i am christopher's blog

WEBSITE IS UP AND RUNNING

iamchristopherharrogate — Tue, 18 May 2010 12:58:16 +0000

VIST

WWW.CHRISTOPHERHARROGATE.COM

CONTACT – CHRIS@CHRISTOPHERHARROGATE.COM

Selection of work 09/10

iamchristopherharrogate — Tue, 27 Apr 2010 21:40:56 +0000

E.M.P

iamchristopherharrogate — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 12:33:13 +0000

just watched beautiful losers.

hasn’t inspired me the way i thought but now i just want to draw cross’s and open palm hands

so i have finally come up with an idea.

Here is my learning agreement

For my unit of work during “E.M.P” i want to design a series of large format images that can be exhibited in a gallery space. i want continue developing my ideas from my last project of masculinity and image making skills from influences that i previously looked at and worked with. i want to look at the story of the Minotaur, the birth, life and death. This story has powerful characters that i wish to illustrate and has the story line that i can work with. i want my paintings to be obvious what they are about, using the classic look of characters that have been portrayed in earlier stories but still have a contemporary style.

i want to develop my painting techniques and use this and other mediums such as charcoal and oil pastels to create large paintings. i am open to how this will be viewed but at the moment i can see it being hung and as i want to use this for my Free Range piece it would need to be able to be moved about.

while i think my style developed alot last year i still want to expand it and make sure i cover all possibilities too ensure it can become a more professional standard. My work has constantly got larger in size but i now want to concentrate on making my body of work far more impressive, i want my audience to appreciate the line making, shape, marking and tone, so instead of designing the obvious ideas i hope to brake the parts down to produce something far more aesthetically pleasing. I believe that the work i will be producing from this project will help my own specialist practice’s and client based worked. This will give me the opportunity to beable to explore ideas that clients may be interested in working with but at the same time use this opportunity to design something i am truly happy with while i still have the chance to have my own views and opinions. I have been influenced in working in this way by artists that use the human body figure and use alot of raw emotion in their work.

i managed to make shift a studio,

Here is the studio

start

This is 1 of 5 planned paintings so far, its the birth of the minotaur

i went back to the painting and decided that the minotaur was looking to much like a deer so i painted him black and changed the shape of his head, but i have left the old nose underneath

full shot

eye of minotaur

nose of minotaur

hands of Poseidon and horns of the minotaur

another full shot

a few quick free hand sketches of bulls, i decided i needed to work on them as my last attempt was a poor one

new painting, minotaur

unfinished

new paint start

so i started a new painting today, i’m really happy with it so far, its more of how i wanted and expected my work to be, i’m trying to draw how i usually draw but using the medium of paint.

this is one of the eyes of a wounded sacrifice

this is a drawing i did with my eyes closed, this is my best drawing i’ve done in years.

FINAL OUTCOMES

IMAGE 1 (UNTITLED)

IMAGE 2 (UNTITLED)

x

Influences.

Leon Golub

Leon Golub is an artist that i’ve taken large amounts of inspiration when it comes to my work, his large scale paintings with dark bold colours really gave me the ideas to go as large as i could to make the viewer feel overcome by the work. i’ve been looking how he creates the human body in a simple way but with skilled mark making to give each one depth.

When i started this project i struggled to find something i would be happy with working on and at the same time had a large amount of bulk so i wouldnt struggle to fill the time i was given and not get bored. So i started drawing things i was interested in at the time. i was thinking something along the lines of body figure or possibly religious symbolism. After a talk with my tutors i decided to look at myths and the one that particularly interested me was the story of the Minotaur . I had previously heard this story while at school had never really understood it. As i was starting to look into the story i took a 5 day trip to rome which i think really made me look at the human figure differently, on a much larger scale than i had before. Rome is covered in the most amazing sculptures which i am sure influenced me to paint large figures on my work and making it very much about shape.

I managed to get some 10ft x 4ft bits of wood which i thought were a good size for me to paint on and where still easy to move about for exhibitions, if i could i would have loved to work on a even larger scale but i wanted them to be shown so i didnt think i would beable to make something much bigger. when i started to paint i knew i would have to get used to painting and develop a style as i had never really painted much before. In the beginning i wanted my audience to view it as a large scale drawing but using the medium of paint, but shortly after i started i realised that I really should explore and use this opportunity to my best advantage. The first painting i did was of the minotaur being born, but i had managed to make the head look like a deer, i put this down to drawing stags for the last year or so.

canadian photos

iamchristopherharrogate — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 20:58:35 +0000

i got photos back from canada and i’m happy with them, i’ll post a link to a flickr with them on

http://www.flickr.com/photos/iamchristopherharrogate/

Negotiated Practice

iamchristopherharrogate — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 14:14:31 +0000

well it seems i’ve literally dried my brain of inspiration, so to make sure i at least get something done i’m going to try and draw one picture everyday.

i will post every couple of days and write a bit about it

here’s a cow dressed as a farmer.

this piece is called ”for the whore”

i’m happy, needs more of something though!

blurred wolf, you cant see all the detail in the teeth because of the photo

here’s a wolf

a quick sketch parody of a friends work,

CHECK THEM OUT THEY ARE SUPER SICK!

www.wearebestever.com

right i have some sort of idea of what i want to draw now and a reason behind it…

here’s the ‘bullshit’

i got told the other day that all i seem to draw are masculine drawings, e.g big powerful animals or raped women

so the new project is called ‘what makes men masculine’

not too sure about this one yet, nice idea tho.

masculine knuckles

charles bronson

unfinished…

closer i think…

FRIENDS|FRIENDS

chappie.

russian tattoo

i’ve also decided to start tattooing pig skin for my work.

will post photos very soon.

had to sew the feet up as the skin starts to shrink and tighten over the knuckles but is loose at the ends

head 2

i’ve been asked if i wanted to put my pigs in a exhibition to help raise money for our final year show, i could have put up a bit of work i’ve been doing lately but i thought i’d see how people react and it might be perfect way to get feed back from fellow illustrators.

also i tried to defrost the head quicker in my parents bath but i must have scolded the skin on the top of the head and now the ink wont come off it, it makes it look really dirty and in a way it was a nice mistake but it frustrated me for a long time, so much so i ended up smacking head a couple of times.

i’ve also pined the eye lids back so it makes the eyes visible.

update on the pig

today i decided to try skinning the belly pork from the rib cage.

here is the process, this meat is well over a month old, its really starting to smell

tried screws, didnt work so i used nails

work station/parents kitchen table

Presentation

i had a tutorial earlier this week and was asked how i was hoping to display the work, i was thinking of trying to put it all together and really finalize all the pieces.

promo shots

i wanted to get some different shots of the pig, i used my analog camera to take the pictures apposed to a digital camera this time.

heres a photo of my phone of it. i left the pig there for nature to take its course.

Promo shots (not final images )

there are some more but its being awkward and won’t upload

i decided on getting one more head and trying a few more shots to try get as much work as i could possibly get.

i wasnt sure how these would turn out but infact i think these are my best shots yet.

i have decided on choosing 6 final images instead of 4, i really think these work perfectly as a set.

here they are, i was them in 2 sets of 3 one above each other.

big thanks to

charlie mclelland

Rosie Apples: http://www.rosieapplesphotography.co.uk/

manc girl

iamchristopherharrogate — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 13:32:41 +0000

ok well here’s another bit of work which seems to be going somwhere

i’m doing a bit of work for a girl in manchester,

she’s kind of happy to let me do what i please, so i’m getting some old designs to her asap & drawing some new ones up for her too

i’ll get them up here.

THE GRAMAPHONE EXHIBITION 25/10/09 – 06/01/10

iamchristopherharrogate — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 20:04:05 +0000

i have a exhibition in east london at The Gramaphone for a show called “Paper & Pen’s II”

the show will be from the 25th of november and will finish on the 6th of january 2010.

http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=313411125093&ref=mf

http://www.thegramaphone.co.uk/

The Gramaphone
60-62 Commercial St
Tower Hamlets,
London E1 6LT

i have some images of what i’m thinking of submitting,

the first is a stag & the second is a moose,

i believe i’m only about to submit two pieces of work, but if i can get to slip in one more i think i’ll add a hunter too, i’ll also get a photo of that soon too, but at the moment its in a smashed frame at home under my desk…

i’m really sorry for the quality but i can seem to find a scanner to scan these properly, i’ll get photos once they are framed which should hopefully be tomorrow.

FLYER-

Paper & Pens II – Opening night.

just some of the Paper & Pens crew

Beat Redemption

iamchristopherharrogate — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 18:55:29 +0000

Beat Redemption is a event in bournemouth which mix’s art, music and live performance’s.

-beat redemption facebook link- http://www.facebook.com/search/?q=beat+redeption&init=quick#/beatredemption?ref=search&sid=666870073.1862137543..1

Beat Redemption Group link – http://www.facebook.com/search/?q=beat+redeption&init=quick#/group.php?gid=30635813214&ref=search&sid=666870073.1862137543..1

i had been drawing some ugly dogs for fun and then got asked to design more to be used for some posters to decorate the walls for the night.

i’ll post the designs and the photos i drew from.

i’m still not sure which ones to choose yet but i think it’ll be about 4 of the dogs.

first draft design for ‘Killamonjambo’

iamchristopherharrogate — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 18:27:01 +0000

so basically i got given a great opportunity to do a front cover for a album for a band called ”killamonjambo”

i was asked to firstly just design a “k” for the front cover but then i found out i could do more/pretty much the whole thing..

i’m still not sure how much i’m being asked to do so this is why this design might change quite alot.

so heres a quick few snaps of the design and the ”k” idea

i’ve also added other possible ideas for the front cover.

again i apologize for the quality but i thought i should at least stick it up here.

i’ll update it once i’ve either finished that design or started a new one

my wordpress

iamchristopherharrogate — Sun, 04 Oct 2009 21:45:16 +0000

this is a blog i intend to keep.

if you wish to contact me

iamchristopher_@hotmail.com

————————————-