mitchmen by Mitchell

Saturday, 10 January 2009

A New Look - and a new series for mitchmen

We have a slightly new look at 'mitchmen' from today. I've introduced a bit of colour into the banner to make it more interesting. I'm keeping the 'tied up gardener' image as it always seems to excite newcomers and represents my interests quite well.

The next set of articles posted here will feature a new letter in the A-Z of fetish artists - the letter 'F'. Here to whet the appetite is a picture by Futoshi which expresses quite a lot of what fetish art is all about without even resorting to nudity - nice!

I have lots of artists to choose from for 'F' - Faccini, Frey, Fillion, Franco, Fury, Fujimoto, Fuwa, Funayama and more besides. This could be interesting! As usual I will sift through the contenders and discard those that do not really qualify as 'fetish artists'. In other words those artists who only 'dabble' occasionally in uniforms, bondage, S and M, torture and all the myriad other little obsessions that colour our world. This is a purely subjective judgement on my part but I won't exclude any artist whose contribution has been memorable even if it has been small in quantity. CGI artists are also excluded to keep the list manageable. I hope to review them at a later date but at our present speed it won't be this year! If you want to read the earlier A-E articles click on the A-Z label below

Friday, 9 January 2009

Mitchell's 'In Praise of Sailors' - 20 - Seamen Spanked and Cuffed

Today’s sailors come from my latest, 'Drunken Sailor' series
where they are put through various humiliations and punishments after reporting drunk (74).

(74)

In most of the pictures they have lost their trousers at the least - so no Tom-like bulges I’m afraid. No awed respect for the uniform either. The sailors get a good going over as these two examples show. Well, mitchmen is about putting men in their place after all.
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(75)

No 75 has quite an interesting background. The cross legged cuffing is based on a newspaper photograph printed some years ago showing the actor Sean Penn after he had been arrested for brawling. I couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw it and just had to incorporate the image in my portfolio.

You can view the complete set of drawings for ‘ThePress Gang’ and ’The Drunken Sailor’ at my Google Group (link in side bar)

I hope you have enjoyed my cruise round the world of sailor-dom. I know many mitchmen members also love the genre and there will be more pictures to come from my own hand and no doubt other artists too.

To round off here’s another sailor in bondage from Etienne (76). The series is called ‘Sailor Beware’ but this is from the first picture in it, so it’s a bit late for the warning!
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(76)

The End

Read this series from episode 1

Thursday, 8 January 2009

Mitchell's 'In Praise of Sailors' -19 Building Site Workmen Press-Ganged

If you have been following my ‘sailor blogs’ you won’t need me to explain my fascination with these men, triggered by war movies in my formative years and the drawings of Tom of Finland. Sailors featured in my very earliest pictures and since I started showing my work on the web they have elbowed their way to the front in a couple of series:- ‘The Press Gang’ and ‘The Drunken Sailor’.

The Press Gang setting is in the British Royal Navy and the sailors here are agents of authority, acting under orders to abduct and subjugate a group of muscular builders so they can be forced to serve as seamen (72).

(72)

In these pictures it was the builders rather than the sailors who were the erotic objects
- although I tried to make the Navy boys as cute as possible (73).
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(73)

This picture gives a rare outing for forced haircut fetish. We all know how much gay men like short haircuts and shaving, but how rare it is to see these interests in picture form. There is also a shaving picture in the Drunken Sailor series (see next post).

The Sailor's role in the story was to represent the power of authority in uniform to dominate raw masculinity. The fact that the builders were mature men while the sailors were distinctly youthful gave a nice extra twist of humiliation to their plight.

Continued

Read this series from episode 1

Mitchell's A-Z of Fetish Artists

This is a series of articles in which I survey and review the work of Gay fetish artists. So far I have covered the letters A-E and hope to start on 'F' soon. I have had an enquiry about where to find these earlier articles. The answer is, you should click on the label 'A-Z' which appears at the foot of this post. A full list of labels is shown in the right hand sidebar.

Wednesday, 7 January 2009

Mitchell's 'In Praise of Sailors' - 18

My final selection of sailor artists features a bit more raunch.

Bisonnes’ contribution (68) is a rare example of a two sailors in bondage

with a Samurai warrior introducing them to the possibilities of Shibari.

(68)
The sailors tattoo’s don’t show up very well,
they are actually more Japanese than nautical.
It’s an interesting image though.

Rex is one of the all time greats for fetish art and although his pictures are leather oriented,
other types do get ‘roped in’ from time to time(69). Here is a proper sailor, sexily presented.
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(69)

This harks back to the early images of leather men chasing sailors by Tom and co.
But in Rex’s world the leather man’s rule is unchallenged. Sailors submit.
I like the chunky, masculinity of his men, no delicate faces to be seen here!
The drawing technique, of course, is stunning.

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Palanca is well known for his cartoons showing enlarged feet and organs
and this drawing is no exception (70).

(70)

The overflowing erotic content needs no comment.
The muscular, hairy chested sailor seems an obvious stereotype
but he doesn’t appear very often in gay art so this contribution is most welcome.
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To finish off I have returned to Schultz.
This sailor (71) is also a hairy guy - but not on his chest you will note!
Like Palanca, Schultz often shows unreal organs
but the body proportions of this guy are perfect.
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(71)
So Sailors are alive and well in modern gay art even if you have to hunt for them.
The imagery nowadays benefits from the skills of well trained, professional artists.
My only regret is that the sexy scenarios painted by Tom and Etienne and later on by Rex,
seem to have disappeared now and we are mainly left with Sailors as objects of lust
although these days the lustful parts are much more explicit.

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In the next posting I will show a small selection of my own sailor works.

Read this series from episode 1

Tuesday, 6 January 2009

Mitchell's 'In Praise of Sailors' - 17

(62) Sailor by Kent

For a rather sexier view of sailors here are some examples from Kent above (62) and below (63).

(63) Sailor in the Engine Room by Kent

These two pictures show difference between simply showing the uniform
and using selected elements to create a sexy image.

(64) Sailor Saluting by RA Schultz

Schultz’s sailor (64) above works better than Julius’ effort below (65)
because it is more believable as a man
- and the same applies to his bulge compared with Kent‘s men!

(65) Sailor by Julius

Dupre below (66) dispenses with everything but the cap - not even a bulge in the underwear.
This approach works fine for me.

(66) Sailor by Dupre

In all these pictures you can see the fine line between sexy uniform and fancy dress.

(67) Sailor in Chair by Luger

In comparison, Luger’s picture from the sixties is a masterwork with fine quality drawing.
The eroticism seems restrained and disguised at first,
but in reality is more overt than any other in this group.

Continued here

Read this series from episode 1

Monday, 5 January 2009

Mitchell's 'In Praise of Sailors' -16

Since Tom and Etienne there has not been so much sailor art produced and I had to search quite hard to find a representative selection. The imagery is used quite a lot by artists who produce pictures suitable for hanging on your living room wall. In these pictures the imagery is wholesome and indisputably attractive.

(59)

The sailor in (59) is a favourite of mine - for the technique as much as the subject matter - but I have never been able to discover the name of the artist.

(60)

Wu (60) is quite prolific and his work has a nice balance between erotic and presentable. Those bottles count as a modern version of hidden eroticism, not just in shape but in their relative positioning. More subtle is the direction of the right arm belonging to the guy at the back, visualise him at the front of the picture and see where his hand is!
More of his work can be seen at Adonis Art - Wu.

(61)

Hartley’s sailor (61) is part of a series of military portraits which are rather nice.

The next installment will feature more sexy modern interpretations of the sailor theme.

Read this series from episode 1