Platt Dot Art

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Mr. B Arnold Platt was raised in a small town in Northern Arizona where he spent many hours on the family cattle ranch. Though he spent a majority of his time playing music, he did not find his talent for drawing until much later in life. When that occurred, he discovered that he was fairly good with colored pencils, graphite, and even watercolors. However, at a time when his talents were becoming more precise and skilled, he also began to feel the effects of an illness that had been slowly creeping into his life known as Familial Benign Essential Tremors. Soon his hands began to shake uncontrollably. Other symptoms began to occur regularly, and his artwork seemed to be no longer possible. The tremors seemingly had taken away his artwork, like they had also taken away his ability to play the musical instruments he enjoyed to play.

It is often said that when God closes a door, he opens a window. This artist sees this in a different light. He feels that God has many doors and windows in the room we call our life. When a door is shut, He allows us to find one of those openings and we have to work at opening it. Once we show our willingness to try, then he helps us to open it to a new, yet different, light. Sometimes, the window looks out on the same view, albeit a slightly altered view, with very little change in perspective. Other times, it is a completely new view. Mr. Platt experienced the slight change in view that made a huge difference in his art talents.

One day, while tutoring adults, his pen was tapping on the paper from the normal rhythmic tremors that plagued him for so long. He looked down and saw the shadows and shapes that were created, and a window was flung wide open. From that point on, he developed his skills using pen and ink in the rare style of pointillism. He has since worked exclusively in the stippling style of pointillism. He may not have been able to draw a straight line, but he found he COULD control dots! Another interesting thing is that since the work is done completely in pen and ink dots, it is already pixelated! That means any piece completed, after being digitized, can be blown up to very large sizes without losing any of the quality of the work! The art does not become pixelated like many other color paintings or drawings.

Now, nearly a decade and a half later, he has had his work shown in several small galleries and has enjoyed showcasing his work at a local coffee shop, Java Junkie, in Provo, UT, during the May 2022 Provo Art Walk. Since that time, he has been able to be an "artist in residence" at a great social club that is featured in the Provo Art Walk called The Social. He is able to meet with art fans monthly and share his unique art and his message about changing disabilities into abilities.

He has also been asked to complete several commissions for local patrons around Utah and several of his pieces will be used as visible artwork in an upcoming film project by Angel Studios!

The artist is always accepting new commissions. You can contact him via email at PlattDotArt.

Below, you can view the small body of work that was actually scanned or photographed over the years. There were many more done for friends and family that never made it to a scanner or in front of a camera lens, unfortunately, but that was another lesson to be learned!!

Enjoy!

Under a Blues Moon

This 18x24 inch piece is a portrait of well-known Austin, TX, blues musician by the name of Birdlegg. Look for the hidden music notes.

Barcelona View

This 18x24 inch piece depicts a view from the steeple of a cathedral in Barcelona, looking past the statue of an apostle, toward the tower and the countryside of Barcelona. Interesting note: It took me as long to do the dome as it did the rest of the entire piece! This particular piece took approximately 180 hours to complete!

Romance in the Streets

This piece commemorates the wedding of my brother to his wonderful wife in San Diego, CA. The restaurant behind them is a famous foodie joint in the city. This piece measures 18x24 inches and took nearly 200 hours of painstaking work.

The Champion

This piece was done in honor of a favorite horse that the artist often rode on the family cattle ranch in Arizona. It measures 9x14 inches and has been featured in a previous art show in Tucson, AZ, and been shown in several galleries in Arizona and Utah.

Kitty

This piece was commissioned by a friend in honor of her beloved pet cat. It was a challenging piece, but I enjoyed discovering new ways to get the cat hair, especially the whites, to really stand out. That is a difficult thing to do when drawing ONLY using dots.

The piece measures 9x14.

After a Long Day

This piece was one I completed nearly a decade ago. It measures 9x14 inches and done with a fine tip sharpie marker. I especially enjoyed exploring the texture in his coat and the feathers on the goose. At one time in my past, I was an avid duck hunter, so this piece was close to my heart and brings back memories of the adventures I had with my trusted Golden Lab.

The Pick Up Man

This piece measures 9x14 inches.

I especially enjoy subjects in Southwest Art. I grew up working on a family cattle ranch and was riding horses at an early age. I guess that I just miss doing so, but I also love the challenge of using mere dots to convey complex textures and patterns. The brand on the darker horse's bridle is an homage to the brand my grandfather registered when he started his ranch empire.

A Hand UP

Once again, another piece with a Southwest flair. This commissioned piece was for a friend whose daughter loved horses. It reminded her of the many times she struggled to get up in the saddle to spend time with her best friend.

The piece measures 9x14 inches.

Auburn

Unfortunately, I could not get this digitized well before it went on the wall of one of my mom's friends. He is a huge car buff and enjoyed seeing one of his dream vehicles on his wall. It is evidently an Auburn, though I cannot remember the year.

I especially enjoyed putting in the reflections of the highway markings and trees in the chrome bumper and mirrors!

The Fisherman

This commissioned piece was exciting to work on because of the texture of the feathers and figuring out how to make the colors work in black and white without getting muddled.

Interestingly enough, halfway through the project, one of my pen nibs broke and bled large blotches of ink on the paper. Those blotches are now hidden by the two partially submerged logs on the right hand side of the piece.

Twin Towers

Bad scan and a terrible smudge on the right-hand side, but it was a fun piece to do. It is one to revisit in the future. I enjoyed using the markings on the giraffe to express the shapes of the bodies and leaving the lighter colors to blend with the background of the paper.

note: This piece was finished over a decade ago when I was just starting. Unfortunately, I was using a water-based pen, instead of India ink, and the pen smudged. Thus, the unsightly smudge on the paper! Live and learn!

Coming Home

This piece measures 9x14 inches

This picture reminded me of the many years I spent on horseback on my grandfather's ranch in Northern Arizona. Although I never rode with a packhorse trailing behind me, I have spent enough time in the saddle to know how this guy must be feeling after a long day on his horse.

I love to draw pieces that have a lot of texture and detail, and particularly enjoy working to get every detail in the saddle correct, down to the last buckle and the stitching holding the various pieces of leather together.

The piece was done more than a decade ago and hangs on my dad's office wall, but has yellowed over the years, due to low quality paper. That has changed a LOT as I've perfected my craft.

I still find myself stopping my car every time I see cowboys working the herd so I can try to get good photos of them at their work so that I can go home and capture their spirit in my artwork!

A Jolley Good Ride

This piece is 11 x 17 inches.

This piece was commissioned by my old boss. His wife competes in horseback shooting events and is very good at it. He had it done for her for Christmas of 2022. It was especially cool for me because I was there when he presented it to her. The look on her face was priceless and a fitting end to a great project.

As to the title, her last name is Jolley, so it fit!

Once again, I really enjoy the details I can create when working with saddles, bridles, and cowboy attire! Cowboy art is definitely a favorite.

note: I wasn't able to get it scanned, as I finished it mere hours before it was given to her. So the iPhone photo had to do.

Man's Best Friend

This was a commission done in 2023 for a guy who saw my work on Twitter and just had to get a drawing done of his rambunctious dog. I drove to his house, about an hour away, and had to take 15 minutes of video, then scroll through frame by frame until I could find the one frame where the dog stood still long enough to get this great pose.

The piece is 11x17 inches and turned out really good. I had a particularly good time working on the challenge of getting the texture of the chest hair just right. But I love challenges.

It was one of my favorite pieces to do.... but that's what I say about all of my pieces!

Cute Couple

This piece is a recent commission that I received from the man in the drawing. He was coming up on an anniversary with his wonderful girlfriend and wanted to surprise her with something that was unique and interesting. I worked with him to find the perfect picture that he supplied and started work. Something I do with all my commissions is to keep my customer updated with all the progress of the drawings.

Unfortunately, due to a time crunch to get the drawing out to him to coincide with the anniversary, I was only able to take a photo with the camera on my phone, so the image did not come out like I would have liked, but it works for my purposes.

The final piece was 11x14 inches and took approximately 50 hours to complete.

I find many things that I like about each drawing that I complete, and in this one, it has got to be the quality of the shading in his and her hair. I was worried, at first, that I would never be able to get that great soft curled hair to work out the way I'd like it to, especially contrasting with her lighter brown hair, but it all turned out wonderful in the end.

In the frames below, I have included some of the photos that I sent to the customer to outline the progress of the drawing pictured here.

This is after about 10 hours. I outline darker areas in pencil and slowly work from darkest to lightest.

Pen: Micron 08, 10, 12

As I start drawing the lighter areas, I change the thickness of the Micro pens that I use so that the dots become smaller and lighter in the process.

Pen: Micron 03, 05

I'm about 3/4 finished by this point. Oddly enough, as I get to this stage, it takes more time to put the smaller dots in and it is easier to mess up.

Pen: Micron 01, 02

Almost finished. I used a photo editing software, unfortunately, because the drawing was so dark with my iphone camera and a standard LED light, so it came out looking a little rough! But now I'm done with the faces and just have to include the arms encircling his neck!

Pen: Micron 003, 005

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