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Salt

Three years ago, I invited a group of retreat participants to join me in a collaborative art-making project. Complicating matters — this was done with no verbal instruction: we were participating in a contemplative retreat led by Mary Earle, and had taken vows of silence for the day. It ended up being a sublime afternoon full of non-verbal communication and beauty. Here’s a short film I made of it all.

On September 22, 2012, at a contemplative retreat in the Texas hill country, a group of new friends spent 24 hours together in silence. The Salt Project was a simple afternoon invitation to collaborate artistically without rules, instruction or speech, inspired in part by Motoi Yamamoto’s Saltworks. Interested participants arrived at a gazebo and found a few squeeze-bottles full of salt, seasoned salt, coffee, and yellow corn starch — along with some brushes and yardsticks. The three-hour process was filmed with two iPhone cameras. Special thanks to the kitchen staff at Laity Lodge for adding serendipitous color to what was originally conceived as a monochrome project. — p.r.s. 8/22/12

October 19, 2015
Terminal Minotaur

The SANDY WOOD & OTHER VOICES channel just went live on YouTube a few moments ago. A collaborative YouTube channel where Sandy brings together poets, painters, filmmakers, voice talent, photographers, and other creatives.

Terminal Minotaur was the first video in the series, and was a collaboration between Chris Taylor, Sandy Wood and myself, with video support from Kyle Isenhower.

Sandy Wood has been a writer/producer and voice talent for over three decades. Since 1991, she has been the voice of Star Date Radio which is heard nationwide on approximately 350 commercial and NPR stations. She was featured in a New York Times article Oct 30, 2011 and wrote the foreword to National Geographic’s Backyard Guide to the Night Sky.

Chris Taylor is an American singer-songwriter, visual artist and illustrator based in San Antonio, TX. He is the former lead singer of the band Love Coma and has been a solo performer since 1997. Taylor’s 2000 album, “Worthless Pursuit of Things on the Earth” was nominated as Rock Album of the year for 2001. His newest album is Creatio Ex Nihilo (Creation From Nothing).
http://www.christaylorworld.com

Kyle Isenhower is a Video/Media Producer, husband, father, home coffee-roaster, gardener, DIYer, & lover of all things tech. And, Co-founder @theparksa

October 15, 2015
Revisiting: Jesus for President

In 2008, Shane Claiborne and Chris Haw released Jesus for President: Politics for Ordinary Radicals, a book for which I contributed 40 or so watercolor illustrations. Here are a few of the interior images.

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October 6, 2015
Ink

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I’m working on a new tattoo design (not shown here), but it led me to go find these old ones and post them. The weird thing about art for bodies: sometimes the artist does a great job; sometimes they butcher it; sometimes the recipient decides not to get it inked, and the art quietly goes away. This first one here, I’m really impressed by the fidelity of the artist.

It also has a great story behind it. Read it here at Jake Bouma’s blog.

October 4, 2015
Revisiting: The Sketchbook Project

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My Advent 2012 sketchbook, “Sometimes My Life Winds Like Bézier Curves,” is part of the library at The Sketchbook Project in Brooklyn, New York. You can view the whole book at your leisure here, or check it out in person, next time you’re in the City.

October 2, 2015
Revisiting: Halo I & II

It’s strange to see a piece of art you’ve made years ago, having not seen it in person in the intervening years. Yesterday I was reacquainted with two such pieces.

In 2008 I crated up two large pen-and-ink drawings on gesso board and shipped them to Los Altos, California, where they have resided in the personal collection of dear friends Linda and Michael Toy. Yesterday I was able to see the pieces again in person, for the first time in years.

The two drawings are large, and I stitched together composite photographs of both last night.

Hover over each image for a magnifying glass:

Soupiset, Paul. Outside the Halo I (She). [2008]. Pen and Ink on 30x30x2 gesso board with birch cradle. Collection of Michael & Linda Toy, Los Altos, CA

Soupiset, Paul. Outside the Halo II (He). [2008]. Pen and Ink on 30x30x2 gesso board with birch cradle. Collection of Michael & Linda Toy, Los Altos, CA

September 28, 2015
Hand Lettering: All Is Not Lost Noisetrade Sampler

This week I’m taking a personal break, vacationing in a spectacular redwood forest with a bunch of old friends at a Quaker retreat center north of Santa Cruz, California.

When you’re miles from your studio with limited supplies, but your illustration client needs something right away, what do you do? Here’s the story of the last 24 hours.

I’m thrilled to be working with Paul Demer and Galileo Church on an album packaging design for their forthcoming crowd-sourced LP, All is not Lost. Over the past 25 years, I have designed lots of album covers and have really enjoyed it. By taking on the illustration and design for All is not Lost, I am making an attempt at a return to the joy of this form factor. While I’ve been doing some early, rough hand-lettering and illustration in anticipation of the project, as an interim project, they needed to create a cover design for their Noisetrade EP Sampler.

I turned in a first round illustration to my client yesterday: I had been on a hike that morning and snapped a photo of some redwood trees. I came back to where we’re staying, and got to work — I overlaid an initial type treatment that had the album title rendered in pigment liner. The only supplies I have with me are what would fit in my backpack. No tracing paper, no lightbox, no scanner, and a smaller assortment of pens than usual. But I was able to ink the letters onto watercolor paper, take a clear shot with my iPhone’s camera, and pull that into my Photoshop workflow. I’ve done that before, and it works really well for black and white lineart.

I got feedback on the first round illustration, needed to go off in a different direction, and was in a bit of a challenging situation: I had neither time nor materials to create the types of watercolor illustration they — and I — wanted to create for the EP cover … but what I did have was an archive of old, unpublished illustrations of mine from years past. I invited the client to point me to a few illustrations they liked from my library, and essentially I would create a seamless montage of the illustrations and re-contextualize it for the cover art.

That’s what I spent this morning doing. It ended up working very well. Scroll down below to see the second round illustrations, and some earlier process shots as well. Then, head over to Noisetrade, purchase the sampler and see what the finished sampler looks like.

September 26, 2015
Drawing Close: Mini-Documentary by Kyle Isenhower

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Drawing Close // Documentary on Illustrator Paul Soupiset from Isenhower Productions on Vimeo.

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Kyle Isenhower and I have been working together, making short films together for maybe five years, trailers, interviews, adverts, and storytelling, all in the service of our clients. My part of that collaboration is usually illustrative with a little creative direction thrown in. So Kyle knows my artwork well.

So when he approached me about making a film about my Lenten Sketchbooks, it totally felt right. It was more like two friends talking — the camera just happened to be on. We filmed the downtown and studio scenes earlier in 2015, with a few final parts, (like my daughter and I painting) shot a week or so ago.

Then Kyle approached a mutual friend of ours, Ben Smith, to compose the score for the film, and the whole thing came together — beautifully, I might add — over the past week. Kyle’s been hard at work editing, and today, he emerged with the following documentary. I’m humbled and tickled. And I hope you enjoy this glimpse into one facet of my art-making.

September 22, 2015
Recent Dimensional Paintings

In addition to my Chartres Labyrinth series of paintings, which I’ll post soon, I’ve also been working on another series of paintings, this time with more dimension, and using found objects. I’ll post more in the series over time.

Soupiset, Paul. Approaching Train. [2015]. Acrylic with found objects on 12×16 gesso panel and pine box. Collection of Laura Preston, Omaha NE

Soupiset, Paul. Indwelling. [2015]. Acrylic with found objects on 12×16 gesso panel and pine box. Collection of Laura Preston, Omaha NE

September 20, 2015
Coming Soon: Drawing Close

Drawing Close, Kyle Isenhower’s mini documentary on the illustration of Paul Soupiset, will debut here — and at Isenhower Productions’ website, sometime in the next few days. We talked to Kyle and he confirmed the film is basically finished, and is just awaiting the final musical score (being composed by a mutual friend of ours, Ben Smith of Café Media Group.

[UPDATE:] The film is live, and it’s wonderful, and you can see it right here.

September 15, 2015