A Meeting of Worlds Part II

Detail from 'For What It's Worth' by C M Burgos & J Ramirez

Let's continue with the story behind the recent collaboration between myself and digital artist Jonathan Ramirez. Having approached Jonathan with the idea of him adding colour and continuing to develop my ink drawings, he said yes and our work began.


We communicated mainly by Facebook and email. He was in Dallas and I was in London, so time differences were a big factor, getting to know when we were free to discuss things etc.


I scanned the drawings and sent him the files by email. I had decided I was going to trust his artistic vision and as a first time experiment was not going to say much about what to do, I wanted the piece to develop naturally. I would just tell him what I had in mind when making the drawing. I left my art work in his hands as to what he was going to do with them, the only thing I mentioned was the importance of the lyrics remaining visible. I was excited and nervous at the same time as this was my first collaboration with another artist.


Jonathan worked very hard on the drawings I sent him. It was now his turn to use his digital brushes and palette.  

J Ramirez and his artistic tools

Jonathan:

"What i did on the drawings was use textures, also I'm into using colors but in a dark way, lots of vintage effects, make them creepy.  I used Photoshop CS5 and Adobe Illustrator CS5  plus an Adesso CTZ12A Cybertablet 10x6" Widescreen Ultra Slim Graphics Tablet".

"I painted some by hand others by using tools like brushes and effects. Im a big fan of the 'Image Vibrance' tool, it brings life to my art, I use a high saturation on most of my artwork".

  

When collaborating with another artist it's strange seeing the results as you know and recognize your own art work but it's somewhat different now. It's interesting seeing how both styles fit and can complement each other creating a completely different image. Jonathan would send me each piece as soon as he finished it, I would take a couple of days looking at it, taking it in and getting used to this new style. We were both very pleased with our work and the results.

This was really my first collaboration, but i believe you have to respect each others work, methods and where its coming from. We had very different methods of working, Jonathan works digitally and I take a traditional approach, our styles differ. But I felt there were things we connected on. I think you have to have a plan of action, how will the work take shape, in what order etc. In our case I had created hand drawn art work and I decided I trusted in his artistic vision and gave him the freedom to then re-interpret the drawing his own way. Our common ground was our love for the same kind of music, so we were drawing inspiration from the same sources.

Jonathan: "Trust in the art of the artist you are collaborating with, Just think you are doing a collaboration where both artists enjoy each others art work. Never think of selling  for a client or making it big into mainstream".

I had been a bit worried about the distance thing, but Jonathan is a great guy, sincere in everything he does. I trust his abilities and that to me is rare. Where you can trust and share your own artistic visions with another artist. We didnt talk much about what we were going to do, over thinking things, we just poured ourselves into our art.

Jonathan: "This is my first collaboration with an artist, and I'm glad it was Carlos, you have to believe in someone or something to be part of it, and Carlos believed in my talent and art, I think I enjoyed the fact that we are both far away. I mean collaborations don't have to be in the same room at the same time, in the same city under the same sky. We try to bring art together no matter what part of the world you are in, it all becomes one".

We created five pieces of work, each of which are available as a limited edition Giclee print of five. Printed on high quality 100% cotton museum grade Canson Aquarelle paper.

Approx print size: 710 x 550mm


Next I'll be showing you the full set of work. You can also see it here: Full Set


(^_^)


Read Part I of this post here

A Meeting Of Worlds Part I

J Ramirez injects his style to my art work, 'Boot Camp'.

Saturday 20th August saw the results of a collaboration by myself and Jonathan Ramirez displayed at Debut Contemporary Gallery, London. Jonathan Ramirez (interviewed here previously) is a digital artist based in Dallas, Texas, and together we have produced five exciting new pieces of art.

In the next few posts I will be telling the story of this special long distance collaboration.

But let's start from the beginning. As some of you may already know, I've been working on a series of drawings inspired by some of my favourite songs or bands and incorporating their lyrics directly in to the art work. Songs by Metallica, Smashing Pumpkins, Guns N' Roses, Buffalo Springfield and Soundgarden. Making the lyrics form shapes and objects creating a narrative amplified by both the pictoral and written elements. These are images that can carry powerful meanings, messages and emotion.

These are drawn entirely by hand, taking up to a week minimum to design, develop and execute. Using technical drawing pens to be able to incorporate very fine details and text. Not much room for any mistakes and these drawings continue to develop as I progress.

I had always planned on adding colour at a later date to my drawings. As I wanted to keep these black and white versions as they were, I had thought about colouring them digitally as I had done with other pieces in the past.

However, time did not allow me to as I was also creating a series of paintings at the same time.

Busy Painting

Previously i had come across the amazing work of a digital artist called Jonathan Ramirez. He had posted a link to his work on a Facebook page at Juxtapose Magazine. The link was to a piece he called 'Tales of a Scorched Earth'. This got my attention as it reminded me of a song by The Smashing Pumpkins, I looked at more of his work and noticed that most of it was inspired by songs and lyrics, by bands that I also liked or knew. We turned out to both be Smashing Pumpkins fans and so I contacted him to make friends.

(His website: jonathanramirez.webs.com)

Some time passed and I still really wanted to add colour to these drawings. Then a thought occurred to me, it may be interesting to see what would happen if I asked Jonathan to add colour to these pieces. Although his style was different to mine, he understood where this work was coming from as he too was influenced by the same music. I really admired his work and style so I thought that it would be even more interesting if I let him continue to interpret the lyrics and my drawings in his own way, adding his unique style and vision. Fusing our styles and talents. I also thought our collaboration would be interesting from a cultural point of view too, he was from Mexico and I had roots from El Salvador, both from Central America.

I contacted him and asked him if he would be interested in collaborating with me, he said yes and our work together began!

(^_^)

Stay tuned for part II...

Read Part II here

Swinging on to the next...

'World within Worlds' series

For the past week I've been working on the second painting in my series of girls and landscapes. I will be calling this series 'World within Worlds'. 'Walking Through Clouds' was the first in this series, currently on display at Debut contemporary Gallery, London. Slowly nearing completion I hope to spend another week on this. I've set myself an initial goal of four paintings in this series for mid August. let's see how it goes.

This one is full of blue skies, fields, a sunset, black butterflies and memories...

Paints & Brushes at the ready...

100 x 76cm Canvas

Busy painting again. Working on something that I'll be delivering to Debut Contemporary Gallery soon. Here's a little peek at what I've been up to.

Work in progress...

La Chica del Atardecer

First in a new series following on from a small painting I did a good few years back,  'La Chica del Atardecer'. This time I'm painting on 100cm x 76cm canvas.

A fusion of girls and dual landscapes will dominate in this surreal series.

There's a set of photos on my facebook page showing some of the process of this piece. Link here

That's it for now, gotta get back to work (^_^)