THOMAS MANNING

ABOUT MEGrowing up on the Channel Island of Jersey as a child I had quite a few friends to play with but when I was eight my family and I moved to France. I lived in a rather rural area with the majority of my neighbours being elderly couples, so if I was not talking to them I would be in my house doodling and colouring. I began drawing many different things but I recall that I used to love look-ing through the encyclopaedia and choosing to draw bugs and an-imals and loving all the images of space and the universe. When I moved back to Jersey I studied art for GCSE, First Diploma and National Diploma.

ABOUT ME MY WORK

I work in a few different styles. For my FMP I created a comic strip with brush and ink and then coloured it digitally on Photoshop. My work has always been varied, with me using fine liners for one piece, spray paints for another, paints for images that pop into my head etc.

I like working quite loose, being quite messy and getting hands on but alongside that I do take extra care when finalising my pieces. Nothing can beat the feeling of freedom I get when creating my art, especially with the spray paintings.

“Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep”

-Scott Adams-

PLANETARY SPACE ART

For this I use different coloured spray paints and fill a section of the page with it. Then, using sculpting tools and different thicknesses and textures of paper, I quickly peel away and smudge the paint before it can dry to cre-ate the textures and patterns that you see. I use my fingers for other aspects of these pieces and also different spray can tops. This technique took me a long time to become good at due to the speed in which I have to create them before they dry. Even after creating these pieces for four or five years I’m still experimenting and evolving my method.

“Every artist was first an amateur”

-Ralph Waldo Emerson-

BLACK AND WHITE ARTI have always found, since I was a child that everything looks better with a black outline around it (though that may just be me). Some of the pieces I create aren’t the most realistic but every now and again I do like to dabble in realism and use mainly black and white for the tones. I’m always happy when I can look back on a drawing in a few weeks’ time and still find that it’s aesthetically pleasing. Many of these I did before coming to university and they have been lost over the years but some I still have and am still very proud of.

BLACK AND WHITE ART

INSPIRATION

INSPIRATION

My main inspiration came to me in 2008 when my family and I took a trip to America. We travelled around California and the amount of street artists and performers amazed me. One in particular was a very scruffy looking man in San Francisco spray painting these amazing planetary scenes in a matter of min-utes with such detail. I bought one of his pieces that he had made for me and after returning home I was ada-mant to re-create it, to add to it, to expand on it and make it my own. The universe intrigues me, not know-ing exactly what is out there, always discovering new planets, suns, exo-planets, black holes and moons all different shapes, colours and sizes. Just like surrealist paintings or dreams, anything is possible, my art work can look as surreal as it likes because we’ve only seen a tiny section of the universe.

“No great artist ever sees thungs as they really are. if he did, he would cease to be an artist”

-Oscar wild-

ONLINE PRESENCE

I have created a Facebook page alongside my own that can be seen by my friends who have “liked” it and also their friends. It contains my contact informa-tion along with links to my other sites as well as images of my work and will soon have a link to the online shop where I will be selling t-shirts, prints and other items of merchandise. I feel that Facebook is a great way to get my artwork seen because one “like” on Facebook allows that person’s friends to see the page that he/she” liked”.

I have used Pinterest a lot in the past but only signed up to it this past year. I use it mainly for inspirational purposes and stock images. I have found it to be a very useful site for my work and it is also good for posting new, useful images, which inspire and aid my practice.

FACEBOOK

PINTEREST

ONLINE PRESENCE My blog is mainly used for my sketchbook work and experimental work. It is mainly used for the artwork that hasn’t made it to the final outcomes, which will allow the viewers to see my working processes and I also find that in some cases the experimental work is liked by a few interested, potential clients.

My website is my main site for my work to be seen. It has my online portfolio, projects that I have completed with some ex-perimental work, a “like” button linked to my Facebook and also an online shop that is linked to my account. This is the main site for me to promote myself due to it having these options. It is easy to manage and I have had a lot of fun moving different pieces of work around and creating new pages on it. It is also very easy to use and is compatible for smart-phones which will widen my chances of being seen.

BLOG

WEBSITE

ONLINE SHOP

I haven’t yet created a shop but I have created t-shirts, IPhone cases, coasters, bottle openers and other items that I have already sold. I’m very happy with them and they look extremely good with my art work. I am in the processes of creating an account for an online shop that I will link to my website, blog, Twitter and Facebook.

OUTSIDE OF EDUCATION

In the past I have been in many exhibitions, not just with college but also with fellow artists. My space art has been in four exhibitions since I have been at university, one being with a series of extremely expensive Turkish rugs due to the fact that the colours complimented each other. Quite a few of my paintings have also been sold meaning that I need to create more pieces for clients and exhibitions. Out of all the art work I’ve done these have brought me the most attention and I strongly believe that these will be the ones I’ll continue with in the near future.

ONLINE SHOP

“Drawing is the honesty of the artist. There is no possibility of cheating. It is either good or bad.

-Salvador Dali-

BUSINESS CARDSWhile doing my FMP I created a batch of business card that I am very proud of. The ones that I’ve had printed only show a single piece of work on them but I am having three different kinds printed out very soon which will contain a mixture of work on them. I feel that it’s important having business cards printed just in case you strike up a conversation with a potential client and they want your contact details.

BUSINESS CARDS POSTCARDS

I am also going to create a series of postcards as they are, I feel, a perfect form of advertising myself by leaving then at various ven-ues or handing them out to various businesses. I have been told by many people that they are very good for sending off or leaving them in different places such a different businesses and also just handing out to people because they are interesting. They’re a good idea because unlike business card which people tend to lose in the bottom of their pockets or crumple into a ball, post cards are more of a long lasting item which people like to keep. This is especially true if it has artwork on done by the artist rather than the generic photographs of a hillside or a beach.

“Advertising is the greatest art form of the 20th Century”

-Marshall McLuhan-

WHATS NEXT?

This is one of the scariest questions I’ve ever faced. My 11 plus years of education are coming to an end and these past three years of university have been extremely fun. I have learnt to think more about my art and how I would like it to been seen and understood. I have seen my art evolve and improve over the years and I have been inspired by the skills of my fellow classmates. I am going into the world filled with many different emotions such as fear, excite-ment and eagerness because I’m not sure what will happen. I’m uncertain about what’s to come. I do know that I will try my hard-est to do what I have planned to do. I know that I want my art to succeed; I want to create quality pieces for a lot of people and enjoy doing it hopefully in many places around the world as a freelance illustrator. So after I leave university, where I have spent three of the most fun, stressful and creative years of my life, I will try my hardest to carry on having fun and to complete every task I set my-self.

I was told in a recent interview with an art director that she had never seen the space painting style before and that she could see my work going far in the future if I manage it in the right way. She gave me a lot of useful advice, one bit being that I should begin get-ting involved with the Science Fiction community on Twitter and Facebook and that by doing so I could make more contacts and have more of a chance of getting commissions.

WHATS NEXT? I have also been commissioned to do my space art on the entire floor of a games room at a campsite in Jersey when I get home. I am look-ing forward to doing this because it will allow me to practice creat-ing my artwork on a much larger scale than I am used to. This will be a great job to do and will hopefully look great in my portfolio for future clients. The art director also said that she could see it being really good for Science Fiction festivals and perhaps night club floors with UV paint which I agree with. I‘m going to start experimenting with UV spray paints because it doesn’t always look the same as when it is applied compared to when it is under UV light. I feel that it will be a very fun, new path to proceed down.My dream for the past three years is that after University I will go home work, and save up money to buy a world ticket and travel the world for one year. While doing this, I will promote myself and my artwork to a variety of different businesses (small and big) to try and sell not just my artwork but also my t-shirts and other items of merchandise. I still wish to do this but while doing so, go to Science Fiction conventions and festivals where I feel that my artwork would be met with a much greater audience. This trip will hopefully inspire me because these different countries I read about fascinate me so be-ing there in person will do much more.

“Pull your fingure out and crack on”

-Geraldine Manning (my Mother)-