February 12 2010 from 6-9pm it all pops off over at Band Vibes space in the Greenwood Collective…that’s right my long awaited character series Hobo Eaters: Agents of Chaos. The show is a collection of my coveted hobo characters that maniacally made their way into Seattle’s streets and the hearts of our NW culture. The collection consists of original pieces that are hand inked and painted with wood stain on various wood panels in a variety of sizes. Besides the originals there will also be limited edition prints, jumbo posters, and a line of limited edition tees that all reflect these grungy agents of chaos. I will be giving away a free print and a free tee randomly to those who sign up at the Band Vibes space. Come join me for a night of bad-ass art and mayhem…It’s gonna be an epic event of diabolical debauchery full of twisted 50’s animated style hobos!

Hobo Eaters Flyer

Artist statement (dirt on the show):

Hobo Eaters: Agents of Chaos

The term hobo-eater refers to an entity who, through ritual means, would take on by means garbage and liquor the sins of a deceased bum, thus absolving his or her soul and allowing that person of the street to rest in peace.

What was once a ritual performed by beggars and vagabonds in certain villages of bygone years is now performed in a reverse of roles by animated entities who take on the form of the hobo whose diabolical lifestyle is reflected upon the appearance of the hobo-eater. The hobo-eater would be brought to the dying vagrant’s curbside or stoop, where a neighborhood drifter would place a crust of dumpster pizza on the chest of the dying and pass a 40 oz. of malt liquor to him over the corpse. After reciting the ritual, he would then drink and remove the crust from the derelict tramp and eat it, the act of which would remove the sins and deadbeat-scars from the dying transient and take it into himself.

Often times hobo-eaters are not only filled with the sins and scars of the deceased but take on a ghostly appearance, ragged with the lines of deceit and chemical abuse of the former vessel. The result is a vaporous apparition whose tattered clothes and grungy attitude is forever portrayed among the urban environment. Thus the ethereal term Agents of Chaos has come as a contemporary descriptor for these aeon old hobo-eaters who are destined to drift the streets perpetually consuming fiendish souls.

Hobo Eaters 2010 Poster

Below are a few of the Hobo Eaters character pieces that are included in the show:

Vapor Trails:

Vapor Trails Ink & Wood Stain

Vapor Trails Detail

Vapor Trails / Bummin & Runnin

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I find it important to share with you a bit of my process when it comes to putting together a themed gallery show and how I translate my original concepts into original pieces of fine artwork as well as refining them into digital graphic outputs for prints, tee shirts, and other printed products. As I put together my Hobo Eaters: Agents of Chaos show for February 2010 I was able to document the process and can now shed light on the toil of time, blood, sweat, and joy that goes into each character design.

For the intro to my process I am going to breakdown how I created Cascade Vagabond which was one of the first characters created from the theme. Cascade Vagabond not only was created as an original piece of art but also ended up as the winter 2009 shop deck for Snowboard Connection.

All designs begin with a light pencil sketch to define the linework that will eventually be the parameters for inking and coloring digitally:

Beery Method : Hobo Eaters

Sketch

After a sketch that defines the characters details I move on to hank inking the characters with Pigma Micron pens on vellum:

Inked

Here is a side by side view:

Inked Detail

After inking I scan the image and vectorize it in Adobe Illustrator. Once all the character is vectorized I move on to adding colors and gradients:

Cascade Vagabond Digital Version

Below is the final image put to product. In this case it is a pro line skateboard. See the blog archive for more close up details:

Cascade Vagabond Skateboard

Here is a breakdown of how I created Rubix Dude who is another character from the Hobo Eaters series:

Sketch / Ink / Original

Sketch / Ink / Original

Here are some close up shots of the materials and process:

Blue Line Sketch

Inked Drawing on Vellum

Ink & Wood Stain

The original piece was done utilizing the sketch by projecting on wood, tracing, hand inking with brush, and painting with wood stain and finish:

Rubix Dude: Ink & Wood Stain

Details

The fact that the above piece is hand inked makes it the “original” and one and only. I can create variations on this design by utilizing the sketch and inked drawing, but every new edition will be different. No one version is alike since I ink by hand using brush and pen. Some versions sit on finished wood, while others are absorbed directly into the grain of the wood piece.

Below is the digital version with added hues, gradients, and tones that make it very different from the original:

Rubix Dude Digital Version

Last but not least I printed up limited edition tees of Rubix Dude by printing transparencies from the vector output and screen printing to garments:

Rubix Dude Tee Shirts

I still have a few of these limited edition tee shirts available. Printed on silver AA fashion fit tees. Please contact me if interested in purchasing!

To continue this thread the following will be most of the characters from the Hobo Eaters: Agents of Chaos series. As to not be redundant I am simply posting the details of the sketches, inked versions, originals on wood, digital versions, and any products created with the designs. Enjoy!

The Shambler:

Sketch

Inked

Sketch / Inked / Original

Sketch Detail

Inked Detail

Original Detail

The Shambler Original

45 Mack:

Sketch / Inked

Inked Detail I

Inked Detail II

Original Detail I

Original Detail II

45 Mack Original

45 Mack Digital Version

Blood Life:

Sketch

Inking

Blue Line & Ink on Vellum I

Blue Line & Ink on Vellum II

Unfinished Inking Detail

Ink Detail II

Blood Life Digital Version

Coded:

Sketch & Ink

Sketch Detail

Ink Detail I

Ink Detail II

Coded Digital Version

Ol Timer:

Ink Beginnings on Wood

Final Inks on Wood

Ol Timer Tee

Ol Timer Digital Version

Rocket Rocker:

This design actually started in reverse. I did a digital rendering in Corel Painter which I then vectorized in Adobe Illustrator and added halftones. This design was eventually picked up by a Seattle skateboard company Nomadic.

Rocket Rocker Ink on Wood

Rocket Rocker Skateboard

Bummin & Runnin:

This design started as a pencil rendering which I then scanned and added a couple layers of highlights and midtones. It was originally created for soft goods production and ended up on tee shirts which are available from Portland OR based Tilteed.

Bum & Run Original

Bum & Run Detail I

Bum & Run Detail II

Bum & Run Detail III

Bum & Run Ink & Wood Stain

Bummin & Runnin Digital Version

Bum & Run Tee Shirts

As this post has become lengthy with photos of my process from concept to finals and even products I am going to put the rest of this series of characters in the following post regarding the Hobo Eaters show and series…

Beery Method Design Studio

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I had a great experience being an artist for February’s 2010 Artifakt – A Valentine/Anti-Valentine themed event that took place at LoFi Seattle the weekend of Valentine’s Day. This salon style event was a mega-bash of super sweet works in a variety of media that spanned the theme of love and well love/hate. Myself along with other local greats Chani Murat, Dear Earthling, iamintricate, Grym, BurnOne, Dave Bloomfield, Keger, Rob Ripley, and Crystal Barbre hung our “hearts” masterpieces. The evening kicked out a huge crowd who also showed up for musical mayhem from Lost Boys vs. HitGirl! (Sean Majors & Marty Mar vs. Miss Funk & Mixtress) http://www.hitgirl.net/, Bryan J. Furious vs. Venus, and Goner vs. B.Fly.

Artifakt - Valentine's themed art and music event.

The piece I chose to do for the show was an amalgamation of media. As I love to get tight with a lot of my illustrative style works the process is a daunting one that involves laying down a full rendering in graphite, inking with some sienna india inks, oil paint washes, and then redefining through the use of sharp color pencils to inflict contrast. The result is an eye-pleasing, three dimensional look that is nothing short of extremely unique.

Fragment Heart

This particular piece titled Fragment Heart was my take on the effect of broken hearts and how one copes with the trials and tribulations of love. It involves a sexy, medusa-like, animaesque-shiva female who holds the radiating pillowy heart which is the icon of love. She grips it close to her chest with snakes writhing from her hair and a look of dispair. Precariously gripped in her hand is a needle which is on the hinge of poking the “Valentine” to blow up the love that once was. It is also a sort of play on voo-doo and what a jilted lover might choose to do when love has gone wrong. She sits on a sinewy blanket of folds that creatively spell L-O-V-E. She is no longer taking what love has to offer…time to move on…time to put love in it’s place…time for revenge!

Here is a breakdown of the creative process:

Graphite Layer

Beginning with a sketch I build upon the image rendering it with graphite pencils to create contrast and depth.

Ink Layer

After fully rendering the piece in graphite (which looks black and white) a thin layer of clear acrylic spray is applied. Once dry, a mid-tone layer of ink is applied to accentuate details in the drawing.

Oil Rub Layer

After ink dries, another thin layer of clear acrylic spray is applied. Next, oil paint is rubbed into the surface of the image. Highlights are pulled out of this layer by means of eraser to create form through contrast and layered depth.

Color Pencil Layer

The tone is now set into the piece with the hue of the first layer of oils. After another layer of clear spray another hue of oils is added. In this case the piece turns from a ochre/sienna hue to a warmer red/rose. Erasing is repeated to create more depth between tones throughout the piece.

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Bringing holiday cheer to all that come out to the Greenwood Collective is a simple pleasure. Kevin Law, owner of Urban Light Studios/Gallery, invited myself along with 11 other fantastic local Seattle artists back to the gallery to display some of our best work with some special holiday sale pricing. This gallery is an amazing space that’s especial stripped aesthetic look really adds to the urban compliment of the work chosen for display. Kevin and Julie are wonderful promoters and the Greenwood Collective building is a radical space to say the least.

One Year Anniversary Show at Urban Light Studios

Located on the bottom floor you will find all the artist niches, studios, and workspace/galleries that are divided up nicely among the resident artisans and creatives. The first floor is divided into themed rooms that are clever and invoke a great sense of wonderment and surprise as you travel from one space to the next. The upper rooms include a tiki bar theme complete with a life-size stuffed lion, an extremely ornate oriental tea room with hand carved furniture, and even a log cabin room that was once the set from Northern Exposure. The rest of the first floor are common areas for the artists and visitors to congregate and visit, have refreshments, and soak in the opulence of eccentric novelty.

It is a real enjoyment to be a part of this “come-back” show and give special pricing for the holiday shopping art lovers. All the artists and spaces are deeply trenched in the Pacific Northwest Style of unique decadence. If your in Seattle this week come out to the Greenwood Collective, enjoy some fine wine, and snag some original paintings by Beery Method to gift or adorn your own modern space!

Apocalyptician

Maelstrom Harts

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New works for sale for this holiday season at the Greenwood Collective. Myself along with fellow Seattle artists will be dishing out a huge dose of aesthetic goodness. Stop by this salon exhibit and pick up some rad gifts for your moms, pops, cuz, kids, or simply something sweet for yourself. All work is priced for the gifting season. The Beery Method will have some great new wood-media pieces that explore some crazy characters done in ink, wood stain, wood burning, and screen printing.

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Beginning the month of December in a fitting way I am part of a group show at the Flatcolor Gallery which is themed on artist’s interpretation of the coming year 2010. This show is a smattering of killer artists from the Pacific NW and down the West Coast. To say the least it is gonna be a hell of a show that is provocative in the nature of what is to come in the soon to be turn of a decade.

My piece for the show is a character based oil painting titled “Rubix Dude”. The dude is my communal ode to our ubiquitous nature of being creatures of habit. 2010 will be a year filled once again with our habits, rituals, comforts, and supreme piety of being. The idea that no matter what the future holds we will all still be in the throws of our daily routines and perpetually playing the “game” of life is one that is consistent in conserving our balance within an utterly chaotic world of perpetual change. We are here as ghosts already sitting in a wasteland of habits, consolation, and maintaining our virtues as individuals in a very congealed world of mass ideas and invocations. Our connections to the ethereal plane of subconsciousness is uprooted by our lackadaisical distractions brought about by technology and collective social destruction.  “Tempest Rituals of Virtuous Decadence”…reads the stars.

Rubix Dude

The exhibition will run from December 3rd, 2009 through January 2nd 2010. Head down to Pioneer Square / Downtown Seattle to see this amazing exhibition.

TWOTHOUSANDTEN

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During my show at Snowboard Connection / Pioneer Square, Downtown Seattle, I gave away some free goodies. In conjunction with Defiant we gave away a free Defiant skateboard, Logo tee, and one of my lovely limited edition prints. When I do shows with the skate shops and retailers I like to get everyone involved in one way or another. This includes the customers, staff, and artists as well. 3 lucky winners who signed into my fanbook walked away with these goodies. Unfortunately I couldn’t leave my nice digital behind so the pictures are super grainy do to the roll of film coming from a disposable. Congrats to Zoe, Jason, and Joseph!

Zoe chose my classic Hendrix portrait print!

Lucky winner of the Defiant Phoenix skateboard!

Joe got all decked out for this pic!

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I had an absolute blast doing my artist interview with Denise Dougherty of GirlOnAMission TV. She caught me at my show at Urban Light Studios in the Greenwood Collective at the end of September. My show AGENTS OF DAWN was still up which was a review of my past illustrative work as well as some current paintings. She had some nice ice breakers and then we got into the nitty-gritty of my views on the visual arts arena, the economy, politics, and my processes. The show aired on SCANTV here in Seattle last weekend. Once I get an archive of the full 30 minute segment I will repost and update so you can catch the entire interview. Here is a sample from the original show.
 

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It was extremely fun putting together this show for Urban Light Studio. Kevin Law and his wife Julie were an amazing help and the space was the perfect compliment for the semi-grittiness that is inherent in my oil work. The gallery was filled through the night with a great mix of art enthusiasts and urban night-lifers who came out to partake in the social-art environment. The other spaces in the Greenwood Collective were also filled with an eclectic mix of works from various local Seattle artists. It was a “Bad-ass” event to say the least.

Original Artist’s Statement:

AGENTS OF DAWN

This particular series deals with alternate pasts, unforeseen futures, depravity of humanity,
mechanical objects, foreign landscapes, and the sequestration of progressive human intentions.
We live in a world bound by connectivity which is almost always fortified through invention and
technology. Evolution and our process of sensing our surroundings is merely incubated in all
catalysts of technical development. Although our mind-shape is expanding through vibrations of
cause and effect, science, as well as the cosmic, macro and micro we are experiencing our
surroundings numbified by our constant installment of so called technological advancements.
Through time and space we transcend in our intuitive and delicate nature via the hub of
conciousness that is today. Planets, virtual epochs, archaic meditations, and dubious psuedomutations
all align to create tones of irreal but nonetheless naturalistic strands of reality. Our
pragmatic interventions on unrefined countenance brings our blindsighted shortcomings straight
into parallel with the toxic and perforated multi-verse that is expanding all around us at every
moment. Here today, gone tomorrow, but imprinted on the veiny pulp of existence.
There is an end to every beginning. Domiciles of lost tribes protrude through the terrain like
insentient megaliths constructed by a wavering society of unholy and illegitimate union. The sky
turns tepid and cracks to reveal the displacement of our sins. Ageless is the world we live in.
Passive is the response of immortality. Time to let the stained hovels of our currency become
one with post-apocalyptic aeons and return to the sand and dust from which our mineralized
bodies came. Fashion the tourniquet of falsehood and let our prophets vapor.
Octopoid locust sapping life of a quasi-autonomous golem. The android of industrial youth now
a cold, rusting fixture of placid galactic ambiance. We came to seek. They came to assist. The
long hard journey is behind us. The past is repeated. Rescuing our master was no easy task.
Beyond all hope is adrift. The orb like chitonous shell contains the fragments of a fossil that can
only have come from the ethereal borders of time. All is dry and grows dark in a sea of
cantankarous bile. The ship has landed and no one is on it. The odyssey ends.
A product of retro-contemporary passage through the enigmatic, capacious, piousness of man…
N. Beery

Photos of the arrangement and space prior to the opening:

Death Retires / Dredge / Black & Blue / Apocalyptician

Tapping into the nether worlds and parallel dimensions through the culmination of time, ageless
forms, and beguiled minstrals this show of work percolates the tingling sixth sense . Vividly
surreal landscapes, twisted characters, and dripping textures coalesce to create a wild
integration of soul and strange beauty which invites all viewers to consume and envelope a
host of visual suggestions that break through the ego-shell of humanity.
This particular series deals with alternate pasts, unforeseen futures, depravity of humanity,
mechanical objects, foreign landscapes, and the sequestration of progressive human intentions.

Autonomous Ordinance / Maelstrom Harts / Cosmic Orb

Passion.Heart.Deliverance (Triptych) / Smokin Soul / Tentacular Slumber

The rawness of this historic building was the perfect backdrop for the show.

This show was a smattering of past and new works. The oil paintings and illustrations chosen worked beautifully together. We had a great time hanging these pieces. The illustration walls focus was enhanced through the 45 degree angle at which the pieces were hung and cast a nice drop shadow from the direct overhead lights. It really made the work “pop”!

Here is my statement regarding the process involved for the illustration works:

The Illustrious Illustration

A moment to reflect on the martyrs, the blind beings, the bastards, and the omnifarious intellect…
Portraits of passion and reverence come into light particularly when the passing of a trend, a
jet-setter, a conscientious objector, or a so-called role model is eliminated from the mainstream.
Documenting the indelible qualities of such idiosyncratic individuals is necessary to properly file
and tuck away cherished memories, mysteries, and legends. Time is the essential factor on all
sides of any one life. Whether the spark burns fast and hot or whether the flame resides eternal
is only a matter of the muted dust settling after the ash has blown over.
The illustrations you see before you are originals from the holy-banded library of Nick Beery. To
better serve the question of “how was that achieved?” here is a breakdown of the process and
media which is so required of the artist to produce an aged aesthetic and visual mystique :
It all begins with the board. A cold press illustration board is the “blank canvas” which becomes
the richly colorful image before you. Once a board is selected and the subject matter is identified
Nick moves on to picking up the cornerstone of all artist’s repertoir, a pencil.
Graphite takes it’s place and an under-drawing is rendered to the board. After a few coats of a
spray fixative to hold down the graphite a base color is selected. A typical base hue selection
Nick uses is a natural burnt sienna tone. A layer of oil paint with the said pigment is rubbed into
the precious graphite drawing and board leaving an even mid-tone coating which resides just
on top of the original rendering.
Upon rubbing in and wiping excess oil from the surface the next step is to define the highlights
that give form to an otherwise two-dimensional sketch. A strategic blending and lifting of the oils
then ensues with the use of a kneaded eraser. The face now begins to show volume and life.
After pulling out all the highlights and allowing the paint to dry the final measure is to redefine the
drawing and form by reinforcing the contrast and adding color. Shadows are burned with dark,
organic hues while crisp highlights are redeemed and softened through the touch of a pencil.
Full color palettes reinvigorate the image giving vitality to anatomy and focusing in on intricate
details. Finishing touches may include the use of acrylics , gouche, or watercolors to add smoky
effects or smooth finish. The end result is a grainy texture that gives a vintage look to the work.

Dolomite / Triclops / Tears I / Tears II / Busta / Roach Beauty

Dolomite / Triclops

Tears I / Tears II

Busta / Roach Beauty

The grand view will suck you in!

Kevin Law (studio owner) and Nick Beery (BeeryMethod)

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Gearing up for my first solo show with UrbanLightStudios has been a blast. It is a review and collection of some of my past illustration works, design, as well as some new paintings just for this opening. Illustrations include “dead musician” portraits and fantasy imagery. The selected paintings are a cohesive blend of my surreal dreamscape pieces as well as some of my mechanical animal works. I will be at the opening on Friday to talk to all the art enthusiasts, explain process, drink wine, and chat about the culture.

The event corresponds with the Greenwood Phinney monthly Art Walk and is housed in The Greenwood Collective, which is an outstanding building of artist studios and galleries. The opening takes place from 6pm-9pm on Friday, September 11. Just walk in and follow the steps down to UrbanLightStudios Gallery where you will find my treasured paintings, original illustrations, and limited edition prints. I will be posting more after the opening including photos and a rambling of the event.

Agents of Dawn

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