When I originally found this map of Doncaster in a big box of assorted maps underneath my desk I thought ‘This is perfect’, I know a few people from Donny so I’m sure I can come up with something smart and urbane. Then, of course, inspiration deserted me and left me staring at a map of Yorkshire with no grand plan in sight.
After staring at the map for what could have been a week I decided to get in touch with someone from Donny to try and help me find a little inspiration. They gave me the following to work with:
1. Jeremy Clarkson – his mother had the Paddington bear factory
2. Kevin Keegan
3. Lesley Garrett
4. John Parr who did St Elmo’s fire tune, actually comes to our local pub
Very hard Hugo we are just a little mining town up North
And that was enough to get me on my way. First I thought I’d try the route of the Paddington Bear factory but sadly couldn’t come up with anything good enough, so moved on to number two but football is lost on me so I decided to move on to number three which didn’t really give me anything to work with either. This meant I had to try and come up with something using number four and I truly thought this would be the one. Who doesn’t like a catchy 80’s hit for inspiration? Again, however, I came up empty. I was just about to lose all hope of finding inspiration until I read the last line back to myself again and there it was…Just a little mining town up North.
I’m sure you’ve all heard the nursery rhyme about hanging around in the woods to spy on some bears having a hard-earned break from the stresses of everyday life. Well, there I was having a walk through the woods near the studio, clearing all those thoughts from my head, before starting on a new commission when to my surprise I realised I wasn’t alone.
I could hear this soft voice counting down from 100 somewhere off in the distance. My first thought that it was a bunch of children playing games but as I got nearer the voice just didn’t seem like that of a 7 year old. It was at both the same time aggressive and sweet. As I rounded a corner, there ahead of me was an incredibly large teddy bear with his paws over his eyes counting out aloud.
I quickly had a decision to make, do I make myself known to the bear or do I run off and hide and get involved with this game of hide and seek. I had to make my mind up quickly as he was just about to get into single figures. So with only a few seconds to spare I made a quick dash into the undergrowth to try and hide from this furry felt monster.
I have to admit I’m not very good at hide and seek so, of course, got found pretty much straight away and was, of course, the first person to be found.
I’ve already done a larger hand painted version of this piece but I couldn’t resist doing a mini me version of our ‘No Context Required – Vladimir Putin’ piece featuring a quote from Russian President Putin following an interesting bit of video where he kisses the stomach of a little boy whilst out and about in Russia somewhere. If you haven’t seen it then I suggest you put ‘Putin kiss boy’s stomach’ into Google and follow one of the links. To say it’s a bit weird is probably something of an understatement.
Anyway this quote is what he had to say about the incident but once you combine it with the angry looking man bear you have another quality id-iom piece. It’s laser engraved on wood and stands proud at 13 x 9cm and even features an out of context Hello Kitty character and I’ve even robbed the Honest Burgers logo just to really mix it up. Drop us a line if you’re interested – it’s going cheap…
For the second of our ‘No Context Required’ designs here we have a quote from Vladimir Putin following an interesting bit of video where he kisses the stomach of a little boy whilst out and about in Russia somewhere. If you haven’t seen it then I suggest you put ‘Putin kiss boy’s stomach’ into Google and follow one of the links. To say it’s a bit weird is probably something of an understatement. Anyway this quote is what he had to say about the incident but once you combine it with the angry looking man bear you have another quality id-iom piece. It’s laser engraved on wood and stands proud at 39 x 26cm and even features an out of context Hello Kitty character and I’ve even robbed the Honest Burgers logo just to really mix it up. Drop us a line if you’re interested…
We’ve all seen the nature programs where polar bears come in to towns during the summer in the arctic circle looking for food. But what do they do during the winter months? Well if you believe these nature documentaries you’ll think that they spend a large time hibernating waiting for those glorious warm rays of sunshine to come again. But alas that is not entirely true, they do actually go in to burrows and look like they are going to hibernate but in fact sneak out the other side and scurry away to the luxury polar bears winter retreat. Here they lounge about frittering time on the internet, reading the latest novels, drinking cocktails and generally having a good time away from prying eyes. That is until the seasons over and they have to go back to the real world. What a life!!
Cheers
id-iom
Title: The Polar Bear Winter Retreat
Materials: Paint pen,pencil, ink and watercolour
Size: A4
It’s said that most people have a skeleton or two in their closet – but I just wasn’t sure what mine were or even where the closet was for that matter.
With that in mind I went searching for them and, lo and behold, what did i find after about 4 hours looking for them? I find this merry lot that’s what. Now usually the connotations of having skeletons in the closet is a bad thing but not for me it would seem. They were all very charming, chatty and willing to talk for as many hours as you’d engage them on just about any subject from the current state of the music industry (which somehow they seemed very clued up on) to the implications of harnessing solar energy for future missions to the edge of the galaxy (their knowledge on this subject left a little to be desired).
Anyway I had a lovely time with my skeletons and plan to show them off to anyone who wishes to see them and that’s why I painted this quick picture of them to show people what you will get if you ever have the chance of seeing them in person. For some reason which I still can’t figure out though there was also a bear like creature in there as well, I’m not entirely sure why he was in there but hopefully more chat with them will reveal all…
Cheers
id-iom
Title: The weird and wonderful skeletons in my closet
Materials: Acrylic, paint pen, spray paint, charcoal and googly eyes
Size: A2
Please email if interested
After digging round in the attic at our family home I came across a box containing some items that belonged to our long lost Uncle Lou. Apparently he was something of a womaniser and a card-sharp and would ever be in search of the next loose woman and dodgy card table. He mysteriously disappeared on a trip to the local butchers one day and all they ever found of him was his rusty sheriff’s badge (which he always wore). He left behind a box of mementos and this is a little something from one of his jaunts around Europe in the late 60’s and looks to be an annotated map of his adventures. It appears it involved lots of women, drink and skiing…
I’ve never actually been to Switzerland myself but I have plenty of friends who have and they all seem to really enjoy the place. I’m pretty sure I would enjoy the skiing and cheese aspect of a visit there but it’s been many years since I wore a timepiece and I’m not a massive fan of chocolate so they couldn’t really impress me on that front. Anyhow I’d still give it a go as apparently ‘It’s more fun in Switzerland!’ and I’d be willing to see if it lives up to the claim.
Working on maps is really rather enjoyable and this piece has been lovingly created on a large vintage motoring map of the region. She features at least 12+ different screen print levels (including our id-iom seal of approval), hand-done red hand-stitching around the Swiss border, many stencils and a load of hand annotation in paint pen (not done by me as my writing isn’t neat enough!) If that wasn’t enough it also features the Transformer Soundwave about to steal a load of ‘energon’ from the Large Hadron Collider on the Swiss border. Naughty Transformer!
For further information about us and what we get up to you can visit our flickr page and we’re also on twitter (@thisisidiom).
Now although this girl looks as innocent as they come don’t be fooled by it, she has in fact been a very naughty girl. So naughty in fact that i just had to paint this picture to immortalise the severity of it all. Needless to say she went to bed without any dinner that night…
It is A2 in size and is made using the magic of acrylic, spray paint and paint pen . Signed on reverse.
I’ve emphasised previously just how honed our womble-like instincts are these days and how we pretty much can’t say no to anything that we can possibly paint on or that could potentially be useful at some future point. To further elaborate this point we recently acquired a couple of doors that had definitely seen better days (and that are surprisingly heavy!)
After a little deliberation to decide what to get on them it was decided that the first one should be out of our door as soon as possible as it was really blocking the place up. Quite how it was decided to put a dancing bear on there i’m not entirely sure but these things are what they are. We seem to have had some had some influence from Banksy in the definition of the bear’s feet (i.e. they aren’t there) but thankfully i don’t feel that detracts from the overall message.
After carrying it a fairly short distance it was released into the wild and will probably be where it was deposited for a fair while as it definitely takes two to move these things. A prize to anyone who knows where this one is. Keep your eyes out for the next one sometime soon…
Have you ever wondered what happens to old toys once they have been used and discarded. Well, some of those toys fall between the cracks and end up on the wrong path. Here we have some of yesteryear’s My Little Pony’s back to dispense some justice for being discarded and forgotten so quickly. Watch out…
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