Hailing from Vancouver, Washington, Cliff Maynard&apos;s distinctive brand of art has caught the attention of cannabis enthusiasts around the globe.
His mosaics incorporate the use of found objects. His medium of choice? Roaches aka the cigarette butt of the joint.
Maynard has done renditions of icons in the cannabis industry, the ones who you&apos;d expect — Cheech & Chong, Jerry Garcia, Bob Marley, and Snoop Dogg. His business Chronic Art features his collection of joint mosaics on mugs, prints, iPhone cases, giclée&apos;s and originals.
Watch Cliff creating “Red Headed Stranger,” a portrayal of Willie Nelson, which is made entirely out of roaches. Maynard has gone from starving art student and tattoo artist to an artist that isn&apos;t afraid to utilize cannabis in his art—literally. Cliff&apos;s operation has grown and he now separates roaches in preparation according to hue and shade.
MERRY JANE: Your work has been praised by Tommy Chong, Mark Emery and Todd McCormick. How did you get into roach paper art?
Cliff Maynard: It all started many years ago when I was a student at The Art Institute of Pittsburgh. Ironically, I was assigned to apartment number 420 in the school-sponsored housing program. My roommate at the time and I were attempting to create a fifth generation joint by saving our roaches and using them to roll a second generation joint then third generation, and so on. For some reason I would save the used papers. One day in art history class our assignment was to create a mosaic from bits of colored paper and I decided to try it using the roach papers I had apparently been saving for just that purpose.
CM: I was attending a NORML rally in Berkeley, California when I was approached by the legendary Vivian McPeak about doing a special project for Seattle Hempfest. It was a great honor to be involved with Hempfest and has opened numerous doors for me in the cannabis community.
MJ: I was impressed with the detail you&apos;ve done, such as recreating the Declaration of Independence. How do you get such fine details using only brown, monochromatic colors?
CM: By using an X-acto knife and a whole lot of patience! Fine details such as lettering or other "lines" are created by cutting tiny strips from the darkest pieces of my roach papers.
MJ: You&apos;re able to render the likeness of people&apos;s faces using only roaches. How long does a piece take?
CM: When I first started it seemed like each piece took forever. Due to improvements in my process (such as pre-sorting my tones and values) I have it down to anywhere from 15 to 25 hours.
MJ: The DEA has hinted at looking at rescheduling cannabis on a federal level. Do you support descheduling cannabis altogether?
CM: Absolutely! Any right-minded person can see that it has medical uses at the very least, and almost no harmful effects at all. Tobacco, alcohol—even caffeine—are all legal and are all far worse for you than cannabis. It&apos;s a crime that even one person is serving time for cannabis use!
As long as you have the right conditions, shooting an effective silhouette is relatively simple – and the results can be stunning. They are a great device when you start to get more creative with your photography.
Strong and simple shapes, often coupled with bold colors, are the main factors. A really good silhouette will be instantly eye-catching and moody, making you want to look at it again and again.
Strictly speaking there isn’t much that you can’t silhouette, as long as you stick to the concept of simple shapes. Buildings, mountains, people, animals and any other object with a familiar form can be used within your image. The key to good silhouette shots is to make sure the object or objects you are silhouetting are dynamic and recognizable within the frame. If the silhouetted shapes are indistinct, muddled or overlapping each other too much, the composition probably won’t work. The idea is to find an arrangement where you can tell what the objects are just by their outlines.
You need strong backlighting to compose your main subject against. For powerful and vibrant colors, this is generally best achieved at sunset or sunrise. However, you can create a silhouette against any bright background, so you can even create them using flash lighting. Neon signs or shop windows can provide a good source of backlighting in an urban setting.
It would certainly be tricky if you were trying to retain detail within your main subject – but because a silhouette is all about allowing the main subject to fall into shadow, it’s easy. All you need to do is expose for the background. It’s useful to work in Live View so you can see how well your main subject darkens, and use some minus exposure compensation if you need to enhance the effect. Typically this will be around -1 stop. Working in Live View will also help you see how clear your subject is against the background and check that you’ve got the edges nice and sharp. Recompose the image if the shape isn’t distinct enough.
If you activate auto focus, the camera’s AF system will try to pick up on the area of greatest contrast; in theory this will be the edge between the silhouette and the background, and you’ll get the sharpness you want. However, sometimes AF can struggle slightly in low-light situations, especially in Live View; in this case, switch to manual focusing.
I like this but would tackle the job using spot metering. It doesn't matter how you do it but I tend to spot meter anyway, sometimes several times and then average them. My cameras are all old so it is a safer option. The 1DS III has a built in feature for this very job.
Well the 1DS is also one of the most expensive Canon cameras :) Sure, spot metering will be point on, but you can get away with these methods as well.