Jerry Stith

Ladies and Gentlemen, this is Jerry Stith or the founder of an American folk art program call Ball Point Pen Art. I’m the most prolific ballpoint pen artist, publisher, video producer, information provider therefore the leader of the Ballpoint pen art movement. I’ve been drawing with a ballpoint pen from 1968 and publishing via this World Wide Web from the year 2000. My artistic endeavors however started in the year 1954 in the form of coloring books, paint by number sets and projects I encountered from within our public school system. Art came to me instinctively or naturally because it was fun, creative, colorful and refreshing. It was something I could trust or found every reliable therefore worth my attention.

I’m current a sixty-one year old born again Christian with one son and three darling grandchildren. My dad was a Col. In the Air Force and my loving mother gave birth to five independent sons plus my Sunday school teacher. We traveled much throughout my dad’s career that took him overseas to three war zones while serving this great country in addition to many places within the United States. I attended eleven different schools counting a University and Jr. college which didn’t impress me because of the politics. Besides that studying, research and drawing on my own proved far more productive results seeing that I knew my particular interest, abilities or mindset. Time and God’s blessings proved correct in my decision
making. It’s not where we start off but where we end up that counts my friends.

In 1968 I started off drawing with a ballpoint pen as my main art medium. A ballpoint pen was portable, reliable, taught me to be bold and an extension of my pencil drawings. Originally I worked pencils, graphite, conte’, pastels, chalks, charcoal, colored pencils, glass, wire, metal, clay, wood, tempera, watercolors, enamels, oils, acrylics, finger paints, paper mache, collages, cut paper, felt pens plus pen & inks. After that illustrating a book, videos, animation, morphing, digital art, panorama images, photography, lettering and Web development gained my interest. Fifty-five years of my life has been dedicated to art as well as traveling and research.

I drew in the public for over thirty years throughout the United States of America. During those years I encountered thousands of spectators or admirers to say the least. I loved working in public because those people coming up shared, educated, openly expressed their opinions or experiences and inspired me through their phenomenal compliments. I currently have around three thousand seven hundred inklings, doodles, sketches, renderings, drawings or illustrations do to those years in public. Practice, practice and more practice helped me establish my art abilities people. I totally recommend working from life, outside and from natural lighting instead of by a photograph or light bulbs. Please remember people worked from nature for the first five thousand years or from the cave drawing days.

In the year 2000 my adventures brought me to the Internet. That meant learning a computer, software, search engines, web development, typing, new programs and related matters was in order. Prior to the Internet my travels took me to fifty different locations and hundreds of places along the way. Needless to say massive travel prevented me from acquiring roots yet gathering information, knowledge and experiences are a totally different matter. They stay if it doesn’t kill you it will make you stronger and that certainly applies to my life. The internet provided me with an opportunity to publish things that would stick or stay around which in turn thrilled a guy on the go like me. Microsoft offered free group sites with user friendly software and that worked for me. That’s where I made my first internet stance as an artist/ publisher.

I started several Ball Point Pen Art sites that totally dominated the WWW for nine straight years. In those days my MSN groups were the only ballpoint pen art sites on the Web. That probably had something to do with my outstanding search engine ratings, popularity, historic achievements, emotional satisfaction and undisputed leadership of the Ballpoint pen art movement. There were one thousand pictures, three hundred-fifty members, four thousand message board entries forty-four worldwide ballpoint pen artists published for all to observe. During those day I also invented the domain name ballpointpenart.net, .us, .org and .com to bring focus to our efforts. We then and now represented the core of the ballpoint pen art movement!

In the year 2009 Microsoft discontinued those groups sites and Multiply became my new internet home base. Transferring as much information and pictures to my new location seemed appropriate in order establish ballpoint pen art as a new medium, art instrument or movement. Multiply offered a more sophisticated site do to its advanced HTML coding system. That meant videos, animations, morphing, slide shows, buttons and PayPal functions were available. New opportunities and great achievements certainly excited my imagination. I have around fifteen thousand hours locked up into my research and publishing duties as a concerned artist. In other words full time for eleven years for those interested..

I currently have the most comprehensive ballpoint pen art site in history and it’s called Ballpoint Pen Art International. There are one thousand artists, seven thousand six hundred & sixty-eight artworks, three hundred & seventy-two videos, four hundred & eighty blog entries and almost two hundred URL’s or links for your enjoyment. In other words it’s the largest ballpoint pen art site in history or the heart and sole of this art movement. Pen and ink has been around for over four thousand years and a ballpoint is the best selling pen therefore serious consideration should go towards what it can do as an art medium.

Hopefully this will help people get an understanding of my interest and past adventures.

Cheers, Jerry Stith

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