Five Questions with Featured Artist Ben Teeter

I realized at a young age that I had a raw artistic talent, when other kids started taking notice of my drawings. In grade school, I had to do an “alphabet book project”. I chose to have each letter of the alphabet represented by a baseball player, and I included a bio and drawing of each player. I received really positive feedback from my teacher, parents and peers.  This gave me the confidence to take more art classes and opened up the wider world of art to me.

Painting both relaxes me and challenges me. Besides sports, it is the primary thing I excelled in at school, and as I result I have put all of my energy into developing this talent. Once I picked up a brush and saw myself as an artist, I have never looked back.

I grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area as a big baseball and football fan, and I loved participating in sports growing up. I also collected baseball cards as a kid, and I especially admired the art card sets. I looked forward to seeing the featured artwork in every issue of Beckett Magazine. My best friend and I would sell and trade our baseball cards at the big Bay Area TriStar shows. I started doing pen and ink drawings of athletes and selling them at these shows. Encouraged by positive feedback, I realized if I developed my talent further, I could make my dream of becoming a sports artist a reality.

While I primarily paint sports art, I do enjoy painting other subject matter. My education at the Rhode Island School of Design made me a very well-rounded artist. During my training I didn’t do any sports art. I majored in illustration and developed my skills with the help of great teachers through creating a variety of work including landscapes and portraiture.

I consistently strive to bring the dramatic lighting elements of the great masters to my own work in a modern way, as I view this as a powerful means to bring the energy, motion and determination that each individual athlete possesses to life.

The masters accomplished their luminous effects through multiple thin layers of oil paint. Working solely in oil becomes time consuming to achieve the dramatic glow that I envision upon first conceptualizing a piece, primarily due to the long drying times for each layer. Combining acrylic airbrush and brushwork to start a painting efficiently bridges the gap of providing the multiple layers required to achieve the dramatic lighting effect I seek. I finish the painting in several layers of oil. Through this technique I have come as close as I ever have to attaining my original vision. My paintings aspire to convey the intensity, energy and soul these individual personas emit that feeds into the greater inherent drama of all human expression.

My favorite sport to watch is football, because with only 16 games in the season, every game is critical.

My favorite sports to paint are football and baseball. These were sports I played growing up, so I have a bit more personal connection to these two sports.

My favorite baseball athletes are Will Clark and Ricky Henderson. My favorite football players are Jerry Rice and Barry Sanders.

I grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area so I am a diehard 49ers and SF Giants fan.

I am inspired by the artwork of Caravaggio, Rembrandt, Vermeer, Turner and others, particularly their mastery of light.

In regards to sports art, I enjoy the work of Stephen Holland and Dick Perez, and Vernon Wells was an early inspiration. I have a distinct memory of hiking 6 miles up a mountain during a camping trip and thinking about Vernon Wells’ artwork for the Upper Deck Art Cards.  I thought, “wouldn’t it be cool if I could combine my love of sports and art and paint athletes for a living like he does!” Years later when I had the opportunity to paint for the Donruss Diamond King series, it truly felt like my art career had come full circle.