Professor Regis Milton Attacking from in Guard

It was good to work on this as a BJJ portrait, capture the position, and bring movement and tension to a seemingly static position. There is a balance to rough technique and tight details of the painting, and I enjoyed the foreshortening.

Master Francisco Mansur Attacking the Arm and Neck

This painting is of Master Francisco Mansur, attacking from on top of an opponent, demonstrating that the opponent protecting one submission leaves open another.

Master Francisco Mansur Performing a Hip Throw

This painting of Master Francisco Mansur was really fun to paint, and there were so many great positions within the throw of the two bodies that were exciting to show the movement. It is fun to play with the varying finish of the artwork, the sketch is full of life and energy, to paint it all out would have made it weak and static.

Professor Regis Milton Fighting for Grips

Grip fighting is critical to BJJ, so I took a lot of care to show the subtlety of the position and capture dynamics and vigor. This position to me looks like the movement has stopped for a fraction of a second, but either player could be turned upside down in a blink. Framing and grips are so critical!

These paintings were the first commissioned paintings that I did over the internet, and it was a really exciting, growing experience for me as an artist. It was great to work with Kara from Kioto BJJ on this project, she was so accommodating and patient as I developed the process for making original paintings for their new school in South Shore, New York.

To make these paintings, I found images of their professors and created abstractions and sketches in black and white to capture the movement and positions. It was so great to get pictures back from Kara of the artwork on the walls at the new Kioto BJJ South Shore school. I feel very close to them now, even though they are half the country away from me, and I hope to one day visit the school.

Kara sent me some wonderful traditional ink brushes, a Kioto BJJ gi patch, t-shirt and window sticker, which I am so proud to to wear, and hope to collect a patch from every new jiu jitsu painting patron/client in the future! It is very special to me, and I feel like they are a part of my motivation to grow in jiu jitsu and as an artist! Pictures to come soon!

Brazilian jiu jitsu paintings in progress

I worked on these paintings for a long time! I worked on them at coffee shops in Madison, including Michaelangelo’s Coffee House, and Black Locust Cafe, as well as while I was on the road drawing caricatures at the Boone County Fair in northern Illinois. It was fun to work on them at the fair in the morning when I had a lot of time to ponder and explore the artwork. It was actually an incredible source of inspiration and creativity to work on a painting in such a public place.

Got a shirt and gi patch from Kioto BJJ South Shore in New York! I want to say a huge thanks to them for commissioning my artwork for their new school facility, I'm putting the patch on my gi tonight! #bjj #kiotobjj #brazilianjiujitsu #Madisonwi #farmersmarket #southshore #ny #newyork #art #painting

A post shared by theo howard (@locojitsu) on Oct 21, 2017 at 6:57pm PDT