I really like the black images.it completely covered me and made me look like a different person, when i was getting photos in the shop the guy didn't know it was me untill i told him. My eyes and shoulders are still a bit dark with the paint. I just hope the images i present will be able to stir up some sort of feeling in the viewer, any feeling, i just want them to impose down on people when they look at it. I think the colour choice will have a lot of connotations with the viewer. Black and White, good and bad, race issues, life and death and also my point of changing someone with paint and lens. I made this to ask more questions than answers and i hope they get people thinking.

Mum i got paint on the Carpet

This is me starting to "white up". I tell you now kids paint in your eyes is a massive bastard!!!

More thinking

So i am really enjoying the fact that people change in front of the lens and behind the brush. I don't just wanna make a less good Cindy Sherman so instead of trying to be a character i wanna try and make something else. My idea is to paint my head a solid colour. See my portraits had been picture then paint. This time its paint then picture. Guess what colours i wanna use, yep good old black and white, i just prefer them colours. I'm hoping in the art work i can make something where i don't appear to be a person, that i represent something else. I'm sure people will draw thoughts of race when i "black up" and even "white up" as it were. An that is fine, im hoping to make something that will bring up more questions than i can think of. I hope people don't even see me in it an that they just see something that unsettles them an makes them think.

Cindy Sherman

I have known about Cindy Sherman's work for a very long time. There is a lot of issues in her work that she tackles head on, such as, race, sex, feminism, prejudice and stereotyping. I never thought that i would ever be looking into her work more deeply in this project but here i am. As soon as i seen the results from the paintings i made i was amazed at how they had changed when i painted them. It got me thinking about what would happen if i changed myself, like dress up as a character. I think the result would be a less good version of what you see above in Sherman's work. So im gonna try something a bit different to her work, because i don't just wanna make a poor imitation.

My Mum

This was the most successful one of my portraits in my opinion. I painted my mum because she was there, but the image painted of her she looks scary, it like the painting is a whole different person. I like the idea of changing in front of a lens or brush. It goes back to the Characters i was gonna make for the 9, by painting my friends and family i have sort of transported them into a realm of infinite possibilities. They could be all types of characters in all types of stories. Im still not gonna make a comic though so bum off if that's your idea of constructive criticism

Nick and Leigh

The name's Bond

Cally's Portrait

Self Portrait 2nd attempt

I took a few photos till i got one i thought would give a good image. Then i got a blown photocopy of it and painted on that. I really like the result as it sort of resembles me but not fully, my painting changed it into a different image. If it looked more like the photo what would be the point i may as well present the photograph. Its like i changed myself into a different character.

Egon Schiele

I was told about this guy when i was in collage, and i have been a big fan since then. His jittery fragile figures have a delicacy to them. He uses line in a exceptional way. When i went the Gustav Klimt exhibition one of his works was there and it was the thing in the show. Well the second best thing my favourite bit was the exit through a nice little gift shop, thanks TATE ......

Domenikos Theotokopoulos (El Greco)

The Classic master El Greco had a amazing ability, he can really control the colour in his work. If you just look at the skin tones and the dark brooding backgrounds. When i look at his work i get a sort of uneasy feeling, but that's what i like about it.

Alex Katz

Alex Katz work i like a lot. People say its simple, He said it was "Reductive" and i get that. Its to the point, i like art that is to the point. It is what it is, there is no great riddle to it.

This work i used a old poster, cut it up and painted on top of it just to see the result. I really like how it looks because its all in scale. I was able to be more loose with my brushstrokes. Don't get me wrong it took me a while to paint, and when i say loose i wasn't wild with my brush strokes at all. I think the end result was well worth it. It looks better also as my drawing ability has not held it back, when someone looks at it now they wont go "its out of scale" and instantly discredit it

First go at self portrait. I like the colour and size of the work but i wanna do something about my drawing skill. I don't want my technical ability to hold back the work

Thinking Portraits

The way i have been feeling about my work has led me to move away from making what most people would call "comic book art". If you look at my work its always been of faces, an my work has taken what i feel is a completely natural progression into portraits. I have messed a little with colour as you can see in the photos below but i plan on making some darker images. I plan on using black and white and mixing it to get greys in between. This way i make images and don't have to worry about forcing a msg into it, i can just take photos and mess around with making images i like.

Explanation to some of my thinking

In my work this year i have had a lot of people suggest to me that i should just make a comic as part of my art work. This has never appealed to me as something i wanted to do. Firstly i have never wanted to write and tell stories. I have read a few graphic novels, i think it would be silly to assume i could just create a decent one with a average knowledge of the medium. I do really love the medium of the graphic novel, but most of its stories are aimed at a male audience and are usually stories with a lot of violence. I had a idea in the back of my head for how my year would plan out.
I was going to create a story called "the 9" but sort of not make it. I planned on making characters and making pictures of them in scenarios i created. Its like im giving snippets of a story away without telling the full story. Sort of making movie posters and a trailer but never making the film. If you ever seen Frank Millers film The Spirit, i wanted to make work in the same way. Not the film itself (I've not seen it) but the way it was advertised with posters. This way i wouldn't have to write a story and i would get to make work in the style i like.
There were a few problems with this idea so in the end i didn't go with the idea of the 9. Firstly to make the scenarios and characters i would need a basic plot line and character arc's. I know that makes me sound lazy, like i didn't want to, but i did have a think about possible stories, one i wanted to be like the film crash and have people inadvertently effect each other's lives. Another idea was they were a gang of 9 people in Liverpool involved in the illegal drug trade. The reason i didn't make a story is i don't really have a message or story to tell, with a graphic novel its such a powerful tool for projecting your own personal feelings about the world. I feel a good story will make you think about things on a deeper level, an as i had no message my work would be hollow of meaning making it only a work to look at not think about.

These are two small canvases, i wanted to try and draw a face slowly creeping out the dark and into view for a sort of creepy effect.

This is a A1 size work. I googled the words "Film Noir Female" and then quickly turned the safe search on! But seriously i found a image of a lady looking over her shoulder, so i quickly sketched it and then used ink to try and make a fast work. It does not look like the photo i used and i like that fact. I mainly wanted to use the image just to get the angles of the face right and then i worked fast to try and transform it into a graphic image. Its like i used the original image, changed it and made a fictional character.

This is only a4 size, and the white reflects so not the best photo. Again i draw a face, but i just feel like a face can sometimes capture things that you cant put into words

My mate Phil A.K.A Batch, is in Wirral met doing fine art like me, and he makes some really bad ass stencils. So every so often i have a go at making one so i can show him. Last year i made a sin city stencil, this year i made one of the X men Noir comic cover. Its meant to be gambit, i don't think i have the patience for stencils. Also this only a one layer stencil and my mate makes them with like three layers so they look amazing. Plus in the bottom image i "blue tacked" it to the paper, but paint still come under so there are white spots all over it. It makes it sort of look like a X-ray.