What does a working artist do? Is artwork work or art or both? These are questions I asked myself this morning at 4 a.m. as darkness was dissolving into dawn and the songbirds were tuning up and the coffee was brewing.
Now, class, what do we notice about the image above? Yes, it is predominantly blue. That is a fine observation. ‘Observation’ is such a fine word don’t you agree? And the image is moving, after a fashion. And the word ‘hell’ is in the caption. These are all important observations and worthy of a true art-detective but you missed one. Ahem–please draw your attention to the right side of the panel. See the signature? Notice that the blue surrounding the signature is of a slightly different tint than the remainder of the panel. This is a result of my drawing the image, adding the caption, animating it and forgetting to sign it. As a result I had to create a signature block and cleverly photo-shop it onto the finished image with mixed results.
This oversight is an example of what comes of working all night but it’s also illustrative of the working artist’s furtive desire to create and move on.
I recently scanned several sketches I’d accumulated in the studio over the years–converting each one to a jpeg. Then I shredded the paper.
Congratulations! If you are fortunate enough to own one of my paper originals, the e-Bay value of your treasure just increased by about 20,000%. Because that’s approximately how many images I scanned and shredded.
So have a cup of coffee and greet the day and get some sleep.
d.p. BENJAMIN 