The Art of Butch Belair

I am a freelance Photographer and CG artist. I started keeping a Moleskine sketchbook in 2005. My mother passed away and I was in a pretty bad place mentally. A friend of mine, Tommy Kane, (also an avid Moleskine guy and frequent FLICKR poster) had been burning through numerous Moleskines and suggested it as a form of relaxation. I had been using the small reporter notebooks for some time, simply to keep track of phone numbers or appointments and had always loved the quality and sturdy elegance of the books. Kane also introduced me to Danny Gregory ( of Everyday Matters fame ) so, initially I tried to do the "what’s going on in my life" daily journal. I found myself spending far too much time trying to figure out what to write and eventually gravitated towards what I enjoyed most, just drawing.

Now, anytime there is a free moment, I just get in my car and drive. Once I find a place that catches my eye, I spend as much time as I can recording the place. It is my form of meditation and has become an integral part of my life. I can’t say that it relates directly to what I do for a living, but I know the time spent purely observing and the feeling of relaxation I have while doing it, keeps my mind fresh, sharp and relatively sane.

I started out drawing directly with a Pitt pen. The challenge for me was to keep from laying things out in pencil first. I would try to render complicated scenes, keeping the layers of detail in my head so that the lines of background elements didn’t cross those in the foreground, etc.  The cleaner I kept the layers, the more satisfied I was at the end of the day. If too many elements crossed, I would force myself to do another drawing.

Lately, I have been teaching myself to paint with watercolors. Watercolor is a medium I find as frustrating as it is rewarding. The initial observation and organization I tried to cultivate in my line drawings is even more important now.  I have a small travel palette with selected half pans and two or three brushes (nothing special), and I paint in the 5×8 watercolor books.  I am by no means an expert, but I love the paper and the book has become a bit of a fetish item. The book itself makes me want to paint.  My progress is slow, but to me that just means the process is one worthy of the effort.

B. Belair

View his works on FLICKR
Visit butchbelair.com