Benjamin Billingsley

Wilmington, NC
ph: 910-200-7579
ben@benjaminbillingsley.com

Work In Progress

Big Print Block Party - May 22, 2010. 4 x 8 foot woodblocks printed with a steamroller! More info at www.capefearpress.com (and pics of the steamroller, inking station, and a street full of 43 finished prints on the "Event Pics" page).

Below are images of the original design layout - progress of the block being cut (all done by hand with traditional woodcut gouge tools) - the block inked for proofing - and the final impressions!

Below are images of the monotypes exhibited in the "Bloodlines" Exhibition at Glenn Eure's Gallery in Nags Head11/09 - 12/09. (Meditation #1, #2, #4, #12 and #16. First states, Spring 2009 [Akua water-soluble Monotype Inks]; Final states Fall 2009 [enhanced with mixed-media including: chalk, charcoal, conte crayon, oil pastel, indelible markers, spray paint, watercolor, and acrylic)

Additional prints from this series (currently totalling 38 pieces) may be viewed in the "Figurative" gallery.

"Places I Remember" (Wilmington Art Association Gallery "Special Feature" for Sept. 2009) featured acrylic landscape paintings of urban and rural areas in and around Wilmington, NC as well as relief (woodcut and linocut) prints of downtown Wilmington, New Orleans, and Ben's former home, Greensboro, NC. The three 18x24" woodcuts of downtown Wilmington (created specifically for this exhibition) are featured below.

The Billingsley family exhibited work together in two exhibitions in 2009 - their first joint exhibitions since 1999! Ben featured architectural-themed work in the Kinston exhibition, including a new series inspired by his study abroad trip to Estonia in 1994. The seven paintings created specifically for the Kinston show are featured below. Ben exhbited figurative works in the Nags Head show.

Below are some quick shots of the Kinston pieces in progress - 7 paintings (about 2'x3' each) based on images from my trip to Estonian 19.

The main compositional elements of each painting were trasfered to the canvases on June 27, 2009.
The first photos (which are a bit hard to "read," sorry) show the drawings beside the slides the paintings are based upon.

The second photos show the underpaintings - in order to increase the intensity of the color in the final paintings, I underpaint each area in its complement (for example, a "blue sky" would be underpainted in orange). I've also included a colorwheel diagram with the complementary color pairs indicated for clarity.
The underpaintings were completed by July 12, 2009.

The rough textures of the masonry, cobblestones and various wall treatments in the source images are essential to expressing the feeling of these spaces. I'm experimenting with some of the new acrylic additives to replicate these textures. A combination of Golden Acrylic Hard and Light Molding Pastes was used to raise the surface of stones (leaving the spaces between stones merely stained with thin layers of acrylic). The rougher wall and stone textures were achieved with Golden Acrylic Coarse Pumice Gel (and in one area with Golden's Gold Mica Flake). Smoother wall treatments were painted with Liquitex brand Ceramic Stucco Texture Gel. The effect of thin metal bars across gates were achieved by painting thin lines of Golden Acrylic Extra Heavy Gel. As the "over-painting" will be done primarily with a palette knife - these textural elements in the underpaintings should produce unique effects as the "top colors" are scrapped and layered over them.

The first two paintings in the series of seven were completed by 7/19/09.

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Benjamin Billingsley, painter, art, painting, Wilmington, NC, North Carolina, acrylic, landscape, figure, print, printmaking, Catherine Billingsley, Carl Billingsley, UNCG, CFCC

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Wilmington, NC
ph: 910-200-7579
ben@benjaminbillingsley.com