Emily wouldn’t call herself trouble exactly but she does seem to get herself in quite a bit of mischief on a somewhat regular basis. Her Germanic father called her ‘Mein sorgenkind’ (‘my problem child’ for those that aren’t fluent in German) from an early age and it had stuck.
It’s not that her parents don’t love Emily; she just makes life difficult more often than not. Just the other day, they were out walking the dog when she somehow got into a situation where she gambled that her sausage dog would win in a race against an italian greyhound. Winner takes all. They are now, surprisingly, the owners of two small dogs. It was a good race though.
The straw that broke the camel’s back however was when Emily managed to set fire to a swimming pool with the excessive use of a napalm-like substance she created from watching videos on Tik Tok. So now not only has she been banned by all the big social media companies but her phone has been confiscated and she’s being shown the art of flower arranging by her mum. What’s the worst that could happen??
Mein Sorgenkind is made using acrylic, charcoal, spray paint and is A2 in size. Drop us a line if you want to give Emily a good home. To be fair she’s getting under our feet a little here…
It’s funny isn’t it. If a 4 year old passed you just about anything and motioned there was someone on the phone for you you’d probably have a quick fake phone call using the banana (or whatever you were handed) before passing it back and suggesting whoever was on the line wanted to speak to them again. You would probably feel a bit stupid doing it but you’d do it all the same to make the child happy.
Somehow, on the transition from childhood to becoming an adult we lose this mysterious skill of being able to imagine just about anything is real. Or face being carted off to the nearest mental institution. Which is quite a harsh penalty for something that’s positively encouraged as a child.
Anyway, this little girl is strolling round without a care in the world as she has her imaginary ‘dog’, Mr Snuffles, to keep her company. And who’s to say she’s wrong. Not me as I did the picture in the first place.
As a little bonus here’s my original child-like sketch of Mr Snuffles…
Hmmmm….. What does a gritty urban art duo do for a one year old’s birthday present? Well, after worrying for a while about exactly what you can and can’t do for a baby this is the end result. There was a lot of time spent thinking about whether we were doing something kid friendly or something that maybe he’d appreciate when he’s older and finally settled on this after finding a piece of glass to work on in the studio that seemed to provide some inspiration.
With a name like Jude it was hard to avoid the Beatles reference so we decided to get the opening notes from ‘Hey Jude’ on there along with his name and a little monkey logo (they’re all cheeky little monkeys aren’t they?) Cutting musical notes correctly at a small size however is probably not something I’ll be doing again. The main thing about painting on the back of the glass is remembering that everything has to be done in reverse – which can sometimes be a little frustrating as you can’t change things after you’ve done them if you have some mid piece brainwave. Oh well, there’s always next time…
Bemoaning the lack of affordable local child care seems to be something of a popular pastime for many of the young mums I know so I’m glad to see that the local council has decided to do something about it. They’ve had a multi-departmental brainstorming session and the self service child minder units are their experimental outcome. Simply deposit your child in one of the marked units and then retrieve them after work. It’s as simple as that. And it’s free. Although it should be noted that overnight stays are prohibited. I, for one, applaud this brave new move in domestic frugality…
So, our good friends put a picture of their new baby girl up on Facebook with a caption along the lines of ‘finally our little eskimo has arrived’. A few people thought that she was actually named Eskimo and much hilarity ensued (most of it along the lines of ‘have you really thought this through? Won’t she get grief at school?’).
At this point the muse demanded that I create a little Eskimo themed piece for them using one of their pictures of her as the basis. After some design and a bit of computer jiggery-pokery we have a little Eskimo girl outside her igloo on the frozen snowscape waiting patiently for her parents to come back with some tasty seal or arctic fox for her lunch. Now they just need to get it printed and framed and they have a nice memento of their first baby related internet gaffe. Oh how they’ll laugh in years to come…
edit: Since doing a little research after writing the post it would seem that perhaps Eskimo is a perjorative word. So, apologies to any Inuit-Yupik’s out there but the story just wouldn’t be the same if I changed it…
Much like the kid we featured just the other day this child also has a steely look of determination in their eyes. I think it’s a fine sentiment to try and illustrate. To me this the feeling when you know the odds are against you but you are willing to go down fighting. It’s a simple case of not caring that you are going to lose and carrying on regardless in the hope of taking a couple of their side out as you go down swinging. In fact, the more i look at it the more I get the feeling the kid is some kind of adolescent Rambo who’d mess you up just as soon as look at you. I should probably start working on some fluffy rabbits or unicorns before all i’m drowned in a sea of angry looking juvenile delinquents…
Like i’ve mentioned before it’s sometimes a little tough to say where inspiration for certain pieces come from and this is a pretty good example. Personally i blame the pernicious influence of TV and the internet – but then what do i know. Anyway it’s a picture of a little kid crying and the Japanese text says something along the lines of ‘Let loose the Banzai battle cry’. Put them together and this is what you get. That’s as far as i’m willing to go…
This piece was spotted nearby in Brixton which appears to be some commentary on the availability and proliferation of weapons use among the youth of today (especially in the capital it would seem):
And then, a week or two later, this article from the South London Press was brought to our attention:
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