Things are beautiful if you love them

I just love rescuing an old bit of wood to paint on. Previously it was just an old shelf destined for the tip. Now it’s probably still destined for the tip but at least she goes out looking good. I even tried my hand at a little engraved lettering on this one – which was a bit trickier than I thought but still looks pretty reasonable in the flesh. Considering I didn’t have replacement tips for the little drill thing I was using I was fairly happy with the end result.

‘Things are beautiful if you love them’ is a nice little quote from French dramatist Jean Anouilh. I particularly like the idea that anything can be beautiful if you love it and the converse that things aren’t inherently beautiful but the act of loving them makes them beautiful. Heady stuff for a Friday morning. I’m sure normal service will resume soon enough…

Cheers

id-iom

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Tesco’s Finest ‘spice’ – in store now!

Tesco’s Finest ‘spice’ Melange – in store now!

Tesco’s Finest ‘spice’ Melange label

If you’ve ever seen David Lynch’s 1984 film Dune (based on Frank Herbert’s 1965 novel of the same name) then you probably already know what Melange ‘spice’ is. In the film it’s a drug that has some particularly useful effects and one big downside. It gives the user a longer life span, greater vitaility, heightened awareness and psychic powers. Which is handy as it makes safe and accurate interstellar travel possible. The downside however is that it is addictive and withdrawal is fatal. All this has conspired to make it the most valuable commodity in the universe.

Never one to miss a trick Tesco’s have made a couple of intergalactic deals and got their hands on some of the good stuff. It’s harvested by hand on the desert planet Arrakis from the excretions of the highly dangerous giant sandworm. Tesco’s then ship it to earth and package it up in their Finest range for just under £100 for 4g. A bargain to be sure. Get it while it lasts…

cheers

id-iom

Game over

Game over

It would seem that the despicable character that is Nathaniel Bobois has managed to make another appearance in one of our pictures. He’s just too much of a rogue not to paint. It’s hard to believe that he and the amazing Roche Bobois came from the same parents. So,  Nathaniel challenged the might of id-iom to a game of pool and that’s not the kind of offer we refuse. With Nathaniel preening and boasting around the pub we had a quick game of Paper, Scissors, Rock to see who would play him first.

I won and took to the table with a quiet determination. Meanwhile Nathaniel was still fannying about selecting a cue when I broke and took down three yellows to boot. Already on the back foot Nathaniel tried and failed to claw it back. I sunk the black about a minute after he took his first shot but he was not put off so with a volley of swearing he put down more money and challenged the other member of id-iom to another game. This went on till we’d cleared him out of the $150 he had. Don’t ask me why he had dollars on him but he did. It was money and we took it anyway. Here at id-iom we both feel a bit sorry – not for Nathaniel – but for his brother Roche because he’s just going to have to bail him out yet again…

Cheers

id-iom

Title: Game over
Materials: Paint pen, acrylic, screen print, watercolour and charcoal
Size: A2

Taking care of the necessary

Taking care of the necessary

Like  the infamous Mr Wolf from Pulp Fiction this guy takes care of messy problems. He’s a cleaner if you will and once he has done his job he’s ready to get the hell out of Dodge. Being a cleaner can be a tricky profession and  involves destroying or removing any incriminating evidence at the scene of a crime, typically a murder, to make it as if the crime never happened or certainly not in the way it really happened. I’d say most cleaners are at the lower end of the social scale but not this fella, he’s got important friends and is rolling in the deep end because he’s just the best there is at what he does.

Cheers

id-iom

Title: Taking care of the necessary
Materials: Paint pen, acrylic and charcoal
Size: A4

Chris, I think I’d recommend the helmet option…

Sometimes, when I’m feeling a little low I play ‘clocks’, ‘the scientist’ and ‘yellow’ all at the same time, on constant repeat and with increasing volume until I feel that I am actually Chris Martin. It’s such an amazing feeling to consciously uncouple from yourself and hitch your trailer to Mr Martin’s consciousness. Truly mind blowing. Only joking. I can’t imagine what kind of tat you’d find floating around inside his bonce. You’d be experiencing some serious cognitive dissonance that’s for sure.

Anyway it’s been a good long while since we’ve done any celebrity quotes and I just couldn’t resist  doing a new one when I saw this quote from Coldplay’s sassy frontman. I think I’d safely recommend the helmet option for him. Probably safer that way. Now I’ve just got to think of somewhere fitting that I can deposit it on the street. Drop us a line if you’ve got a good idea…

Cheers

id-iom

A dark cloud descends

The Dark Cloud Descends

It’s coming to the end of the brief UK summer but we’ll hopefully still have a few days of sunshine left. Sadly, this cannot be said for this chap as a dark cloud has descended on his life and there’s nowt he can do about it. Why i hear you ask? Well he’s just found out that his ex (who recently left him due to his infidelities) has just won the Euromillions with the same weekly numbers they used to buy every week. She’s changed her mobile, moved in with some friends he’s never seen or heard of and is not replying to any of his increasingly desperate messages or emails. He’d try sending a carrier pigeon if he knew where to send it. To add insult to injury he’s just found out that she has been seen out on the town with one of her old flames. Now that’s enough to get anyone down in the dumps. I tried to tell him that everything happens for a reason and that it’ll be okay in the end but he wasn’t having any of it and just glared at me and stormed out. You can’t say I didn’t try…

Cheers

id-iom

Title: A dark cloud descends
Materials: Paint pen, acrylic, glitter and charcoal
Size: A3

The Setting Sun

The Setting Sun

You have to wonder why this young chap is looking so down. We’ve all heard the phrase ‘red sky at night shepherd’s delight, red sky in the morning shepherds warning’ and from the title of the piece you can probably guess what time of day the image is depicting. He’d had a good day shepherding, lost no sheep and his mother had packed him a truly amazing pasty for lunch. What more could a lad ask? I’m not sure what his problem was as I tried my best to get him to break out a smile out for me but he just sat there with this sullen little look draped over his face. Anyway, before I could release my full comic potential, which would surely get a smile out of him the sun started to set and this was the best I got. Sometimes I wonder why I bother…

Cheers

id-iom

Title: The Setting Sun
Materials: Paint pen, acrylic, gold leaf and charcoal
Size: A4

Relocation

For once I’m at something of a loss for this one. It started life as one thing and by the end had morphed into something quite different. It started life as a simple piece of A4 paper but by the time it was done was this concoction of cardboard, glue, stencils, spraypaint, stamped lettering and something of a dark heart vibe.

The gentleman in the piece is clearly something of a vagabond as it would appear he has cleared out all the bank accounts and made a hasty international departure to an uncertain destination. And all he left behind was a short note. The no-good piece of dirt. If I ever get my hands on him…

Cheers

id-iom

Semi Skimmed Bantha Milk

With the modest success of a few of our supermarket subversions recently my brain seems to have jumped onto the whole fake ad/culture jamming bandwagon and now it seems I can’t go to the shop without coming up with some new form of contrived nonsense. And today’s offering is a pretty good case in point.

A long time ago in a galaxy far away I was strutting the aisles of my local supermarket trying to locate something they undoubtedly didn’t have when my eye chances upon the full fat milk with the blue lid. And that was all I needed to connect blue and milk and come up with the blue milk from Star Wars called bantha milk. We even see Luke Skywalker pour himself a glass in Star Wars whilst he’s living with his aunt and uncle at their moisture farm in Tatooine.

That was all I needed in the way of a plan so went home and set to work. A couple of parsecs later and I had my label good to go – complete with interview with their sand person dairy farmer on Tatooine. All that was then required was a bottle of milk, some blue food dye and a fake price label and I was good to go.

I can already see the print and TV advertising that would go alongside this new miracle food with a tag line along the lines of “With a few glasses of semi-skimmed bantha in you a day you’ll be strong enough to pull the ears off a gundark in no time.” In fact, that’s given me an idea…

Cheers

id-iom

How can i tell her?

Well, well, well, it’s clearly that time of year again. We originally did a wall sized version of this almost 5 years ago now for the Big Draw back in 2009 and since then occasionally get commissioned to do a small version for someone’s wall. I think my favourite aspect of this picture is his desperation at his inability to tell her that they aren’t really lovers and are, in fact, just stencils. Life can be tough, can’t it?

Cheers

id-iom