I recently started my own blog, including all different elements of my life, Art, Martial Arts & Tough Girl T-Shirts. This blog is going to promote me as a person, with my Artwork and Martial Arts, not just my Art updates. I’ve created page links and Category’s, shown below. http://lukajake.wordpress.com/
I was lucky enough to interview fellow Martial Artist and Freelance Artist, Christopher Guest recently. Guest is a well established freelance artist whose work is based on mark making. As you will see in the photos below, Guest works in fine pen, creating intricate details in his pieces that feature ‘fragmented layers’. Guest has exhibited all around the world, from Europe, to America, to Japan. As well as being a professional Freelance artist, he also teaches and trains Kickboxing in his own gym in Stoke. I wanted to talk to Guest about how he manages being a professional artist, whilst still dedicating his time to running his own gym, as this directly relates to me and my future as an Artist/Martial Artist.
-What came first, Martial Arts or Art?
That;s a close one! I first started training in Wado-Ryu karate when I was 5 years of age, and my father tells me he remembers me drawing on his floor/walls/tables/friends when I was around that age too!
I’m a graffiti artist as well as an illustrator- interestingly my father says my first bit of illegal graffiti was carving my brothers name into the kitchen table so he’d get a telling of. Once a vandal always a vandal.
I’ve recently started experimenting with Layering figures. I have been taking these figures from fight sequence photographs and fighting videos, so all the shapes the figures are making are in mid-movement. This is a development of the sequences photograph and paint work I was creating at the beginning of my work on fighting and Martial Arts. I have taken inspiration for these pieces from the journal of Frida Kahlo, particularly her Motion in Dance drawing, and Keith Vaughan’s abstract studies of male figures. The colours I am currently working with in my pieces are stereotypical sport colours; Black, Red, White & Blue. I find these colours are quite masculine when put together and merged with the theme and content of the work. Aswell as carrying on with developing these colours in my pieces, I want to start to create a contrast with the content of the work and the colours used, by bringing in feminine, vibrant colours, oranges, yellows, pinks, etc. This will be a future development for my work.
The Message Piece
I created this piece for my ‘Message’ Module. The meaning behind this piece is the contradiction of the opinions from Society on Woman competing in Martial Arts. I looked the disagreement from people and how they believed woman shouldn’t be aloud to compete in Boxing, or MMA. Some people believed it wasn’t safe, some people believed watching Womans Judo in the Olympics was like bumping into “two drunken Woman bashing ten bells out of each other outside a Yates Wine Lodge on a Friday Night” (Andrew M Brown, The Sunday Telegraph) and others went with the opinion of “Nobody Cares who the best female fighter in the world was”. These opinions came together with a underlying theme that woman should be woman and shouldn’t be in a man’s sport. All of these opinions (and more.) were used to create this piece, as well as the opinions that Female athletes shouldn’t be ‘Sexualized’. I researched into peoples feelings of Female athletes in magazines. Shown below are some images of Female Athletes in the media and photo shoots These woman are fit, healthy, and portray a good body image. As opposed to the fashion shoot photograph also shown below.One article described female athlete photographs as becoming ‘increasingly disturbing images’ for being ‘hyper sexual’. Why is it okay for actresses to do this, but not female athletes? Is it not healthier for society’s teenage girls to look to athletes who have trained day in day out for months to look how they do for their sport (and are not being forced to do these photo shoots) than to look at fashion models and they’re thin body’s and obvious lack of healthy nutrition? This is where my piece comes into it. The piece is split into two canvas’: The top half, showing a woman’s face with a black eye, representing the disagreement in woman in combat, and the bottom, showing the disagreement of woman athletes being ‘sexualized’ in the media. The writing behind is taken from articles expressing these opinions. Surely to see female athletes in the media is promoting sports and healthy lifestyles, whereas fashion is promoting ill health and thin bodies. Why is it woman shouldn’t be fighting because they’re feminine, but when woman show they’re healthy, fit, woman’s body’s they’re being scrutinized?
I have recently been featured in the Art & Design secton of Identity, an Online Magazine.
I have documented writing my description pieces in my Personal Development File.
I have recently set up my own Art Twitter account. I have linked it to my T-Shirt site and my current blog featuring my Art. I have added a tab for my twitter account onto this blog.
Here are some of the people I follow:
Follow me @LukaMorrellArt
I also signed up to Baterby’s Art Gallery & Auction House newsletter. I visited Baterbys earlier this year ( see here ) to see a friend of mine’s artwork.
I created a Pinterest for my own use, and made an ‘Art Inspiration’ Board, to pin artwork that inspires me and that I like.
I recently got in contact with Mark Armstrong, An Illustrator of over 20 years from New Hampshire. Armstrong creates Humorous Illustrations, firstly drawing them out and then editing them on Photoshop. I found Armstrongs work through his blog, and thought as I am interested in the medium of illustration, it would be interesting to find out how he works. He is a full time freelance Illustrator and I was lucky enough to talk to him and have him answer some questions on his work and his professional practice.
Q- Is being an artist your full time job?
Yes.
Q- How did you start out in Art?
As a kid, I always liked to draw, but I never even considered a career in art. I worshipped certain cartoonists, but it never occurred to me to write to them. My family didn’t know any artists. A career in art never entered my head.
Q- Do you think social networking sites are important for an artist, and how do you use them?
Q- Finally, do you sell your work through and online store and/or gallery, or by any other means?
A few months ago, I signed up for a free membership at Fine Art America. The free membership allows me to upload 25 “works,” and sell them (as prints or greeting cards) online. FAA handles all the printing, matting, framing, and shipping. I get to set my own prices for prints, but of course FAA adds its fees on top of that. To date, I’ve sold zero prints, and a dozen Christmas cards– the money’s not exactly rolling in! On the other hand, I haven’t really done much to promote myself at FAA. It’s something I need to think about in 2013.
These are the 4 Designs of the 30+ T-shirts that I have created. I will now begin to sell them in my online etsy shop and feature them on my Tough Girl T-Shirts blog.
We recently had a lecture on Neil Combs current work on Surrealism. In this lecture, Combs talked about his work on Surrealism, examples of Surrealist work and the Professional Practice that went into his current exhibition at Bodelwyddan Castle. Here are the Project Proposal that Combs put foward to get the funding for his work, and the different elements of the Exhibition that had to be arranged.
The Proposal
- Tied my Research to British Surrealism
- Travel to a range of places associated with the History of Surealism in Britain
- Recorded the Journey as a blog with photographs
- Create a photo montage for each location.
- Find a partner to show the work
The Exhibition
- Marketing (Poster, Invite, Press Release)
- Installation
- Private View
- Audience Engagement
- Limitations
I am basing my new Transcription Brief on one of American Artist Raymond Pettibons pieces.
Raymond Pettibon was born in Arizona on 16th June 1967, But grew up in Hemosa Beach, California. He attended UCLA and earnt a degree in economics. Pettibons work includes numerous album covers for bands like Sonic Youth and Foo Fighters. His work is based on underground culture and American Pop Culture, Including art commenting on Social Subjects like Charles Manson and Presidents Ronald Reagan and George Bush
“Raymond Pettibon is recognised as one of Americas most important Representational Artists. Emerging on the International Art Scene in the 1980′s, Pettibon is best known for extraordinary output of inkwash drawings and their signature combination of figurative images and short, enigmatic texts”
- Raymond Pettibon’, Robert Star, Dennis Cooper and Ulrich Loock
The piece I have chosen
This piece is based on a President of the United States. As you can see behind is the American Flag. I feel like Pettibon has used this as a representative of a Prominent American Figure, and that is what I want to include in my own development of the piece. My idea is to create a series of Pieces that include representative people of America. I plan on including political figures (as Pettibon did) to Sports Icons. I also want to include people who represent modern day American Society and Pop Culture, in both a negative and positive way, for example Kim Kardashian. I would like to include the background of Pettibons piece to start, to focus on the contrast of the modern figure I am including, to show the change in times, then eventually paint my own background in colour.
I have started to create my T-shirts and have documented and photographed the process, Including things going wrong and how long it has taken me to create the first design set.
I started off making just one, to see how the Image Maker would work. I first of all didn’t realize the image that I wanted to print on had to be reverse; therefore I had to re-print my first set of designs after reversing them. I cut out my design and placed it where it would be suited on the shirt, after trying on the shirt and seeing where It would look best.
After pasting some of the image maker onto the image and putting it on the shirt, I left it to dry. My results on the first shirt came out torn and with areas missing. This is because I didn’t put enough of the paste on it for it to stick down, and also because it needed longer to dry. These were my results.
After learning I needed more paste and longer to dry, I put the images onto 9 of my shirts and left them all to dry overnight.
Then next day I pulled off the glue for on the images and looked at the results. All of the shirts designs were complete on every area and placed in the right way.
I then used the packets the T-shirts came in and re-packaged them. I will include a Piece of card featuring the Brand name and washing instructions before I sell these.
This is my latest work based on Martial arts. I wanted to be abit more fluid with the way I painted the figures, So this is the beginning development of that. I think making the lines a little more blurred contributes to the representation of movement, which I will be experimenting more with.
I have started developing my site and designs for my T-shirt line.
I have decided to go with the name ‘ToughGirl T-shirts. I also researched into FighterGirl and ToughChick but these had both been taken. I looked at some fonts that I thought suited the theme and what the site represents and these are the final 3 I think were best suited :
I decided to go for the third font. I decided this because as well as having an element of toughness, it also is fun, and that’s an element I want to portray with my tshirts: tough (representing the Martial Arts) and fun (representing the female/feminine audience) I then went on to look at different sites that I could use to sell my shirts. I first of all looked at Wix. After trying Wix out and talking to people that had used it, I decided it wasn’t best suited to what I was trying to show. I then looked at Tumblr. Tumblr is a site that is familiar to me and something I am used to using. I know where to find the kind of themes and layouts that I want to show. I created http://www.toughgirltshirts.tumblr.com in preparation for when I can sell my work. I will link my Tumblr site to the site Etsy which is what I will be using to actually sell my product. Etsy doesn’t really provide a ‘site’ where you can create your own personalized page, just a shop, which Is why I will be using it along side the Tumblr site. I tried out a number of different themes until I found the one most suited to my product:
Next, I wanted to start creating the images that will be on my Tshirts. I decided to start with 4 Images for the first lot of T-shirts. I adapted some of the images from my current work on Kickboxing, and some I created for the purpose of the T-shirts. I wanted my T-shirt designs to not be too serious. I wanted them to be fun, and light, but still tough, as opposed to the heavy graphics and dark colours that are featured on Martial Art T-shirts, which is why I used watercolours to create the images. I firstly wanted some kind of logo that I could featured on my site and on one of the shirts. I drew up a few ideas.
Although I like the designs, I didn’t think they were right. I think using Pink colours is going too far with the feminine element, so I re-drew the gloves and made the colour purple, which I think is better suited.
Final Logo (This will be one of the 4 designs featured on the shirts)
I am also going to create some more Designs, so when It comes tocreating the shirts, I have a selection to choose the final 4. I will post the other sketches and the final designs on my blog.
I recently found Eadweard Muybridge’s book ‘Human Figures In Motion’. In the book, Muybridge has photographed Men and Woman participating in different sports, ways of movement, activities, etc, from Wrestling to Running. Muybridge has continuously photographed the actions, creating a sequence, as shown below. I want to create similar photographs and make a piece of art, continuously photographing a round of kickboxing sparring, showing the movement of the two fighters. I want to include the same method of painting and illustrating over the photographs, that I have been doing so far, just this time joining the photographs up.
(Photo Credit -elefantesdepapel.com)
(Photo Credit – Amazon.com)
For my current work, I am looking at movement. I have recently seen Arthur Ballards work, based on boxers. I researched into Ballard and found he was born in Liverpool in 1915 and died in 1994. He won a scholarship to Liverpool College of Art in 1930 and after World War II, taught there for the rest of his career. I am specifically looking at Ballard’s work on boxers as it relates to what I am trying to show in my pieces, movement. Although not clear shapes, it is clear that the figures in the paintings are of Boxers fighting. I like Ballards use of tone and structure of the men’s figures whilst still making his work Fluid and representing movement.
(Photo Credit: bbc.co.uk)
After researching into Iza Artillero’s Online T-shirt Shop, I plan on selling my own T-shirts.
IDEA
My idea is to create T-shirts aimed at Female Fighters, featuring illustrations that relate to Female Fighters. I chose this Target Audience because this is something I can relate to and it is accessible to sell for me. Looking at the apparel for Female Martial Artist, I notice that there isn’t a wide range of stylish T-shirts for woman to wear, whether it is for training or just day-to-day, There is only the Necessity’s, including sports bra’s, training pants, etc. I notice on the main Martial Arts Equipment supplier website in the UK, the T-shirts featured are of ‘Bad Breed’ brand, a brand that mostly seems to be aimed at males.
And there are only 5 Female t-shirts for sale, all of which are quite plain.
So my idea is to, using some of my illustrative pieces of woman fighting, create stylish, fashion T-shirts that will appeal to woman to wear day to day. Other sports like Surfing for example, have shirts that represent the sport, yet could be worn day to day as a stylish outfit, For example the shirt shown below has an illustration of someone surfing on the front.
I will select a number of my pieces that I think would work well/if adapted would work well on T-shirt’s and feature them on this blog.
RESEARCH
I have been recently researching into how I can transfer my illustrations onto T-shirts. I am looking for an affordable but reliable way to create my t-shirts. One way I found was the Dylon Image Maker (second result down). I have used this before and I was happy with the way the image turned out on the fabric. I thought about Iron-on transfers but I want my images to blend into the t-shirt and the t-shirt to not have two elements, the t-shirt and the iron-on paper.
I researched into the price of the product, shown below.
I then researched into buying a bulk of White T-shirts. I am starting simply with white, and then depending on how the images turns out, and the selling of the T-shirts is, I may move onto colour. I searched for Ladies White T-shirts because my T-shirts are aimed at woman, so I want the fitting of the T-shirts to appeal to them. Below are some of the best results I found.
I will decide which Products I will buy and the illustration pieces I will feature and then post the results on here.
I recently visited Neil Combs Surrealism exhibition in Bodelwyddan Castle, North Wales. Combs created large images that combined different photographs that created a ‘face’. Each of the images was based on a place Combs had visited. Combs also created smaller versions of the pieces, making them small collectable cards, like football cards. Here are some photographs from the exhibition.
I also saw some work by other artists that relates to my own, including in paint work with photography.
Using my artwork, I would like to try and get my work printed onto some t-shirts to sell on an online blog/etsy etc. So I asked my friend, Iza, to give me some information about how she came about making her T-shirt store online.
Iza created ‘The Style Prodigy Shirts’ to firstly make some money for her own things. She fabric painted on the shirts and created designs that the buyer could choose, including band logos, lyrics to songs, etc. This made her target audience fans of certain bands, giving her another way of advertising, which was band concerts, and the fans wearing her shirts. Most of Iza’s sales were via the internet, when a buzz was created via the blogging website Tumblr. Iza’s friends posted photos of themselves wearing the shirts, and Iza used Tumblr to her advantage, advertising more and more. The T-shirts were bought in Bundles, but it was the fabric paint that was expensive to buy. Iza’s T-shirt business coincided with her style blog, The Style Prodigy, and she created a brand for herself, later moving on to create feather ear cuffs that were featured in magazines. She now has a clothes and accessories business ‘Vixen’ that has its facebook page, and that she advertise’s on her blog.
The Blog, http://www.thestyleprodigy.blogspot.com that coincided with Iza’s T-shirt Business.
Some of the photos that helped promote Iza’s T-shirt business.
Iza’s Feather Ear Cuff store features on her blog.
The online clothing shop that stemmed from Iza’s previous shops.
This example gives me an idea of how I can advertise and promote my shirts. It also shows that it could possibly lead on to other ideas and products I could sell that would create a ‘brand’ like Iza has.
William Klein
I am currently looking at William Klein’s photography for my work right now. The main piece that has inspired the pieces I am working on is Klein’s photograph in Vogue that featured model Marie-Lise Gres ‘amongst a swarm of faceless onlookers in front of the Paris Opera’ (Vogue 2012) in 1963. I like Kleins use of mixed media, Included in painted faces in the background and leaving in the element of Photograph. I have also made my photographs monochrome, like Klein did in his work.
Klein was trained as a painter, which may explain where the mixed media element of this piece came from. He was born in New York, but has lived in France since his late teens. As well as photography, Klein has also made documentary’s, including the Documentary ‘Muhammed Ali: The Greatest‘, aswell as directing a number of commercials. He also works alot in Fashion Photography. He has been ranked as 25th on Professional Photographers Top 100 Most Influential Photographer’s list.
I am currently focusing on artwork based on and inspired by Kickboxing and Martial Arts, A sport I teach and train in, and something which I have been bought up around all my life. I started off drawing sketches and watercolours of the paraphernalia of the sport.
I then saw this photograph, by William Klein in an Issue of Vogue Magazine, which inspired me to create my own mixed media of Photograph and Painting piece of stereotypical training/gym scenes. I took photographs of training sessions, leaving in the ‘gym scene’ background , painting over the face’s and body’s of the people training to make them stand out. I did this to create a focus on the sport instead of the person doing the sport, i.e. male or female.
On some of the images I took to create my own Pieces inspired by Willaim Kleins piece, I used the same Black & White colour.
And the rest I used colour, as this is what I work best in and enjoy working in. I like the contrast between the fullness of the painted areas to the grainyness of the photographic background.
