crappy hand of haiku

So I just finished a big #finealt (trying to come up with a name for what I do, trying) thrift store painting featuring a giant Rick Moranis head.  How did I get here? Do I have a love for Rick Moranis? Why would someone do this to a perfectly good painting?  While I can't always mind map an art project, I have a pretty good idea where this one came from. It starts with #meetingnotes.  Meeting notes is an ongoing project of mine that organically started as I had to go to meetings at my day job  Many of these meetings didn't pertain much to me, so I started drawing to a) pass the time and b) work on my drawing skills.  When I started, I made mostly doodles.  Over time I began working on more complicated and intricate sketches of people (mostly celebrities that I admired).  I would post these on my instagram on Fridays to the she-grin of friends and fans.

This is the final of El Caballo.  hope you enjoy!

A few weeks ago I got an email from Red Tree Gallery asking me to submit some of my work for their illustration show.  I think that they probably got my name off the Cincy Illustrators Blog and I was thrilled to be asked.  I haven't had anyone ask me to show anything before!  But that meant I needed to get things prepared.  Most of my paintings have the original used frames with them but some of them didn't come with frames at all. Luckily, I was able to find some great gems at the local salvation army.  In a past life, I used to be a picture framer.  It was one of my favorite jobs.  So I was able to use my framing skills to get all the paintings mounted and wired and ready to show publicly and not just in my basement. My next conundrum was price.  I have no idea how to price my work.  My instinct is to price low and I think that is only because it is hard for me to ask someone to buy something that I might not be able to afford.  ...

I know I've shared versions of this before, but I did a scan of the work today so you could see the final product (my cellphone pics didn't do the work justice).  I'm really happy with the way this turned out.  It scares my wife every time she sees it, but even she thinks it looks pretty good.  For this piece, I call RoboCharmer (the original is called Little Charmer), I chose to work with acrylic to start.  I never went to art school so much of my learning came from bits and pieces I've picked up off the internet.  The article that got me started painting was about the process that Mark Teague uses to make his wonderful paintings for his books (if you don't know Teague's work, he is now best known for his illustrations in the How do Dinosaurs... books).  That is where I learned that I needed to start with a toned underpainting which is a process I've used for almost all of my work.  I usually use burnt umber for its warming quality.   S...

This weekend has been so prolific. It feels so good to finish a piece. Thanks for checking out my work. 

I'm working on another painting.  I'm calling these fine monsters and plan on selling prints of them on etsy and maybe a website.  Once again, Em said it was creepy. To view my other work, please visit benjhutchison.com Ben

This is a piece from sometime last year.  Its another thrift store detournement piece.  When I pulled this off my wall this morning, I totally forgot that I treated it with a layer of modge podge to try and unify my painting with the original.  It kind of worked.  I might try this again on my cobra commander  blue boy painting I finished this summer.  Happy Halloween, everybody!