Michael Morgan is a pretty typical (if accomplished) 18-year-old high school senior. His strongest subjects at Maple Grove Senior High School were math and science, and he is planning to study mechanical engineering at the University of St. Thomas. However, unbeknownst to many of his classmates, Michael is a talented artist who channels his skill into creating masterfully stenciled and spray-painted canvas artwork.
The Inspiration
Though his initial interest in sports was passed down from his dad, Mike Morgan Sr., his love of basketball has only increased during years playing for the Osseo Maple Grove Basketball Association. Michael’s love for all things sports inspired his very first piece of art two-and-a-half years ago. “I used to make model cars, and I had a few cans of spray paint left over,” Michael says. “I was trying to make my dad a [Christmas] gift and I’d seen some spray paint art before.” Mike, an avid Chicago Bulls fan, saw great talent in his son’s very first piece—a tribute to his favorite basketball player, Michael Jordan.
In terms of the spray paint medium, Mike knows his son isn’t the first to choose this artistic style. “What he’s doing is not unusual; there are other people out there [who do a similar thing],” he explains. “It’s artist interpretation; how he takes an image and breaks it down on the computer and then onto the canvas, that’s all on him. If he wants to cut a corner or highlight something, that’s his prerogative, and how he feels about a subject will translate through the spray paint medium.”
The Process
Though his father inspired an appreciation for the Chicago Bulls, Michael also cheers for the Timberwolves and the Vikings, and both teams are strongly represented in his work. Additionally, he enjoys painting designer sneakers, such as Nike’s Air Jordans. “He has painted other subjects,” adds Mike, “but I think the nice thing about sports and athletes is that you can get emotion out of an athlete. You can see muscle tone and variation that really lend to the spray paint.”
From start to finish, each painting can take up to a week. Michael starts on the computer—he uses Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator—and breaks down his chosen image by color. “I’ll take the jersey and break down all the separate colors and then work on the player,” he explains. After the colors are broken down on the computer, Michael prints them onto thick paper and hand-cuts each template. The tricky part comes next: Each painting must be constructed in reverse order from the way the colors were broken down on the computer. “The colors seen the most throughout the painting are used first, and then smaller details are laid out on top of that,” Michael says. His favorite part about the spray paint medium is the unique effect it has on each piece. “I love splattering the canvas,” he says. “I like to match it with the motion of the athlete that I’m painting but there’s really no way to control it.”
Michael is incredibly modest, but, like most moms and dads, Mike and his wife, Vicki, love to show Michael’s artwork to family and friends. “We really like to be able to highlight how proud we are of him, and to show off his work to other people who may not have seen it or may not have known Michael did this,” Mike says.
See more of Michael’s art on his Twitter page.
