Art Work: Jason Pruett's "Face Book"

Art about 14 years agoby Lola

Hey kiddies! Lola here. It's been awhile. Missed you.

I recently stumbled upon a book of art that I really enjoyed and wanted to share with all the geeks and fellow art lovers out there.

It's a book of art by an up and coming artist, Jason Pruett, called Face Book. It's not about the popular networking site, but it's literally a book on faces. Most are hand drawn, but he also used other mediums to create the different faces.

All are very unique, some public figures are re-created, some are a little more abstract, some aren't human. One really cool and unique thing that Jason adds to the drawings is a signature to each of the corresponding faces, sort of like what the actual individual would sign himself.

I recently had a chance to sit down with Jason and ask him some questions:

Lola: How long did it take you to finish the book?

Jason: It's a compilation that I've accumulated over the past three years.

L: What mediums did you use to create the faces?

JP: The faces in this book were mostly a combination of traditional and digital tools. Usually I would start with pencil or pen on paper and finish the piece in Photoshop. A couple pieces were painted in oil, some were drawn with marker, some were created in Adobe Illustrator, and some were created entirely in Photoshop.

L: Which of the drawings is your favorite?

JP: probably the Skull (Roger). His expression always cracks me up when I see it! He was one of the last figures I drew.

L: Yeah he is a pretty funny looking guy. What was your inspiration for creating this book?

JP: I wanted to create something unique, that's never been done before. A sketchbook or art book that stood out and was different. I'd never seen a book of just faces with different expressions compiled together.

L: Where did you go to school?

JP: I studied Product Design at BYU, and after did an internship designing fishing reels I decided that didn't care about the tolerances and thickness of plastic and metal - and I just wanted to draw people and make people smile with my art.

so I went back to school and got a Master of Fine Art (MFA) in Illustration from the Academy of Art in San Francisco.

L: What inspired you to become an artist?

JP: Comic books. Graphic novels. I thought originally that I was going to be an animator and got 12 frames into it and thought, this isn't for me.

L: Any recent films or books that you thought were pretty cool?

JP: I enjoyed the art direction in Burton's Alice in Wonderland. I love the art of Carlos Haunte.

L: Yeah, the backgrounds were awesome in the movie. What did you think of the trailer for Scott Pilgrim v. the World?

JP: My first thought was, This is that comic book my sister reads! It was a super ridiculous and pretty awesome trailer.

L: If you weren't an artist, what line of work would you have pursued?

JP: probably stick with something in the artistic side: play music, I play guitar and sing, or make films.

L: that's rad! You have anything else you're working on now?

JP: I'm just doing some freelance work, I have a movie pitch in comic book form, storyboard sort of thing.

L: Hey thanks for taking time out of your busy schedule to chat with me!

JP: no problem! my pleasure!

If you want to check out more of Jason's art, get his book! It's really neat. He got me a signed copy and drew a little something in it too! He has a children's book that he published in January of 2009 and now, in March of 2010, he published this book of faces.