A Personal Overview and History by Ben Heighton
I got into drawing at a fairly early age but didn’t become extremely interested in art until around seventh grade. I began drawing much more often than I had done before. It was mostly abstract designs, inspired by my older brother’s drawings. I followed this path for a short time and learning the basics of various forms of art throughout middle school and high school. These included various forms of drawing techniques and styles. I was particularly good with stippling. I also learned about printing techniques, photography, sculpting, drafting and even sewing techniques and design. I also took various courses focusing on art history as well as creative thinking. Also during this time, I was experimenting with digital photo manipulation, which became my main focus after high school. I still drew to some extent at this time but began to use the computer more and more for creation and all but abandon my drawing skills. About a year after high school ended I began a course at ITT, we focused on some graphics and 3D design, but also included programming skills, web and user interface design, 3D animation and video editing. After this, I continued to learn more about digital photo manipulation, design, and art on my own when I could. My professional work hadn’t required any art skills up to this time, but I did begin doing freelance event flyer and advertising design, which I still do today.
Several years later I got a job as screen press operator for about a year and learned quite a bit about screen printing. I dealt mostly with t-shirts and sweaters but also other types of fabric. I then began a job as an offset press operator. Upon beginning this job I had a single day crash course in how to operate the machine and on the second day was able to operate it on my own without difficulty. At this time I was using single colors, printing only envelopes. I later learned to run a similar offset press, using two colors. I also learned how to mix inks using PMS color references. After this I began another job as an offset press operator but now using negative working plates. Here I learned to print business cards, letterhead, custom envelopes and event invitations. I also gained much more experience with color and ink mixing. This was due to some jobs needing to be color matched rather than having a specific color indicated. I learned a lot of techniques doing this and this also helped me to become a better designer. I became more adept at knowing what something on a computer screen would look like on a piece of paper. During this time I also learned a lot about typesetting and logo design, this also attributed much to my design skills.
After this job I was unemployed for nine months, unable to find work in the printing or design industries. I eventually found work doing receiving and inventory control but during this gap in my employment I used this time to again focus on my graphic arts techniques. They become increasingly more complicated and I was more adept and creating what I wanted. Much of this was art design of an abstract and chaotic nature, often times directly inspired by music. Although, I also made some attempts at creating realism using vector techniques. During the last few years though I created less and less, letting my skills become outdated. But upon leaving this last job, I have been practicing and relearning techniques and trying to create new creations but am quickly finding that my lack of real drawing technique has left me at a disadvantage but at the same time became the perfect opportunity to learn these techniques.
I chose my major of Visual Art & Design with an emphasis on Design because I feel the courses will teach me more about the specific concepts I’ve studied and implemented in the past. I am not sure what direction I will chose as school ends and life moves on. I am interested in many types of design but I feel that I will most likely take a direction that allows me to create t-shirt designs and even print them myself. Something I have wanted to do for a very long time. My art has also been connected to music for a long time and I will probably maintain that connection, creating event fliers or album artwork and other forms of promotional design. I believe that drawing well is essential in achieving these goals. What I intend to accomplish in this class is having a better understanding of how to create proportionately correct drawings and better techniques for recreating what I see. Although my focus in the future will still be digital design, these techniques will be invaluable in learning how to create vector images and even other types of digital manipulation. Knowing how to draw well, with my hands, will also provide me with powerful tools and skills for creating the artwork that I would like to be creating.
