It’ll probably get worse before it gets any better – UPfest pizza boxes

It’s my party and i’ll cry if i want to (UPfest pizza box)

It’s my party and i’ll cry if i want to (front)

It’s my party and i’ll cry if i want to (interior)

It’s my party and i’ll cry if i want to (back)

It’ll probably get worse before it gets any better (UPfest pizza box)

It’ll probably get worse before it gets any better (front)

It’ll probably get worse before it gets any better (back)

We’ve been working pretty much flat out painting our studio building and juggling a few commissions but when UPfest got in touch to ask if we’d be interested in painting up a couple of pizza boxes for them we jumped at the chance thinking that sometimes a change can be as good as a rest.

There are 50  boxes being produced by different artists and they are to be used as limited edition presentation boxes for the upcoming UPfest book for the first lucky punters. The book celebrates 5 years of UPfest and is a large format book with hundreds of shots from the Bristol festival. The book is released next week and you can order a copy here.

After a wait of a couple of days the boxes arrived and they needed them back by the end of this week so we had to pull something out pretty quickly. After a little inspiration and some fevered design I jumped to work on the screen printing equipment and, predictably, the other half of id-iom sat there gazing into the middle distance with a puzzled look on his face. After again explaining slowly and with small words what was expected of him the cogs eventually started turning and his eyes briefly brightened as some small glimmer of realisation came into his eyes and he sprang (slowly) into action. The rest is history.

Cheers

id-iom

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This is my time to shine

This is my time to shine

After last week’s painting at UPfest we got back to London with part of the extended Jubilee weekend to spare so went about celebrating them getting a little drunk and rolling around the streets of  Brixton for far too long. After we’d peeled ourselves off the streets and gone to our respective beds we got up with sore heads and nothing to do apart from stalk around the studio looking for something to do. We finally decided to attack one of the walls with all the gusto we could muster after the aforementioned weekend.

After blanking out the wall with some nice Laura Ashley Eau de Nil paint that we got off Freecycle we jumped to work with precious little in the way of a plan. As we know ‘the devil makes work for idle hands’ and as we were doing the opposite and actually doing some ‘work’ we thought it best if we incorporated an angel into our picture. Just to be on the safe side. We got down to a bit of  hard work, if you could call it that, as it was more like two zombies throwing paint at a wall but we somehow managed to come up with the picture you see before you. ‘This is my time to shine’. Indeed. The Muse works in mysterious ways…

Cheers

id-iom

We are all fools for love (id-iom @ UPfest 2012)

We are all fools for love

We are all fools for love (lettering detail)

So it is about that time of year when we grab our gear, jump in the id-iomobile and head to Bristol to take part in UPfest. Despite not having a design until Wednesday we managed to pull our collective finger out and get everything ready in time for an early morning departure on Saturday. After registering we found our spot in grounds of the Tobacco Factory and set to work.

As ever we like to take our time and building up the background took up most of the afternoon. Then, finally, it was time to get the big stencil up to be coloured in and to affix the lettering to the wall. Which is when we had a small crisis due to my complete incompetence at carpentry but after crying for help we eventually managed to get hold of a electric drill/screwdriver and get the lettering fixed to the wall.

This year’s design was based on a picture of a friend (original picture below). She doesn’t know it yet and I hope she likes it as we’ve gone for a looser, sketch style stencil.

 

Upfest 2012 original image

Cheers

id-iom

Seize the Upfest!

It would appear that we have something of a busy weekend ahead of us. And, as usual, we are woefully short of time. On the plus side we seem to work well under pressure so hopefully everything will work itself out…

First up, as long as we can get ourselves out of bed on time, we’ll be attending the Seize Art Fair on Friday to get ourselves involved in some East End fun. It’s something of a 90’s rave arrangement so we get confirmation of the meeting point in the morning then get to head off with some like-minded folk to have some paint related tomfoolery before anyone knows what’s going on. Well, that’s the plan and we’re in.

And then on Saturday morning it’s off to Bristol for the annual knees-up better known as UPfest. We’ve painted there a few times before and as long as the weather holds out it’s a good chance to paint what we like and catch up with whichever cool cats we can find. Now we just need to find a suitable old man to masquerade as us in all the TV interviews that are undoubtedly going to come our way…

Pictures will hopefully follow in due course as long as I can get said pictures before I manage to have too good a time. See you on the other side.

God save the Queen.

id-iom

Upfest 2011 – mysterious goings on…

Image via Wikipedia

We got back from another succesful UPfest in Bristol last night and were just glad that we managed to get the bulk of our work done on Saturday – when the sun was shining, the crowds were plentiful and the beer was flowing. Sunday turned out to be a different story but at least we managed to get our piece completed and still had time for a good look around.

After an early start on Saturday morning (following some feverish last minute preparations) we managed to make it to the Tobacco Factory for about 11.30 and then onto the Spotted Cow for a midday start. As we were a little late in arriving we got no choice in which boards we got but i think that eventually worked out to our advantage. Once we’d got disco-bag set up we got off to a quick start as we had plenty of work to be getting on with. By about 8pm we were pretty much done for the day so packed our stuff up and headed out for a few (more) beers. Whoever thought of putting us within such easy reach of alcohol in a pub garden certainly has a lot to answer for…

After a night on the town and a very rainy start to the day we return to the Spotted Cow to finish up to find that that some rogue decorators had obviously taken umbrage at our piece and had decided to show us a taste of our own medicine by wallpapering over the whole lot of it! It would also appear that the Grey Ghost Guards were around in the area (possibly in collusion with the rogue decorators) and looking to have our piece cleaned off the wall. Luckily we have some security footage so all will be revealed once we’ve had a chance to examine it and identify the perpatrators…

Anyway we did our best to remove the wallpaper and expose our image underneath resulting in a decayed and battered looking wall with the legend ‘Beauty is in the eye of the beholder’. I’ll get those pesky Daily Mail reading rogue decorators and Grey Ghost Guard critters if it’s the last thing i do…

For larger versions of any of the images please visit our flickr page.

Cheers

id-iom

Related articles

• Upfest 2011 (idiotyouth.wordpress.com)
• Preview: Upfest (bristolculture.wordpress.com)
• No Colour Above Plimsoll Line (thisisidiom.wordpress.com)
• id-iom @ UPfest (thisisidiom.wordpress.com)

id-iom @ UPfest

It’s that time of year again when we pack our kit and take a roadtrip to Bristol for the annual paintstravaganza that is UPfest. I have also just had something of a morale boost as I’ve checked the weather and it’s looking lovely on both Saturday and Sunday – which is definitely good as we’ve given ourselves a fairly experimental design to go for which will require us to be working on both days – if we manage to get it all finished in time!

This is certainly a weekend to be looking foward to especially with good weather predicted and plenty of friends to catch up with. We’ll be painting at the Spotted Cow pub (a pub? like that’s a good idea!) – and hope to see you there…

Below are our efforts from previous years – and a little taster of what we are preparing for this year’s wall. In 2009 we were working by the river and came up with ‘Love is like a 9mm slug to the heart‘ and then last year we painted ‘No colour above plimsoll line‘.

We’ve also got an idea for a video to go with this one which, if  we manage to get all the footage we need to, should be top shelf all the way. Watch this space…

Cheers

id-iom

2011 preparation – Painting by numbers

 

 

 

 

2010 piece – No colour above plimsoll line

2009 piece – Love is like a 9mm slug to the heart

UPfest 2011 flyer

Related articles

• Pretty up North – id-iom @ UpNorthFest (thisisidiom.wordpress.com)
• No Colour Above Plimsoll Line (thisisidiom.wordpress.com)

Collaboration canvas now for sale

We have already featured the collaboration canvas (here) which we did in conjunction with 11 other artists – but it is now for sale (via UPfest) in a closed bid auction which finishes on 31st July. There is also a David Walker original which is being auctioned. For more details please go here.

The piece is 24″ x 24″ and all proceeds go the NACOA (National Association for Children of Alcoholics) so please get bidding!

Cheers

id-iom

No colour above plimsoll line – UPfest 2010

We have just got back from UPfest 2010 in Bristol and had a great time again this year. The weather was better, there were more people and the beer was flowing.

We had been busy with other things in the run up so didn’t have as much time as we would have liked for preparation. Truth be told we had a sub-standard design ready on Wednesday and then decided we really needed to come up with something else that we were both happy with. After shooting down just about as many ideas as we could come up with and become trapped with decision paralysis we finally managed to come up with the bare bones of an idea late on Wednesday evening…

After doing a little research on Bristol we came up with the fact that the Samuell Plimsoll who invented the Plimsoll Mark (which was designed to show the limit to which a ship could be loaded) was from Bristol. Hey Presto! – an idea formed and we’d have a plimsoll line above which no colour would be applied to the wall. The rest would consist of the most colourful background we could come up with, a fake CCTV screwed to the wall (which moved and had a red flashing light but was the bane of my life on the day as it obviously had a loose connection and you had to keep fiddling with it to get it moving!) and a big stencil of a slightly imperious looking siamese cat. The finishing touch would be a stencil of a miniature version of us applying our name stencil to the piece. We started out pretty promptly around 11ish with discobag playing to keep us amused. It was definitely nice to catch up with people and put some new faces to names. The road had to be cleared by 7pm so we finished for about then. All in all a great day out. We then followed up with some drinking, chit-chat and general tomfoolery before heading to the after-party bar for a final few drinks. Perhaps predictably we were the last on the dancefloor…

Below are the in-progress shots and a picture of the final piece. It’s definitely best viewed large and if you want to do that they are on our flickr here

Upfest!

We have just been accepted for this year’s UPfest so we thought what better way to celebrate that than by having a little stroll down memory lane and checking out last year’s piece. UPfest takes place in Bristol every June and we rocked up last year to the threat of rain and a spot down by the windtunnel that is known as the River Avon. Despite most people seeming to take spots in the last minute venue that had been sorted out (an abandoned garage) we had no choice but to soldier on in our designated spot due to the outlandish size of our stencils.

It didn’t rain all day but we did have to contend with a strong wind blowing down the river which would have more seriously hampered our efforts had we not had a little assistance with ensuring our stencils didn’t blow away. We had a great day and managed to make a few new friends. Hopefully there will be more of the same this year. For more (and larger) photo’s check here

Cheers

id-iom

LARGE SCALE STENCIL CUTTING – “WE’RE GONNA NEED A BIGGER FRONT ROOM”

SITE BY THE RIVER. THAT’S US ON THE FAR RIGHT…

 

NICE PINK BACKGROUND DONE. ON WITH THE STENCILLING.

BUNNY GIRL – CHECK! BIG HEART – CHECK!

THANK GOD THE LETTERING TURNED OUT TO BE (PRETTY MUCH) STRAIGHT

FINAL TOUCHES

TA DA! FINITO.