Butch Belair

New York artist/illustrator/photographer Bernard "Butch" Belair likes to spend his spare time painting neighborhood scenes in a moleskin sketchbook. Or he did. He had a special Flickr site dedicated to his endeavors but there hasn't been anything new on it since 2008. Which is a shame because these simple paintings not only capture the spirit of place but really convey the simple joy of drawing as well. They're wonderful to look through and I hope you will. None of this work appears on his website which consists mostly of his purely commercial photographic and digital work. Interestingly it may be that this work that has interrupted his sketching in an unusual way. Below you will see an example of one of his photo illustrations and some samples of the well known Bratz dolls. He is suing Bratz for copyright infringement. I don't know where the case is at currently but I hope he wins if only because it might give him the time and financial resources to do less commercial work and more painting.














Porchview 2






















Porchview 3






















Under BQE 1






















North 6th























Bee 1


Did Bratz steal the big head, big feet, big eye look look from Butch Belair?

















photo illustration by Butch Belair












Bratz Dolls