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Dorothy Reinhardt

Contact Info For Ben Hopkins:

Ben Hopkins
510.544.9659
www.benhopkinsillustration.com
email: benhopkins@sbcglobal.net
7801 Greenly Drive
Oakland, CA 94605

Featured Artist Ben Hopkins

What is your Background?
In high school I wanted to be an architect, in college I shifted to English Literature. Once I arrived at Illustration I knew I was in the right place; halfway between my love of drawing and my love of storytelling. Since graduating from CCAC I've had the good fortune to work on lots of interesting technical and narrative projects in commercial and editorial illustration, in addition to my regular job as all-around graphic artists/designer/production artist for a large pottery importer. In my rare spare moments I work on my graphic novel "The Vigil", excerpted here.

What is your Technique?
If time were no issue I would always work in the technique pictured here: block-printing. These images were drawn on illustration board, then the non-printing areas were cut out with the exacto knife, the board was inked then pressed. It's a sped up version of woodcut, and allows you to tear the paper and print gray-like areas. Since this still goes pretty slowly I frequently substitute scatchboard drawings done in an engraving style, often laying in colors behind the ink in photoshop. A very poor man's
Barry Moser I like to think.

What is your involvement with the Guild?
I joined the guild fairly recently and shortly thereafter was invited to participate in the steering committee by my former teacher Bill Russell. Since then I've taken the position of Secretary for our chapter, recording minutes and helping plan, set up and coordinate our guest events and helping to advertise them. I've thoroughly enjoyed my time thus far, and have met many useful contacts and friends.

Do you have a favorite client story?
Several years ago through a friend of a friend I met a client named Nick Reese who runs a local record label called Million Dollar Dream. It isn't really a beginning, middle, end client story but this has by far been my favorite client to work for. He produces various local rap and R&B artists and he and the musicians will come over to my studio, talk about the music and the themes, and half the time they'll just ask me to have at it. We've used everything from collage and sculpture to scratchboard comic book art to pure vector artwork and some animation. It's just so rare to have that much free reign; I more often have clients who have exact notions of what they want and I still strive as best I can to give it to them, but the openness at MDD to new ideas has allowed us to make some striking and uncommon rap album art. I may not be getting filthy rich on these CDs, but I wouldn't trade the relationship for anything.

Do you have any other thoughts regarding the design industry?
I feel lucky to be working in the industry here and now in any capacity, even if the digital art revolution has largely displaced traditional freelance illustration. It's still a great community to be a part of and I'm hopeful we'll see a shift towards the more handmade graphic work sometime in our future. In the meantime it's wonderful to see everyone experimenting with all the new tools and creating great art and design in previously unheard of ways.

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To be considered for the Featured Artist members must be:

• An Active Volunteer

• Approved by the committee chair to whom they report

In the event of a conflict the steering committee will decide.

If you are interested, please contact Anastasia Hockinson for more information.

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Graphic Artists Guild members qualify for special offers from the ADBASE Online Custom List Service. Call them toll-free at 1-877-500-0057 to find out what is currently available and what ADBASE can do for you.