it was finished, so I guess I have to save her a piece.

The birds are pissed and squawking 'cuz there's no grub in the feeder. I noticed, no matter the season, all species of birds descend on my feeder between 8 am and 8:30 am. They are very timely. If there's no grub, they move on and won't return till the late afternoon, en masse.

I wonder about their time clocks... they don't have wrists!

After loading the feeder, I threw out some egg shells because I believe in putting back to nature what we and the animals take away, and I found that many times, birds will cart off pieces of the shells and devour them especially the females during mating season.

I guess they know they need to replenish their calcium.

I also noticed, not just today, but over a period of time, ground feeding birds love it and sort of cheer on the jays and woodpeckers as they fling out the sunflower seeds to the ground to get to the peanuts!

The goldfinch always stay for the winter, but I never get to see the males in full resplendent color. They fly back north to mate. With their stay here, they bring along the Sharp-shinned Hawk which seem to follow them here and occasionally prey on the locals.

I wonder if the locals hate the goldfinch for screwing up the neighborhood by bringing in a bad element!

Maybe, that is why they occasionally slam up against the windows in a fit to escape. It makes for a skittish bunch of birds while at the feeder.

Just some observations...

Also, though this quiche is quite tasty, I've exhausted all my recipes for quiche. I wonder how an anchovies and olive salad quiche would taste!

Whadda'ya think?

Copyright 2013/Ben Bensen III

My Favorites Of 2012...

Which One Is Your Favorite?

When I started this blog over two years ago, I thought I could create a soup du jour type of sketchbook. I can't say I was sketching every day and many times the sketches I did create on a "daily" basis really were, at times, quite embarrassing. My unofficial sketch count for the year 2012 was one hundred-three whether on a receipt, an address book, a tissue pad, a tablecloth or an actual sketchbook. I'm not a mathematician, but that surely doesn't amount to a daily sketch in that year. I wanted to get this compilation on New Year's Day or a day or so later, but it was not to be... better late than not at all, I'd say!

I've always enjoyed writing about my art and the thoughts within. Some of my artists friends would ask why do I always add a headline or some copy to almost everything they think I shouldn't. Maybe, it is the adman in me or the storyteller, but in my psyche there is always a device to take one's eye to the spot where the logo should be or where a headline would be set...

I really don't know why.

If you've not been to my sketch blog, you might want to do so to read my thoughts along with the sketches. There's about two years full of posts to peruse and comment on. The url is: http://sketchiethoughts.blog.com

By the way, just in case you are curious, my favorite sketch-O-2012 is called, "Breakfastwitchu" and it is the little fat man with the fedora on in the top left corner of the picture.

Copyright 2013/Ben Bensen III

"When We Flew Backwards To DC..."

A celebratory Gala flyer circa 1982!

A couple of days ago, a good friend and a prolific painter replied to a comment I made about being an artist and talking about that subject. Her reply was,

"Ben....I don't want to talk about art...ha ha..I live it..enough ...I rather talk about the consequences of atoms inter-locking with the Kinetic force of Gama rays..lol"

Man, I do know the feeling of being overwhelmed by living art! 

There are times when we, as artists, are exhausted from the discipline of making art whether it be storyboards for an agency concept, deadlines for a script, a painting for another gallery showing, etc. Sometimes, out of the blue, a visual pops into my head and won't go away even though I am exhausted from myself and want to be left alone. A triggering device can be as simple as a beautiful sunrise, or a child playing at a park or the egg omelet I've just cooked, even plucking nose hairs... 

Okay stop, that's enough! 

It is not like only artists have work related burn out. Nowadays, everyone seems exhausted from themselves. It is just the mistaken notion that artists have nothing but fun chasing butterflies and rainbows across the universe. The worse time to be hounded creatively is late at night as I stare at a dark ceiling trying to fall asleep. I use to keep a small note pad or sketchbook next to me on my night stand to record such manic, mental episodes.

I use to!

Occasionally, my wife would catch me squatted down on our front lawn and wonder why I was weeding the lawn. Having a gardener who we payed to do such chores wasn't the point. The point was that pulling clover and oxalis from the lawn was a diversion from living as an artist! There was some strange feeling of success in finding the root of the leafy tentacles that weaved all through the grass and pulling it all out in one piece!

Quite a while back, belonging to the Air Force Art Program, we'd all arrive at the El Segundo airbase situated at LAX and wait for the big gray military transport to arrive from San Francisco with a load of NoCal artists on board. While we sipped coffee, munched on donuts and waited, many of my Los Angeles cohorts would sit with their sketchbooks wide open and draw... anything!

Having usually been up all night trying to complete my painting for the show, or trying to finish a storyboard or two for another crazy deadline so I could attend the big show in D.C. the last thing I ever wanted to do was draw... or paint on my five day extravaganza!

I could be wrong, but the thought still exists in my head that you could tell the difference between the fine artists, designers, AD's and the "commercial artists." All you had to do was look at who was drawing in their sketchbooks. Rivets, tie downs, racks, netting, aircraft vents and just about anything in the plane was subject matter for those who, though very talented in their own right in the creative arts, never got to draw enough to satisfy their creative juices.

We illustrators were pretty much all "juiced out" although one could say many were pretty well "juiced up" before the C-141 got off the ground. Some had to just to get on the plane and some had to just to whine down and some had to in order to deal with the concept of flying backwards!

That's right... we flew from the west coast to the east coast... backwards!

The C-141 Starlifter had seats facing the aft portion of the aircraft. The basic reason was simple. Soldiers got out of their marginally comfortable seats to walk to the back end of the plane and parachute  out. The military was not gonna change protocol for we artist types and that was just fine with me and the many av artists aboard. If I had a major complaint about that aircraft it would be the noise the air conditioner blowers made. It was louder than the aircraft's engines!

I remember, clear as the day, standing in the aisle, flying backwards while munching on my box lunch, with earplugs jammed in my ears, yelling and nodding to Marc Ericksen...

"Hey Marc, I yelled, shamefully snickering at some new member's open sketchbook, "Wanna draw?"

Copyright 2014/ Ben Bensen III

Number Eight in a Series of Collector Prints... Nixon Galloway!

Apparently, a big, bad ass Stearman!

The "Speedmail" M-2 was a typical Stearman except for the size of the plane which was twice the size of the typical biplane.Mail and other cargo were carried in two separate compartments totalling 90 cubic feet which were located ahead of the pilot. The engine was the 525 hp Wright R-1820 "Cyclone" with a front exhaust collector ring as used on the J-6 engines.

"Speedmail" was designed by Lloyd Stearman in his Wichita, KS plant for Walter Varney of Varney Air Lines. It was nicknamed "Bull Stearman" because of its size and power. It's upper wingspan measured 46 feet. Mr. Varney bought six of the M-2 design. Five as mail planes and one, with a two passenger front cockpit which replaced the mail compartment as a personal craft. They were equipped with a mail pit designed to carry a 1,000lb payload at a cruising speed of 125 mph with a range of 725 miles.

In researching this aircraft, I found an interesting website where a group dedicated biplanes fans restored the only flyable M-2 today. The url is: 

http://www.antiqueairfield.com/articles/show/156-alan-lopez-s-m-2-bull-stearman-running-up

The site has some photos of the restoration with colors that Nixon Galloway used in his rendering. Of note, Nixon's illustration doesn't show the unique half colored wing, which was painted orange is order to identify the aircraft if it should crash in the wooded and mountainous Northwest region. That alone is an indication of the danger flying mail from one site to another in the early 1930's.

Copyright 2013/Ben Bensen III