Our Lady of the Decoration (id-iom @ Cheltenham Paint Festival)

For the inaugural Cheltenham Paint Festival we packed up the the id-iomobile and set off with high hopes. The weather for Saturday wasn’t meant to be very good and, for once, the weatherman was bang on the money. It stared off sunny but before long had descended into a maelstrom of wind and rain. Despite battling the somewhat inclement conditions we somehow managed to pull off ‘Our Lady of the Decoration’ before a very vigorous 6pm downpour. We’d had to dry the canvas half a dozen times but working outdoors in the UK in ‘summer’ time can be like that sometimes.

As we were painting just next to the Arts building at the University of Gloucestershire’s Hardwick Campus we thought we’d best try to come up with something classy but colourful and so went with our depiction of the three Muses or ‘Our Lady of the Decoration’ as we’ve decided to call it. The Muses are Aoide (song), Melete (practice) and Mneme (memory). If that doesn’t inspire the arts students then I don’t know what will. The white chevrons have been borrowed from the Uni’s logo so hopefully they’ll be down with it too.

A big thanks to Andy and all the rest of the crew who helped organise. A winning weekend to be sure.

Cheers

id-iom

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Other Peoples Graffiti (Food for Thought update)

Whilst making our way through sunny Streatham we chanced upon the boards we painted for the Streatham Food Festival last year that were still in place. There’s a couple of minor tags and what seems to be a lot of white paint that has been thrown at it. On closer inspection it would seem that the main culprit in defacing our picture is, in fact, the pigeons that live on the guttering above and have deposited their thoughts on the piece from on high. It would indeed seem that everyone is a critic.

Cheers

id-iom

The Food of the Gods

The Food of the Gods

We were asked down to Bromley for their inaugural food festival which we were more than happy to paint at. As neither of us had ever been to Bromley, the first thing we had to do was a little research to help try and come up with an idea for the design that featured both food and something Bromley related. During this stage we found out that H G Wells was born in Bromley and that was enough to get the creative juices flowing. One half of id-iom remembered that H G Wells had written a book called ‘The food of the Gods’ which he had read ages ago. Anyway after a little research we found out he was indeed right and the rest just fell in to place. Of course as two gritty urban artists we decided on painting a giant sausage covered in mustard, as you do. To add to it we were even painting in front of the house where H G Wells was born. Top that.

Cheers

id-iom

BL9 clean graffiti

With a rainy Good Friday predicted for Manchester we thought the omens sounded good for a spot of clean graffiti for the upcoming BL9 music weekender (in Bury FC’s ground in June) so we got on a train and headed up north. We hadn’t really done much with the reverse/clean graffiti technique before but are fairly well versed with using stencils so thought it would be pretty straightforward. We had a list of places to hit and were eager to get started. After sorting a man, a van and a power washer we were good to go.

I thought the main problems on the day would be finding somewhere to pull up by the road and filling up with water whereas it turns out that our biggest issue was, in fact, finding the correct kind of dirty pavement to work with. With a limited supply of water that took ages to fill we had to pick our spots carefully as wasting water and time was not really an option when we had a load of impressions to get done. Despite being soaked from head to toe by the end of the day we were all experts on the relative merits of different paving and how effectively the power washer would work. You live and learn…

Cheers

id-iom

I came to the festival for love

I came to the festival for love slate. Now loose on the street.

I came to the festival for love slate (front)

I came to the festival for love slate (back)

Here we have the third installment of our Back to the Future mixtape project which sees us combine two of our loves – music and street art.

Our plan is simple. Get some new mixes together, burn them on CD and then put them out on the street with some exclusive slate cover art to see what happened. The piece is the size of a standard roofing slate (about 40 x 28 cm) and has the CD securely taped to the back so she should last a reasonable amount of time out in the open. It has been completed using the magic of paint pens, spraypaint and stencils. They are signed on reverse with our trademark id-iom stencil and logo.

With sunshine the prevailing weather condition for once we can finally get round to the idea that summer – and the always amusing festival season – is on the way. I’ve been to Glastonbury every available year since 1999 and thoroughly enjoyed myself every time – come rain or shine. I’m sure this year will be no exception. The poor lady in this piece however is not having such a great time as she’s gone to a festival and someone has callously broken her heart. My best advice to her would be to head to the bar…

We are also now open to submissions – so if you dj at all and fancy taking part just get in touch and if we like your mix then you’re in! You can find more information on our facebook page here.

Happy hunting!

Cheers

id-iom

Related articles

• Futility – Back to the Future mixtape project (thisisidiom.wordpress.com)
• Back to the Future mixtape project (thisisidiom.wordpress.com)

Sand, Sea & Spray

We’ll be painting at venue no.4

Another week and another art festival. This time in the sunny climes of the North West – specifically Blackpool! We’ve never been to Sand, Sea & Spray before so we are quite excited to be taking part. And if you add to that the extra excitement of not having been to Blackpool for about 20 odd years you can tell we are good to go for this one. We will be painting at venue 4 and I’m just hoping the weatherman is telling lies like usual…

The last time I went to Blackpool I went to the Pleasure Beach and thoroughly enjoyed myself. I can’t really remember much apart from the Mousetrap and the Grand National. I think my life flashed in front of my eyes that many times whilst riding the Mousetrap when I was a child that I have somehow become desensitised to such frippery unless they are truly rickety and life threatening. Maybe if we have a few minutes I can go and see what all that childhood fuss was about…

Cheers

id-iom

Come rain or shine…

Glastonbury isn’t on this year (which is a shame but at least we have the Olympics) but that’s not going to stop me crafting a small memento commemorating past years and commiserating the fact that we’ll all be unable to attend this year. I have been fortunate enough to attend all available festivals since my first attendance as a festival virgin in 2000 – and have thoroughly enjoyed every one come rain or shine…

Glastonbury 07 - A year to forget!

Glastonbury 08 - A year to remember!

With it being held in the UK the one thing you can never guarantee is the weather and regardless of whether it’s glorious sunshine or raining cats and dogs there is always superior levels of amusement to be had. In fact I perversely enjoy the inclement weather somewhat as it really does sort the men from the boys. In 2007 we had the torrential rain for pretty much the entire festival (just like in 2005!) which left the site like some apocalyptic swampland. Then a year later it’s blazing sunshine and tans all round.

A couple of punters enjoying a quiet sit down in 2007

Punters enjoying the sun in 2008

Both pictures are based on a photograph of me enjoying the comfort of a pile of rubbish whilst sheltering from the blazing sun under an umbrella I’d found lying around. It probably prevented me from getting sunstroke that year…

One half of id-iom enjoying a brief break from the festivities...

If you are interested you can find our other Glastonbury related posts here, here, here and here! Bring on 2013 (as long as karma allows me to get a ticket!)

Cheers

id-iom

id-iom @ Mannifest 2010

We were at Mannifest last week which is a fledgling music festival on the Isle of Man that is now on it’s 2nd year. We were invited to do some painting (and also djing) at our friend’s ‘Sin Cabeza’ tent. We arrived on the island late on Wednesday and then on Thursday went up to the site to get our boards set up (by our good man Dean – many thanks for that!) and it was then that we made our first mistake. Rather than going out of our way to find some outdoor paint we used some white indoor emulsion that was available on site. When we arrived on site on Friday morning after overnight rain the emulsion had (obviously) all washed off.

First thing Friday morning…

The sheet over the top of the boards was our pathetic attempt to hold off any more rain getting to the boards whilst we went in search of real paint. We then got a coat of the good stuff on and waited for it to dry. Not wanting to waste any time we then got on with stencilling various bits and pieces in the tent with a ‘Sin Cabeza’ stencil which we had been tasked with designing.

Sin Cabeza stencil on decks – with the beady eyes of the RedEyeJedi glaring over the top!

The windbreaks used to mark our territory

After the paint on the boards had dried it was on with our first piece – Pandaman!

Stage 2

Stage 3 – which is as far as we got on the Friday due to rain stopping play

After a late night on Friday where we definitely had the most pumping (although smallest) tent we were served with the following notice (i’m pretty sure we weren’t the only ones although the following day a security guard said clearing our tent was, and i quote, ‘like World War III’)

Warning! Fun will not be tolerated!

We were predictably a bit late starting on Saturday but at least the weather was improving and we managed to get it nailed pretty quickly

After we got Pandaman finished we let our adoring public enjoy it for all of about 45 minutes before it was time to whitewash the wall and start again. Once we had managed to get it white (we even had to use a little of the emulsion as we ran out of outdoor paint – but thankfully it didn’t rain again) we then moved onto ‘The dog days of summer’

Dog days of summer – stage 1

Dog days of summer – stage 2

Fairly late on Saturday we managed to get Dog days of summer finished – then it was on with a bit of djing!

After another night of partying we were pretty knackered when it came to Sunday and as we had finished the Dog days of summer so late we thought it best just to leave it for people to enjoy and get on with a little laid back Sunday drinking. I’m not entirely sure which day the shots below were taken but show some folks enjoying the hospitality of the Sin Cabeza tent and the huge wooden statue of Mannanan (a Celtic deity from the Isle of Man). All in all a good year although perhaps they should have made the Sunday a family day as the bar stopped serving at 6 and the venue closed at 9pm. Bring on 2011!

Partygoers at the Sin Cabeza tent

Mannanan with the Sin Cabeza tent and our boards in the corner

Cheers

id-iom

Glasto here we come…

We’ve been hard at work in the lab coming up with some bits and pieces for Glastonbury (and i’m beginning to get a little excited now!) We are off tomorrow morning and have just about got everything sorted (for once). As i didn’t want to spoil the surprise i thought a couple of teaser shots would be in order.

Hopefully the next you will see of them will be at Glastonbury! Bring on Stevie Wonder!

Cheers

id-iom

Upfest 2010

We will be heading to Upfest a spray painting festival in Bristol to do some painting on the 5th and 6th of June. If you can make it down, do, as it is a good day out. There will artists, a secret wars battle, break dancers, beatboxers, dj’s and a load more stuff besides. Check the flyer below: