This artwork is a homage to the phenomenal street artist that is Banksy. Once again the technique of selection and colour leveling was applied, with a lot more layers to the image than it appears to have. The artwork shows a stencil painter who has written 'Who am I?' on the wall. The stencil is Banksy's primary tool in creating his artworks, which I tried to highlight in this homage.

To start off with, I found a nice wall background which looks to be an area that Banksy would graffiti...


From here I got the image of a painter which I found the colour levels of in a staggered way, and applied motion and gaussian blur to add the graffiti look...


After this I added a couple of layers of text, where I repeated the same technique for a graffiti like effect...


To make the piece more tactile and more realistic, I added the original image of the background over the top with the blending options set to 'Overlay'...


Finally I added the reflection to the water to give me the final product...


The title 'Robin Gunningham' is the alleged name of the serial graffiti artist of Banksy. The mystery and patronization of Banksy's work is something that is both humourous and admirable, which is why I thought it would only be respectful to pay homage to him. The use of stencils is also a very creative and appealing looking technique, adding to the reasoning behind my tribute to Banksy. I have noticed and appreciated the concepts and productions of 'Robin Gunningham' for quite some time now, and as a result I have illustrated my respect for him through this artwork.


These two artworks were also constructed using micrography, however, over the time it took to construct Pac's Life, I had thought of a new way to create an artwork with the same effect, but it was much simpler. I did the same technique in finding the colour levels of each piece, but without the use of a gradient map, it made selecting and colouring the sections of the original photograph immensely difficult (no gradient map was added to preserve the original colours). After that was done, it was only a matter of adding in text paying homage to them, for Balotelli, it was his biography, and for Malcolm, it was one of his most memorable speeches. The text was then selected inversely using the magic wand tool, and then I changed back to the layer on which the colour levels had been established. By erasing this layer with the inverse text selection, and hiding the text layer after, it created both artworks, still with legible text, which was the aim. Here are the original images and processing...
'Little to X'
Original...


Colour leveling...


Final product...

The title 'Little to X' tells about how Malcolm Little became Malcolm X. His inspiring ways in the fight for rights for African-Americans has made him one of the most influential people of all time. Malcolm's speech of the Black Man's History ignited a time for change, with the support of every African-American to edge him forward as an activist and a revolutionary man. By creating this image purely based upon this speech, it entails the life of a true hero.


'Super Mario'
Original...


Colour leveling...


Final Product...


The title 'Super Mario' is the nickname of the young footballing prodigy that is Mario Balotelli. Born into the family of Ghanaian immigrants, Mario lead a troublesome life. Plagued with life-threatening complications from an early age, Mario battled on and continued playing the game of football. His illness had forced his parents to put him into a foster family, as they could not cope with Mario. From there he became a footballing superstar, where his biological parents wanted him back, which he then accused them of only wanting him back because he became famous. Conflict in clubs with his loose cannon approach to football has lead to further conflict, but it does not go without saying he is a great talent. The rough and incomplete look to the artwork gives meaning to the potential Mario Balotelli still has to offer, and the troubles that he has dealt with. All in all, the aim of this artwork was to showcase the incredible footballer that is Mario Balotelli.


The first artwork I started and the last I finished was Pac's Life.
This piece was constructed of several layers of 88 different songs of his.
To start off, I chose a rather large image showing Tupac as a happy man...


After this, I put it in photoshop, and applied a black and white gradient map.
Then using the magic wand and fill tool, I found the different colour levels of his face, which was the starting point for the micrography. Throughout the whole piece I copy and pasted his lyrics into the selected areas which where coloured to match the selected area of the original piece. It was by far the most time consuming artwork I have ever done.


From here I worked on each majority selection at a time, starting with the black right side...


Then across to the middle, veiled in grey...


Then to the far left, adding the contrast, shades and angle of the original photo...


Finally, I added the finer details, to complete the artwork, and portray the intended message of the artwork across to all those looking at it...



The jagged monochromatic colours of Pac's Life demonstrates the life he had lived. Covered in his own lyrics, he lived for music, in which he expressed all of the hardships he had been through. The unfinished, staggered look of the piece relates back to the life he had lead, also giving reference to the title. Tupac Shakur died at a very young age, however his philosophies and music still lives on, which was the aim of this homage.


These are the final products of my work.


Entitled 'Pac's Life'


Entitled 'Little to X'


Entitled 'Super Mario'


Entitled 'Robin Gunningham'

Click on images for larger view.


Before I had chosen the people who I was going to do a homage to properly, I had ideas as to who I would base my artworks upon, including Spike Lee - Famous director, Joe Cole - my favourite football player, and David Beckham - another one of my favourite footballers.
During the selection of these people, I either started an artwork on them, or I could not find a fitting image that was large enough for my style of micrography.
Here's what I would've based the homage on/my failure of artworks.



Started and didn't finish Becks, as black and white seemed too bland.
Started Joe Cole, stopped working on it as the text was pixelated due to a small image.
Never started Spike Lee because there wasn't a cool enough image that was big enough.


Because I do not know what Banksy looks like I will do a homage to his style of art, making a photo manipulation of his stencil graffiti style as the conceptual piece.



After researching micrography, I have come across a company called LA Pop Art, who construct clothing with their micrography artworks printed on them.
http://www.lapopart.com/
They also create some amazing pieces from texts that the person had written or spoke.
For example, the piece below was constructed purely from the famous 1987 speech Ronald Reagan delivered.

Because I think this is really cool, I am going to do my Tupac Shakur homage made up of his own lyrics, my Mario Balotelli homage made up of his biography, and my Malcolm X homage made up of his Black Man's History speech.


I have chosen this technique in constructing my artworks.
"Micrography (from Greek, literally small-writing – "Μικρογραφία"), also called microcalligraphy, is a Jewish form of calligrams developed in the 9th century, with parallels in Christianity and Islam, utilizing minute Hebrew letters to form representational, geometric and abstract designs. Colored micrography is especially distinctive because these rare artworks are customarily rendered in black and white."
I may not attempt this style when doing my conceptual piece, where I show homage to the person without actually including them in the artwork (I will probably do the conceptual on Banksy seeing as I do not know what he looks like).
Anyway, this is what micrography looks like.



This term the topic is homage.
We were asked to make 4 artworks showing homage to people we admire.
I have selected to do my 4 on Tupac Shakur - Famous rapper, Mario Balotelli - Young footballer, Malcolm X - Human rights activist, and Banksy - Unidentified street artist.
My aim is to keep an aesthetic approach across all of them, incorporating text in each artwork.
Hopefully it works out.


This is my blog I am using as my visual journal for Art.
Enjoy.