What is “Sole Workz”?
Welcome to my blog, Sole Workz: Unique Artworkz. So what is “Sole Workz”? Originally it was just a hashtag.
Back in 2014 I was drawing and creating artwork everyday...because my job back then was stressful. Once I felt like my art was decent enough to be seen in public I first went to Facebook. Most of my pics were of Dragon ball Z characters and with the fan base it definitely gave me confidence. I started drawing NBA players particularly the players of the Atlanta Hawks. They didn’t have the love of say the Celtics or the Lakers so it was a slower response for any of that work. Then I got an invite to join Atlanta Hawks nation. That Facebook group was very supportive and even encouraged me to branch out to other platforms like twitter and Instagram. The creator of the group kept pushing me to actually send the pics I had drawn to the players to see if they would respond. Well, after a few weeks one did. Lou Williams responded and shared a pick on his Twitter. People were hitting me up on Facebook saying they saw the pic I sent to Lou. It wasn’t trending but that was enough for me.
That same year I explored using Instagram. I had 12 followers and 2 of those were my brothers. What changed was I listen to the Rickey Smiley Morning show and at the time they were all on Instagram. I drew all the personalities and sent one to each. Ebony and Headkrack responded by following me. Headkrack also shared my work on his own page. It was amazing to see something I had done get such a positive response.
At this point I had some 30 pics out there in social media between Facebook groups, twitter and Instagram. I wanted a way to be able to go back and see the work I had done and thinking a hashtag would be perfect. Originally I wanted to use “Unique Artworks”. It was heavily used everywhere and I wanted something that was mostly all mine. I searched Unique Artworkz but it also had been used. Taking it to a thesaurus, I changed Unique Artworks to “Sole Works”. Even that was used as a European shoe company. As a last stitch effort added a “z” at the end of works. I searched all the social media sites and google and nobody had ever used #SoleWorkz. I went back added the hashtag to every posted pic I had out. Shamelessly googled myself and about 12 lines down a pic I had drawn came up.
Fast forward to 2015, the Hawks were coming off a historic season, I had significantly improved my art style and even some people overseas were sharing some artwork I did of Pero Antic when he played here. I’m at the point where was feeling myself as an artist and a fan and over 2 week period I had drawn the Hawks Starting 5 as super heroes. It was crazy and I didn’t think it would be as big a deal as it was. Well one morning I wake up to several alerts on Facebook and someone shared this with me. https://www.nba.com/hawks/features/instagram-user-has-sketched-some-crazy-awesome-hawks-fan-art The Atlanta Hawks had done a mini story on me and posted it on nba.com. It was at the time the most definitive fanboy moment I had ever had. Then came the day the hawks had an open practice, a day that deserves its own story, but I got to meet some of the players in person. I was ordered by the Facebook group to bring my sketchbook so when they saw it and other fans did too it was a surreal moment. People knew me from my pictures but didn’t know who I was. I met Dennis Schroeder, Dwight Howard and, Kyle Korver that day and they all were cool enough to sign my pics. I have those framed now. As a slight turn of events the writer assumed the hashtag was a person and that I was Sole Workz. It wasn’t long before I changed all my social media to some form of Sole Workz.
The following year the Hawks drafted Deandre Bembry and Taurean Prince. I drew them both but Taurean and his family reached out to me. Anthony Prince and his team are amazing. They saw a vision for me I never thought of. Up till this point Art was a hobby. They convinced me I was running my own business. Technically I did sell a few picks here and there but never considered myself a entrepreneur. They pointed me in a direction and I just kinda ran with it. I even sold my first official logo design for them and Kids Hoops. They refer to me as a branding specialist. Sounds way more fancier then just graphic designer but I will take it.
As of now I am doing a lot of projects to make myself better. I’ve taken on digital art now heavily, graphic design, vector art, video editing, and image manipulation. I am constantly producing content for my pages, I have a YouTube channel I working to more content for and now this blog. I am in aw of where art can take you and the connections you can make.
Thank you for reading. I know it was a long story.
Back in 2014 I was drawing and creating artwork everyday...because my job back then was stressful. Once I felt like my art was decent enough to be seen in public I first went to Facebook. Most of my pics were of Dragon ball Z characters and with the fan base it definitely gave me confidence. I started drawing NBA players particularly the players of the Atlanta Hawks. They didn’t have the love of say the Celtics or the Lakers so it was a slower response for any of that work. Then I got an invite to join Atlanta Hawks nation. That Facebook group was very supportive and even encouraged me to branch out to other platforms like twitter and Instagram. The creator of the group kept pushing me to actually send the pics I had drawn to the players to see if they would respond. Well, after a few weeks one did. Lou Williams responded and shared a pick on his Twitter. People were hitting me up on Facebook saying they saw the pic I sent to Lou. It wasn’t trending but that was enough for me.
That same year I explored using Instagram. I had 12 followers and 2 of those were my brothers. What changed was I listen to the Rickey Smiley Morning show and at the time they were all on Instagram. I drew all the personalities and sent one to each. Ebony and Headkrack responded by following me. Headkrack also shared my work on his own page. It was amazing to see something I had done get such a positive response.
At this point I had some 30 pics out there in social media between Facebook groups, twitter and Instagram. I wanted a way to be able to go back and see the work I had done and thinking a hashtag would be perfect. Originally I wanted to use “Unique Artworks”. It was heavily used everywhere and I wanted something that was mostly all mine. I searched Unique Artworkz but it also had been used. Taking it to a thesaurus, I changed Unique Artworks to “Sole Works”. Even that was used as a European shoe company. As a last stitch effort added a “z” at the end of works. I searched all the social media sites and google and nobody had ever used #SoleWorkz. I went back added the hashtag to every posted pic I had out. Shamelessly googled myself and about 12 lines down a pic I had drawn came up.
Fast forward to 2015, the Hawks were coming off a historic season, I had significantly improved my art style and even some people overseas were sharing some artwork I did of Pero Antic when he played here. I’m at the point where was feeling myself as an artist and a fan and over 2 week period I had drawn the Hawks Starting 5 as super heroes. It was crazy and I didn’t think it would be as big a deal as it was. Well one morning I wake up to several alerts on Facebook and someone shared this with me. https://www.nba.com/hawks/features/instagram-user-has-sketched-some-crazy-awesome-hawks-fan-art The Atlanta Hawks had done a mini story on me and posted it on nba.com. It was at the time the most definitive fanboy moment I had ever had. Then came the day the hawks had an open practice, a day that deserves its own story, but I got to meet some of the players in person. I was ordered by the Facebook group to bring my sketchbook so when they saw it and other fans did too it was a surreal moment. People knew me from my pictures but didn’t know who I was. I met Dennis Schroeder, Dwight Howard and, Kyle Korver that day and they all were cool enough to sign my pics. I have those framed now. As a slight turn of events the writer assumed the hashtag was a person and that I was Sole Workz. It wasn’t long before I changed all my social media to some form of Sole Workz.
The following year the Hawks drafted Deandre Bembry and Taurean Prince. I drew them both but Taurean and his family reached out to me. Anthony Prince and his team are amazing. They saw a vision for me I never thought of. Up till this point Art was a hobby. They convinced me I was running my own business. Technically I did sell a few picks here and there but never considered myself a entrepreneur. They pointed me in a direction and I just kinda ran with it. I even sold my first official logo design for them and Kids Hoops. They refer to me as a branding specialist. Sounds way more fancier then just graphic designer but I will take it.
As of now I am doing a lot of projects to make myself better. I’ve taken on digital art now heavily, graphic design, vector art, video editing, and image manipulation. I am constantly producing content for my pages, I have a YouTube channel I working to more content for and now this blog. I am in aw of where art can take you and the connections you can make.
Thank you for reading. I know it was a long story.
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