..and proud we are of all of them

2015 Bay Arts "Interns" mural

Like the Big Lebowski we too get to work with a fine group of Junior Achievers!  The last three years we've been invited to work with a few select "interns" for a couple weekends.  First weekend getting them comfortable working as a group and the second week, painting in front of an audience at the Bay Arts Fest!  We love working with these budding young talents and are always impressed with how well it comes together.  If you would like to see these in person all three are lurking at Bay Arts in Bay Village, Ohio!  Enjoy!

2014 Bay Arts "Interns" mural

Movin' on UP!

This weekend we pack up our paints, buckets and weird painting stools and head in to the heart of Cleveland to start a 2 year painting endeavor with our friends at Graffiti Heart.  Like our time working in Ben's family barn these first few pieces will be done away from our audience's eyes but this time IN A WAREHOUSE!  So in a way, we are movin' on up!  When these are done and available for public consumption we'll share as well as keep you up on further murals with Graffiti Heart  (big, BIG things coming!).  But until then here are some shots from our time in the Hale family barn working on the barn mural.  enjoy!

BRITE WINTER 2015!

   

A couple of weekends back, in the middle of a snow storm Cleveland came out to one of the city's best music and arts festivals of the year!  In the warm, luxury of the Great Lakes Brewery Company's tasting room, nestled next to one of the festival's many stages we painted our first mural of 2015!  We had a lot of fun, listened to a ton of great bands and talked with many of Cleveland's heartiest of festival goers.  

We will be getting this piece properly shot soon and will share when we can but until then here's a few of the detail and action shots we took during the night.  

Thanks so much to everyone who came out and braved this snow filled winter.  Thanks to Brite Winter for putting on this great festival and special thanks to Great Lakes Brewing Company for supplying a warm room and great venue for music and art.

AND!

It's Cleveland Scene Magazine, Best of... voting season again.  If you have the time we'd be honored to be considered for nomination again.  Thanks!

(you can find the voting here)

Happy 3rd Anniversary!!!!

 This is us, three years ago. 

Our first mural gig and we didn't even know it.  The first annual Bal Ingenieux for Ingenuity Cleveland.  Having started this blog only a few months before we were commissioned  as a group of Art performers and we had the bright idea to create a comic, from start to finish in one night.  

One group start a story on one side of the room.

The other group on the opposite side.

6 Artists, using cut paper, markers, whatever we had just making stuff up on the fly.  Just getting to know each other, playing it safe, you stay in your frame and I'll stay in mine. The only collaboration was in the story and that's all.

  That is till we got to the splash page in the middle.

IT WAS FUN!!!  

Way more fun than the panels we were working on to the sides, (doubt those even exist anymore).  We bumped elbows, worked on each other's drawings (we didn't paint as much then as we do now) and created something much more satisfying together than what we worked on alone. We were hooked!

In three years we are 30+ murals in.  We've grown as Artists from working together, we've had the opportunity to work in some amazing and humbling venues, work with great people and in short become a family.

Thank you all for your support these amazing three years. 

STAY TUNED!!!!!  

2015 is already shaping up to be a HUGE year!

The Orgin Of The Painter

One of the pieces from SPACES Monster Draw Rally April 12, 2014

Last weekend all six of the Rust Belt Monsters descended upon Spaces Gallery for their annual Monster Draw Rally fundraiser.  We painted two 4'x6' murals in 5 hours (More photos on www.rustbeltmonster.com soon!), and I had a chance to share someone from my sketchbook who'd been tooling around for three years. 

Original concept sketch, with added paint splatters from the mural.

I keep every sketchbook, even if they only have one drawing in them.  They serve as a way for me to communicate with my past, and now as a father, to communicate to the future.  Without a doubt they are my most valuable possession. 

I hadn't been to SPACES gallery in three years, and it seemed like a perfect opportunity to look through those sketchbooks and see where my head was at the last time I was there. 

Early sketchbook piece circa 2011

Three years ago was when I started drawing in earnest, and when I started putting double page stream of consciousness spreads in my sketchbooks. The fella in the left corner popped up a lot in those pages usually rampaging a city. Having three years between the pages, it felt appropriate to give him a paintbrush, since that's how I've been rampaging the city since then.   

Ben: Prepare the Baby's Room!

The times are changing, and the monsters are multiplying.  And with new monsters comes new opportunities.  Its with that in mind that I decided to create a painting for my daughter's bedroom.  With the help of fellow monster, Craig Worrell, we set out to create something special for my unborn child.  Follow along as you see a day worth of painting compressed into less than a minute.  Enjoy.

The Finished Product and my Happy Wife, Courtney.

The Original Sketch

The color treatment

Happy Bob

Happy happy Monday to you all!  

This is merely part of what we did this weekend at Cleveland's Ingenuity Fest. We will be posting the rest later on in the week.  After being totally rained out on Friday waterloggeing my socks and everything else, lifting and carrying the largest rig we've ever made some 40+ yards, having a large, heavy wooden box fall on my heel, risking sudden death in a potentially electrified pool in a filthy warehouse floor while carrying a metal table full of stuff I'm here to report that I would do it all again in a heartbeat!  To be a part of 2 large parts of Ingenuity Fest this year, to work shoulder to shoulder with people I admire and love, to have the unfettered support of friends, nay, family who came up to see and even help with the show is a rare joy you get in life.  Today I feel very lucky to have all the aches, pains, things to clean and unpack from this weekend's festivities.  

So there, big hugs and thank yous all around!

....and yes, this is Bob Ross as a not so happy cloud.