Hello,

My name is John-Paul Real. And I am what some consider an artist. I have been drawn to art, and the artist lifestyle ever since I can remember, honestly.

I was about 4 years old. I remember learning how to read from Dr. Seuss’s “Cat in the Hat”, and being enthralled with the sheer wonders of colorful characters that he developed, as well as the interesting, and funny rhymes he would invent for his stories. But it was then that I truly found a love for art. The fact that someone could create not only these crazy words and rhymes, but the wonderful drawings as well, from their own mind, was certainly remarkable to me. Even at a young age. And from then on, I was on a secret mission to become an artist myself.

Image courtesy of the artist.

My pen name is Mi$hap. This is because my father had the frame of mind that my brother and I were going to be sports stars when we grew up. So the fact that I fell in love with art, and wanted to begin a career as an artist, was somewhat of a mishap. Yet I decided to see where it could go for a while. And even though my father latched on to my drawing skills, I have a rebellious nature, and wandered away from art, and started getting more focused on sports activities such as football, skateboarding, and snowboarding. All the while, subconsciously wanting to make my name as an artist. Unfortunately, the skills I breached upon early in my teens, was let go of in high school to pursue other activities such as football, snowboarding, and social events. So my time for art was put on the back burner.

I always kept the love of art in my heart and mind though. And many times I would be inspired by so many things in life to go out and do something artistic. Events like concerts, traveling the country, sporting events, nature, etc., would always strike a chord in me to try and create something evocative of the inspirational subjects I heard, saw, felt. And it wasn’t until about early 2007, that I decided to get back into my love of art, and the artistic process. My Mother had just passed away, and I was moved to start painting. Although I did not want to travel the common brush stroke route in creating a piece, I was always intrigued by graffiti, and spray art. So I decided to embark on trying a different method. I resorted to spray paint on canvas. Which I instantly fell in love with, and have continued to attempt to accomplish the images that I get in my mind on canvas.

Image courtesy of John-Paul Real.

There really is no direct path I take when creating my projects. In fact, I usually get inspired by images I see driving down the road, and find a color scheme that fits the image I am trying to produce. Then it’s finding the right size of canvas that will fit my objective. This mode of operation has made me realize that my “style” is better formatted for medium to larger canvases. My work is usually attributed to my love of music as well. Which in a sense, is the feeding force of my drive to finish a project. I love listening to loud music, preferably bass music, to excite me, and keep me moving to finish the project at hand.

In closing, there is no telling where my style will travel, and if and when I ever get satisfied with my own work, as I have a tendency to never really like the projects I finish. And merely want to do a better job each time. But one thing is certain, I LOVE doing it. It brings such a joy to my life. And in some instances, others as well. I probably won’t ever stop this passion I have built up inside of me, and I’m perfectly fine with that.

Mi$hap