Beauxpaint News

2009-02-26T06:38:00.000-08:00

My website has moved! Please update your bookmarks to http://www.bryanbeus.com!

Also, the film I directed and produced for Richard Solomon is finally up and running:

2008-11-04T21:28:00.000-08:00

The first is a painting called "Thieves." It's based on the scene from the Nutcracker where Marie gets stolen away to the land of the seven-headed Mouse King.
The second is the cover of 13th Reality 2. You go James! (author)
Also, I had the awesome opportunity of going out the meet artist John Jude Palencar (check out his work at www.johnjudepalencar.com). He's the recipient of the lifetime achievement award from Spectrum. I wrote about it on Richard Solomon's blog - check it out here: A Night in the Life of John Jude Palencar

2008-08-25T08:58:00.001-07:00

Warmup sketch.

2008-08-14T18:37:00.000-07:00

Snape

2008-08-12T08:24:00.000-07:00

Warmup sketch from this morning.

2008-08-07T11:57:00.000-07:00

Studies for a cover I'm working on.

2008-08-05T14:32:00.000-07:00

I was just curious to know what this would look like. I took the "Rutger and Mothball" image from the last book, and tried cutting it up and building a little set. This is totally, cheap, with just printer paper and straws to hold them up. I think if I were ever to use this I would have to get thick paper and balsa wood to build the thing. But, fun anyway.

2008-08-02T13:58:00.000-07:00

Some sketchbook goofs.

2008-07-18T12:15:00.000-07:00

Some figure drawing goofs from this week.

Feeling a little guilty for not posting more often *_*

2008-05-08T11:02:00.000-07:00

The Orphaned Works Bill
Little orphans floating in space...

There is a lot of hoop-la going on around this bill, some of it over-reacting, some of it not.
The biggest issue with this bill is that it provides you with absolutely no advantages to our current state. I've read through it and all I can see that it does is make a window for artwork that has no signature for it to be useable.
The biggest reason not to support this bill: it it does not help you get fair compensation beyond what the law already allows, it opens windows of opportunity for financial loss, and it requires that you spend more time and money to have the same benefits you already enjoy.

Read the very first sentence of the bill, Page 1:

"To provide limitation of provide judicial remedies in copyright cases involving orphaned works."

What this means, is the entire purpose of this bill is to limit how much an artist/photographer/creative can sue for in the event that his work is infringed.

Two versions of the bill:
(I recommend you read this one)
The Senate's Version: http://www.sellyourtvconceptnow.com/orphan/The_Shawn_Bentley_Orphan_Works_Act_of_2008.pdf
The Public Version: http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/F?c110:1:./temp/~c110XeVy6F:e779:

Right now, if you register your pieces with the copyright office and someone finds your work and uses it without permission, you can sue for how much you would have charged to provide that service or how much damage their usage did to your business.
For example, say you are a storyboarder, you have a great scene in mind, you post it on your website in animatic form as part of your demo reel and it gets passed around on the internet. 8 years go by and a company finds it in some forgotten corner of the web, performs a "Reasonable Search," cannot locate you, and decides to put it in their commercial or tv show. You see it and call up and say, 'hey pal, that's my stuff.' Right now, if you are following the copyright guidelines and submitting your work every year ($35 dollars for all of your artwork at once if you use their web forms), then you can sue for infringement for as much as your profits would have been had they contacted you and requested permission:

See : http://www.copyright.gov/title17/92chap5.html#506

Current Law:
(b) Actual Damages and Profits. — The copyright owner is entitled to recover the actual damages suffered by him or her as a result of the infringement, and any profits of the infringer that are attributable to the infringement and are not taken into account in computing the actual damages. In establishing the infringer's profits, the copyright owner is required to present proof only of the infringer's gross revenue, and the infringer is required to prove his or her deductible expenses and the elements of profit attributable to factors other than the copyrighted work.

Under the new law, the infringer would be required to make a "reasonable compensation." Read page 4 of the Senate Article where it clearly defines "Reasonable Compensation."

"(4) REASONABLE COMPENSATION - The term 'reasonable compensation' means...the amount on which a willing buyer and a willing seller in the positions of the infringer and the owner of the infringed copyright would have agreed with respect to the infringing use of the work immediately before the infringement began."

What this states, is that if you and the infringer had agreed to an exchange of copyrights, here's how much it would have been. This takes into account both how much you usually charge for a storyboard sequence, but also how much the buyer usually pays. If it's a high paying buyer that has taken your work - great, no problem. But if it's a low paying buyer - well, you're in for a loss. (And chances are it's the low-paying buyers that you have to worry about).

The second biggest reason not to support this bill is that it means more time and money spent registering your work, and less time drawing. If this bill passes, it means that you will have to register all of your work with a private copyright registry or risk having your work infringed. Read page 14 and 15 of the Senate Version of the Bill. It does not provide any additional protections for you, it only asks that you complete more work. You would, theoretically, also have to pay to do this work as well.
I think an overall way to keep track of stuff on the internet is a great idea - some kind of way of keeping track of whose stuff is whose. However, that is not the purpose of this bill. The bill is meant to limit our compensation, not provide a fair means for tracking visual content over the internet.

The third biggest reason not to support this is that it means less work for you. If companies can perform a "reasonable search" on art that is potentially free and have a maximum penalty of whatever they would normally pay under "reasonable circumstances," they're not going to pay you your normal rates to create something new.

Be wary as well of the organizations that are claiming "Neutral Positions," like the Graphic Artists Guild (http://www.gag.org/), though they may have good intentions...I don't know...I do suspect that they will be the ones to make money in the future off of you as a private registry.

You can see these two websites that present the opposing view points.
Hope this has been helpful.

http://maradydd.livejournal.com/374886.html
http://www.sellyourtvconceptnow.com/orphan.html

Bryan

2008-04-10T21:15:00.000-07:00

subway sketch

need a new scanner

2008-04-05T20:24:00.001-07:00

Sketches during conference -

2008-04-04T21:22:00.000-07:00

The Society of Illustrators 2008 Annual Opening and 50th Anniversary.
Directed by yours truly.

2008-04-01T09:58:00.000-07:00

A sketch done not without a purpose. "The Growing Apprentice."

2008-03-19T15:00:00.000-07:00

Here's the YouTube video I created for Richard.

2008-03-16T20:43:00.000-07:00

This Saturday, a giant crane smashed the studio of the artists rep I work with (Richard Solomon Artists Representative). (Image copyright Cheng Lee - New York Times) The crane, by a comapny called New York Cranes, was breaking several safety rules, and carrying a heavy load when the carrying-cord snapped. The load fell through one of the crane support beams, causing the crane to lose stability, and fall from its perch. When the crane crashed into a building on 51st street, the top of the crane sheared off and was flung like a fishing pole into our building, crushing it completely. The crane now sits where I sit when I go in to assist Richard: 305 East 50th Street New York NY. Greg Manchess and I went down to see the remains of our office that night.

I feel very sorry for all the people that were wounded and killed in the accident. Several of the people who run the fubar below us and a woman that works above us are still missing. We feel very fortunate that no one from Richard's company was in the building when it was destroyed.
Before knowing anyone died, my first reaction was to laugh. I mean, it just sounded so cartoony! Whoever heard of a crane smashing through your studio. I pictured this circular, bowling ball hole with people looking out and a horizontal line running up to the top of the buidling. I, luckily, was out plein aire painting at the time. When Gregory Manchess, one of the artists Richard reps, called and asked where I was, I told him I was in a cemetery. Kind of ironic.
Thank you too, Brad, for checking on me.
We're meeting tomorrow to talk about what to do next. Everyone is o.k., and we're going to just act like professionals. We have no reason to slow down in our work, and luckily no reason to grieve, save the loss of the irreplaceable original art, and all the tasty food in the fridge.

2008-03-09T13:16:00.000-07:00

Just a nude figure drawing. Drawn at Minerva Durham's Spring Studio - Soho.
I'm using Graham Watercolors, Prisma Watercolor Pencils, Snapscan scanner, a Mac OSX computer, Corel Painter IX, Wacom 5X7 Tablet with a standard pen, and Photoshop CS2.

This weekend I hope to get a lot of stuff laid out. I'm hoping to have lots of updates soon.
On a side note, two of my pieces were juried into the Society of Illustrators Annual Student Show this year. That ends my days of competing as a student- unless I go back to being a student someday:) The pieces were The Jubjub Bird, and The Magician. They're in the gallery; I won't post them here because of redundancy.

2007-12-30T22:26:00.000-08:00

As of now I'm working on a project that has been brewing in the brain for quite sometime. I promised a preview this month. Though it really is too soon to show anything, I did let this early sketch - from November - loose.

2007-11-22T01:44:00.000-08:00

The 13th Reality

2007-10-05T05:59:00.000-07:00

Miss Utah 2007

http://www.beauxpaint.com/nondisplay
http://www.beauxpaint.com/nondisplay/print1.doc
http://www.beauxpaint.com/nondisplay/print.pdf
link

2007-08-30T20:39:00.000-07:00

This summer, as I walked around New York, I filled up a few sketchbooks and a few drawing pads. Here are a few of my favorites.

All 1-10 min. gestures
(Warning, this part contains drawings from live, nude models. If this offends you, please scroll down past this part.)

Waiting in line for Harry Potter 7.

I was really lucky - I got to go to the Jim Dale party at Union Square. The coolest thing was to be with all those people ecstatic about Harry Potter. Even the girls were crying like girls used to at The Beatles concerts.

I didn't have money for a costume, so I went as a wizard in muggle-disguise.

However, there were several who put a more concerned effort into the event. This kid here could play the part of Severus Snape better than Snape could.

And the highlight as far as effort goes definitely belongs to the Thestral. This costume was brilliant. S/he would sneak up behind people and walk along with its head right next to their 'till they turned around and jumped.

Then I got to meet Marshall Arisman (left). He's one of the great, artistic thinkers of our day, and his words of advice were very memorable for me.

I spent a lot of time going to every museum and drawing all that I could. I couldn't say which museum was my favorite, they were all too great.

These sculptures look simple, but they're so huge and perfectly curved that you can't help but be affected as you walk around them.

And this is an organic interior design. There's even a bed/chair on the side of the wall - not shown here.

Things wrapped up at Richard's. What a treat it was to have the famous illustrator, Gregory Manchess, come on the last day. We all had lunch, and Greg was kind enough to draw in my sketchbook. I'm saving this for my grandchildren, Greg.

Feeling goofy.

And then off to LA for the Writers and Illustrators of the Future Workshop week. The highlight of the week was meeting all these other aspiring writers and illustrators, and feeling their zen:)

Doodling during demos.

And, last but not least, spending time with Stephen Hickman, renowned science-fiction illustrator, was one of the other "best experiences."

Now, it's on to the real world! I'm working on quite a few projects, most are commercial, but a few are personal. I'll be putting out a preview for my personal project at the end of the year. Hopefully between then and now I'll put a few more updates on here. If you've made it all the way to the end - email me this secret word, "snooget," and I'll send you a prize.

2007-06-28T21:01:00.001-07:00

I want to do an illustration of me graduating, but I don't see it happening soon.
This summer I'm illustrating in New York. I'm doing some work for a bunch of people, and interning with Richard Solomon. Most of the work I do won't be posted here.

A small book interior I did. Line work would be kind of fun. Spreading out my portfolio too much though.

2007-04-30T09:15:00.000-07:00

Opens this week.

2007-04-17T11:30:00.000-07:00

Not from the show:)

Just a life drawing. I didn't have any extra canvas to do a life study in class, so I just pulled out the wacom.

2007-04-14T23:27:00.000-07:00

The magician, from the upcoming show. Thus far, there will be 30 paintings, a lot of which you can only see at the show for disclosures agreements. I'm hoping that after I finish the 30th (it's in oil! - a first for me) that I'll have time to do 2 more. If you're reading this, try and come! It will be great. BYU • HFAC • May 2nd • 7:00
Also today, I'm celebrating 25,000 hits and 10,000 unique user visits! Thanks to all who have visited. Feel free to email me and tell me what you think and tell me where your websites are.