POSTERS!

Today I'm goin to talk about something near and dear to my heart. Posters. More importantly silk screened posters. My love for this media started about two years ago, and now it's become my main form of art, everything else I do is encompassed by it. Every crazy idea I usually just forget I now scribble downfor future use in a poster... Every painting idea I have I want to go into it with screen printing... I'm now making t-shirts, art prints, mono prints, it's amazing! I think the first time I got interested in silk screened posters was about tow years ago. I was talking to one of my instructors, Bill Harbort, and suddenly Jay Ryan had come into our topic of conversation. He was coming down for about three days, and he was going to screen a poster, and Bill had told me that I was welcome to help if I wanted to. I said, yeah, I might, simply givin him a maybe answer, not realizing what helping Jay Ryan actually meant. Then, in the fall, a week into the semester, I was taking a course of Adv. Independent Graphic Design. I didn't know exactly what to do, and Bill had started talkin about Jay Ryan again and how excited he was about him coming down. Then he suddenly stopped talking and his eyes got real wide and he said, "Dude, Ben, you eveer think about screen printing your design work?" "No, I really haven't," I said, "I took printmaking and I dunno, I don't think I'd like doin it..." "Hmm...ok," Bill said. "But, hey...Have you checked out any of Jay's stuff yet?" he asked. I said, "Nope, not yet...should I?" "Yes...look at his stuff...then let me know what you think about doing silk screen stuff." "All right," I said, not knowing at all what I was getting into...

When I started looking at Jay Ryan's work I was dumbfounded. This is silkscreened? His illustrations were amazing and it was designed soooo well. I had no Idea that screen printing was so awesome! Apparebtly I had never actually figured out how to really use it to it's full potential. And so then, I desided that I was going to do poster design for my Independent course, and I was going to silk screen everything I did. When I started It was really hard. I didn't really know what I was doing. But I still managed to crank out two posters before Jay cam to Minot. Once Jay was here and I was able to see how he printed, my mind soaked up everything he did... he was a true master at pulling ink on the screen. Everything he did, his selection of paper, inks used, design printing techniques, all superb and surprisingly rational. I was amazed to see how he worked. After he left, I was asked to do a poster for a friend of mine, Jazmine Wolff. She was going on tour that winter and wondered if i could make the psoter for it. And, if possible, she wanted them screen printed. I took the project, and decided to go ahead and make an edition of 100. This was a huge leap to what I was used to printing. What I had started printing at was around 5...with maybe 2 or 3 test prints. And I made a startling jump to 100! But I was confident! I knew how Jay did things and I was determined to mimic them best I could, and after 3 days of work, Jazmine's tour poster was finished! I had completed the poster, minus 4 (had problems with 4 of em) and it was a poster advertising an actual event! I was amazed at the work I had just completed and I was so happy with myself. After that moment, I decided that I wanted to pursue a career in poster design and silk screen printing. I love the medium, I love its different avenues of experimentation, and I love how the poster has the power to bring people together to witness the performance of music!

RULESOME.

some links for people interested in posters!-
www.thebirdmachine.com
www.gigposters.com

Myspace and Facebook...

The big two as I like to call em... These two websites are the main websites that people use to stay in contact with old friends make new friends, and also to get to know people that you otherwise wouldn't in your lifetime. Those people being the people that you idolize, worship (yikes!), or are a big fan of. There also other applications that these sites have that offer other things besides keepin in contact with old or new friends. Myspace has a plethora of blogging and bulletin tools, allowing people to see what your currently doing in your life, wether it be new business ventures or jus a simple drunken rant (oh my!) It can be applied to business, but not really to the selling of merchandise. More like an online portfolio if you will. You can arrange your profile page to feature artworks you've done, videos you've created, and folders with pictures of your stuff...thus the idea of an online portfolio.

Also, back to the friend feature of Myspace, I personally have been able to become friends with some of my heroes in graphic design/illustration. The poster artists DWITT ( www.myspace.com/dwitt ) and AmyJo ( www.myspace.com/missamyjo ) are two of my new friends on myspace and it is so great that I can see every once an a while see what they're doin by way of their bulletins, blog, and or just their updates to their profile. That's another thing about myspace that's pretty cool. They have a feature that just alerts you at your homepage when you log in on what your friends have been doin with their profile page. Whether it be a new bulletin, blog, or picture, you'll always be able to know and keep up to date with what thy're doing!

I haven't used Facebook that much, but I did start an account and from the start I realized that they're were some features in it that interested me. The network was a pretty cool feature, right after I had started my account, I was asked on what networks I wanted to be connected with. I thought that was pretty damn awesome because I could network with my hometown, Glasgow, MT, and also network with Minot, ND. And then from there I could also branch more by other states I might know people in. Also, the find friends feature in Facebook was a lot more user friendly than what I was used to in myspace. Usually in myspace the only way I could find someone was through other friends I already had. And then through their friends list find the people I was looking for. At the moment I'm still a big user of Myspace and i'll probably use facebook a little more, now that I've realized it's potential. I do think that Myspace has a larger amount of personalization for what you want your profile to look like, I really haven't seen much on facebook yet. I basically need to check out facebook more and figure out the strengths of both.

Man oh man, I've got a lot of different things goin on for on the web now...Myspace, Facebook, Blogger, Etsy, Paypal *sigh* I thought it was crazy when I first got an email address...

That's all for now...

Rulesome.

Barack Obama's Victory

Barack Obama's victory was due in part to his very in depth use of the web...He posted videos on youtube, had podcasts, maintained a myspace page, All these factors lead him to becoming the new president of the United States. There were also other factors riding for him as well, I believe, such as the distaste of the Bush Campaign and the Republican party. By the Republican party I mean that it may have suffered some damage after Bush's time as President. Also, Barack Obama is the first African American President! That's insanely awesome but also really quite sad that it took this long to happen. But the web was really a key factor in his winning of the election. It's not very hard to find any of Obama's media on the either. Every website that I mentioned is supplied with a search engine which allows you to find Obama's media quite easily. That's another thing that was apart of his success. Search engines on the web and web links! Everything that has been written or posted about Barack Obama is usually supplied with links to either his myspace page, podcasts, or  youtube videos! Really Obama's whole campaign for the presidency was just another example of how search engines, blogs, myspace, podcasts, and youtube can get you noticed and spread your thoughts. Everyone knew what Barack Obama was going to try to do once he became President because he constantly talked about it in all of the applications he used on the web. People were well informed about his intentions and because of that, he was able to win the election.

Webpage assign.

We had to have a remade website for class today... The website I chose was for one of my favorite artists David Witt... His website was offline so I didn't really have anything to off of except what he had up...I think it's all right... Still, sum tweakin could be had...

BAD

KRULL.

Watched KRULL this morning...I wish I had a magical throwing star I found out of a volcano... *sigh*...movies just aren't what they used to be anymore...

BAD

Color Flats.

Here's the flat color, or what lies beneath all the contours... I'll be posting the contours as well...

BAD

Severed Rulesome!

This is probably gonna be the header for next week, did it in my visual arts seminar class this morning. I'll probably add colors and repost it on the blog and the header later this weekend...

Keep your eyes open!

BAD

Header

Gonna change the header of my blog every week... just to keep it rulesome!

BAD

Utilize me!

Hey I just wanted everyone to know that you can enlarge the images I'm posting by mousing over them and then clicking... They'll get enlarged for further viewing pleasure!

Later!

BAD

Another Project!

This is an image that my friend Justin Morales of Choke On Color fame wants me to digitally color for him. It's not exactly the way he wanted it done, so I gotta change a lot of it. And, if you like those pupils, I'm sorry, but they gotta go, Justin wasn't thinkin they were needed. You try and suggest things to people you work with or for, but in the end if the project isn't handled in the way they want it handled you gotta have it done to there standards. I like the pupils too, but they aren't exactly needed. More on this project later...

Project 2

This little number is my newest and favorite poster illustration I want to do... could work for a halloween type poster I guess, I dunno, still gotta iron out the kinks for this one, it's not exactly set up the way I want it here. The shadow should be down further, and the various information for the show would be drippy goop from the test tube monster in the shadow. I could've put that in there, I guess, but it was just a quick idea I had, nothing more!

Projects

Well, the latest endeavor for me at the moment is this little set piece for KMSU, the MSU TV channel... It's not completely done yet, recently got sum feedback from my good friend and teacher Bill Harbort on sum things that might need some tweekin. The piece will probably be cut out, mounted on foam core, and have velcro attached to the back, making it removable, so they can attach other ones...(Hopefully get to design those too!) But for now, this is what I got, stay tuned for the eventual finish of this project...

All right, just started up my blog, nothing exciting to really talk about at the moment, just woke up this morning after bar hopping all night after the coronation ceremony at MSU...holy crap was I out of my element...