Ben Heine Art and Music Blog: Technology

Pencil Vs Camera blurs line between reality and whimsy

Ben Heine is a magician. Like David Blaine and Criss Angel before him, he has a special talent for blurring the line between reality and fiction. But instead of utilizing sleight of hand or his indomitable will to delight his audience, Heine keeps it simple by using just a pencil and camera to create his illusions.

Heine’s incredible art series Pencil Vs Camera combines gorgeous landscapes and city scenes with hand-sketched drawings. The otherworldly images that result are both whimsical and intriguing, with a bit of mind-bending magic thrown in for perspective.

“I always try to express what I’m feeling,” Heine told Cult of Mac, noting that most of his inspiration for drawings come “mainly from people around me — friends, family, even strangers — and from every experience I live.”

The 30-year-old artist creates most of his works at his studio in Belgium, using charcoal sticks and graphite pencils to lay the foundational work before going out to snap a picture — though most of the time he has to do some edits to line up shots in post-production.

Burning koalas, horny bunny rabbits and even bland subway stations have fueled the imagination of this Ivory Coast-born artist.

“I’m always trying to find a nice location,” Heine said. “Then if there is a great subject — for instance a funny animal or human doing something unusual — this is nice, but it is not always needed because the drawing will bring a special, original and creative touch most of the time.”

Pencil Vs Camera isn’t Heine’s only popular series: His Digital Circlism project caught our eye two years ago, thanks to this creepy portrait of Steve Jobs. But Heine says the Pencil vs Camera series stretched him as an artist by getting him to learn new ways to enhance his art.

The 3-D drawings, in particular, weren’t the easiest to master. “I had to change the way I’m working,” Heine said. “I had to learn new tools to create the 3-D effects.”

He created more than 70 images during a three-year period for the series, with the final and most challenging pieces swapping photos for huge swaths of canvas drawings to create optical illusions that seem to place the artist inside his anamorphic drawings.

For now, Heine says he’s done with the pencil sketches, but he’s already hard at work on a new project that’s different from anything he’s done before — music.

“I let my inspiration talk and I don’t ask myself too many questions,” Heine said. “Simple ideas and messages are always the best ones.”

Read more at http://www.cultofmac.com. The above article was written by Buster Hein for Cult of Mac.

Creative Challenge in Lisbon

With a friendly funicular near Bairro Alto

Breathtaking seaside view

I travelled to Lisbon a few days ago for the launch of the new Samsung phone and tablet in Portugal. Samsung Portugal invited me to use the new “Galaxy Note 10.1” (tablet) and the “Galaxy Note II” (smartphone) to see how it is possible to be creative, to draw and take photos with these new digital devices. The mini documentary here below will give you an idea of the interaction I had with the tablet, the smartphone and the beautiful city of Lisbon, the film was made by Dub Video Connection via Desafio Global Ativism, there will be a long version soon.

Video: Samsung Portugal - Desafio Global - Dub video Connection - Director: Sandro Aguilar

Basically, I made photo-drawings (Pencil Vs Camera) like I usually do but instead of using pencils, pieces of paper and a reflex camera, I used the 10.1 tablet as a drawing surface area, the magnetic S-pen as a tool to draw and the powerful integrated camera of the Galaxy phone to capture the final results...

Sketch in progress in a nice restaurant in Alfama, Lisbon

That was an astonishing, exciting and challenging experience for me because it was the first time I was working with this technology. To be completely honest, it was a total improvisation, I only had a few hours to learn all the specific applications and the tools I had to use for this experience (mainly the S-Note and Photoshop Touch applications).

Sketch in progress in a street of Lisbon

Amazing moment in Alfama

I had to do the sketches very quickly (less than one hour per image, while I usually spend several days of work on every single project I do!). Another difficulty was that I didn't use any references, it was a complete freestyle adventure in a new environment as well. This said, I was very pleased and impressed by how fast it was to learn all the creative tools available on the tablet and phone, mainly because these devices offer a friendly, welcoming and intuitive interface.

Sketch in progress at Praça dos Restauradores

Galaxy Note 10.1 (Tablet)

One of the particularly new features I really liked in the tablet was the Multiscreen function, it allows several applications to work side-by-side, having several windows opened in the same screen. I could easily switch from one application to another.

Galaxy Note II (Phone)

All in all, the “Galaxy Note 10.1” and the “Galaxy Note II” are mind-blowing instruments to increase artists' skills and productivity. I might work more with them in the future.

Find here below some of the improvised experimental photo-drawings I made and some other pictures of my friends there and the beautiful environment I was working in and finally a brief report of the Samsung launching conference that happened at the end of my trip (the 3rd of October 2012) at Pavilhão Atlântico.

Lisbon is super famous for its beautiful and old fashioned yellow trams. The best way to discover Lisbon is by tram. They rumble up and down through the alleyways of the city. Streets and curves are sometimes so narrow that the line becomes a single-way track! I had already made a Pencil Vs Camera image, published in March 2010, showing the legendary and famous Carreira 28 Tram (see below), This time, I quickly drew a new version of it in colors, taking off, ready to fly towards new dreams and horizons...

Flying tram, 40 minutes sketch on the Note 10.1 - Photo taken with the new Galaxy phone

Pencil Vs Camera - 4, Lisbon, March 2012

Walking with my friends in the streets of Alfama, the oldest district of Lisbon, I noticed a lovely outdoor restaurant offering all kinds of delicious dishes with sardines ("sardinhas" in Portuguese, people in Lisbon love them!). We had lunch there. While waiting for the food, I made the following sketch quickly...

Sardines invasion, 40 min sketch on Note 10.1 - Photo taken with the new Galaxy phone

I stayed in a great hotel called Gat Rossio - Gatrooms located between Rossio Square and Praça dos Restauradores. As you can see here below, it's a trendy, colorful and well decorated place.

Discovering the Note 10.1 for the first time at Gat Rossio - Gatrooms

In company of Soraia Mourinho, Marketing Manager of Gat Rossio - Gatrooms

With my great host Gonçalo Oliveira
(from Desafio Global) at Gatrooms

Gatrooms is full of funny spaces like this wooden balcony where I spent some time with my host Gonçalo Oliveira.

Praça dos Restauradores is a well known landmark in Lisbon dedicated to the restoration of the independence of Portugal in 1640, after 60 years of Spanish domination. The obelisk in the middle of the square, inaugurated in 1886, carries the names and dates of the battles fought during the Portuguese Restoration War, in 1640.

The Monument to the Restorers is located in the center of the square. One morning during my trip, I had the simple idea to transform the obelisk in a spacecraft launch platform...

A space shuttle taking off at Praça dos Restauradores. Lisbon Air Force?
40 minutes sketch on the Note 10.1 - Above photo taken with the new Galaxy phone

The shooting for the documentary was scheduled the first day of my arrival in Lisbon (that's why I didn't have so much time to get used to the tablet). Here below are the awesome people I stayed with.

Sandro Aguilar

One of them is Sandro Aguilar, the director of the short film featured at the top of the post. I'm really happy I met that guy. His films always leave room for multiple perspectives and multiple interpretations. In his movies, Sandro recreates another world and does not let himself be trapped in reality. His favorite themes are loneliness and personal identity. Google him and discover more about his universe...

Sandro Aguilar

Sketching at Terreiro do Paço

There was a huge strike in Lisbon the day I arrived (29th of September 2012), tens of thousands of Portuguese were protesting the government's financial policies, an austerity program that is expected to get even tougher to meet pledges given to the country's international creditors. Protesters in Lisbon filled the central Praça do Comércio square (also known as Terreiro do Paço) at the call of the main CGTP trade union to demonstrate against "the theft of wages and pensions"...

I'm talking about this to explain the context of the following image, which was made at the mentioned location where tens of thousands of persons protested. As you can see below, the image shows a giant mouth saying "Lisbon Fever", because that day was full of tension. Again, it was a rough impro, but it really reflected what was happening around me.

Lisbon Fever, 30 minutes sketch on the Note 10.1 - Photo taken with the Galaxy Note II

20 minutes sketch on the Note 10.1

Samsung has been busy innovating on the tablet front as well as on the smartphone front with their newest set of devices. One of the major changes and big improvements is the Samsung’s Wacom powered S-Pen stylus which has been upgraded from the Smartphone Note to offer 1024 levels of pressure sensitivity, the additional precision of the S-Pen is a revelation (and since it’s Wacom technology underneath, it's possible to use any Wacom Penabled stylus, which can be useful). The S-Pen is great to use with the powerful S-Note application.

10 minutes sketch depicting
a Lisbon scenery (Note 10.1)

I personally think the Note 10.1 is a revolutionary device for creative people like me, because it can be used as a new tool of expression to share ideas and feelings and because it can extend artists' skills and broaden their sources of inspiration. I'm pretty sure that, in the future, a large number of artists will be working on digital devices such as the Note 10.1 (I hope in secret that larger tablets will be available in the near future). Now that I had the chance to try this technology briefly, I'd better train hard and come up with more powerful designs.

On the 3rd of October 2012, Samsung officially launched their new devices in Portugal. This event was celebrated at Pavilhão Atlântico during a conference that gathered several hundreds of people from different backgrounds.

Maestro Artur Pinho

I was lucky to be among them to talk about my creative experience and to share my opinion about the digital devices I had tested just a few days before. There were several live performances during the meeting, I particularly enjoyed the orchestra directed by Portuguese Maestro Artur Pinho. All the musicians were reading their sheet music on tablets instead of traditional paper. That was really something. It was also impressive to meet Sam Lee, Samsung big boss in Portugal. And finally it was a huge pleasure to meet Hugo Braz, who personally explained me a few things about the Note 10.1 and who gave an excellent presentation during the conference.