| 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.
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