Ben Toupein

Bash some clay

Ben Toupein — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 13:43:13 +0000

Have been mucking around with clay a bit recently. Started this guy when I obsessed with pictures of boxing. Was pretty fun to do, never really done any sculpture like this before.

Cracked up a little bit after the firing. Will have to sand it down and fill in some cracks. Will eventually try and paint it.

Next attempt will be trying to do some moulds and casting. Maybe not of this one. Its a bit brittle after a framed drawing fell off my wall and smashed it and my head while I was making it.

Hair guts

Ben Toupein — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 01:27:14 +0000

Heres some works from the Thirsty Artist show last week. Was really fun.

All done with pen and ink and a bit of brush.

Sittin on mushrooms

Ben Toupein — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 11:40:57 +0000

I drew these gnomes for a job a while ago. Kinda forgot about them until I was looking for a receipt for something.

The idea was to turn the little gnome into a kinda modern inner-city gnome.

They are pretty rough as they were just concept sketches.

Where are the eyeballs?!

Ben Toupein — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 06:46:34 +0000

I love T-Shirts. I have about 900 million.

A friend of mine is starting up a new clothes label and asked me to draw something to put on a shirt.

I’m not really sure whether he is pulling on a shirt or taking it off? Either way he looks pretty creepy.

Just for kicks I included the original pencil drawing that turned into the final inked piece.

Hopefully ill see the finished result soon.

Punched in the face area

Ben Toupein — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 11:14:49 +0000

Here is something I did a while ago. It was for a poster show.

The whole was done for fun. I was kinda obsessed with boxers and astronauts at the time, so I decided to pit them against each other. The other 3 pictures are the side attractions that would have run alongside the fight.

The idea was to make everything look those old photographs that have been hand coloured. I used really watered down paint and different kinds of ink and watercolours.

Stuck at the Desk

Ben Toupein — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 13:12:11 +0000

Here’s something I did recently that went up at my old university.

Its a man sitting at a desk. I used watered down acrylic paints and black ink.

I posted a few close-ups so you can see some of the details.

Fading Photos

Ben Toupein — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 08:44:22 +0000

Here is a selection of drawings from a recent show in Sydney.

The idea behind these came about when I was thinking about the advent of digital camera’s and how current events and gatherings are easily remembered as almost every minute of the occasion is photographed. Looking back at the older photo’s you might be lucky to have five photo’s of the entire day and more likely only one or two. I can find one photo for Christmas day in 1993 but 20 of a drunk night out 3 years ago in San Francisco. I had the idea of depicting the people in these older photographs as though they were aging and decaying, rotting away as our memory of the event gets less and less vivid. People’s skin becomes cracked and wrinkled and their heads skull like as they age like weird little Kodak Dorian Gray’s. Some people have become very distorted while some have turned into skeletons suggesting an even worse fate. The lines are faint as to suggest a ghostly impression of a event that it slowly slipping away from memory. If you squint your eyes the people disappear from the paper, highlighting the temporal nature of these snap shots.

The original drawings are really faint and unfortunately to see them properly on the computer monitor I had to darken them up a bit. In the flesh the pieces of paper looked almost blank and it wasn’t until you got up close you realised what was on the paper.

I think you’ll still get the idea.

First post

Ben Toupein — Sun, 16 Aug 2009 16:25:51 +0000

Welcome to the new site.

Hopefully will be posting lots of stuff soon.

Check out the Gallery section for some recent works.

Stay tuned.