Gotcha!

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I got you didn’t I? Punch yourself in the arm and we’ll call it quits. Do people even play the circle game anymore? Given the stupidity of the game I think we can safely assume that it’s only the male part of the population who have ever played. If you know then it needs no explaining and if you don’t then that’s what the internet is for. That’s it for today…

Love

id-iom

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Teddy Bear’s Picnic

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.

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

The Game of Love

The Game of Love

I think at times we’ve all played the game of love, for some though it seems the easiest thing in the world for others not so much. It seems this guy is still playing, lets hope he finds who he’s looking for sometime soon.

It is A2 in size and is made using the magic of acrylic paint, watercolour and paint pen. Signed on reverse.

Here is the ebay link

Cheers

id-iom

Back to the Future

Back to the Future

We don’t usually put out spoiler shots or the like but i’ve made an exception for this little QR code as it’s taken up a load of my time and i’ve been working on this canvas for some time now and thought she deserved a little build up before I get her finished.

Once we’d managed to come up with the initial idea for this commission (which in itself took a fair bit of time) the main bulk of the canvas was fairly easy to complete but then I was left with my final conundrum. How was I meant to get six QR codes on there so that they were readable, working and looking good? I considered just about all the options I could think of – by hand, stencilled, gel medium transfer, wheatpaste, etc but i was concerned that; a) they wouldn’t be readable (and therefore wouldn’t take you to my carefully selected links) or b) they just wouldn’t look right considering most of the rest of the picture is stencilled. So I finally settled on screen printing in the hope the codes would be easily legible and look sweet.

After a bit of trial and error it was time to move to the canvas – which itself proved problematic as it’s not flat or straight. So, after moving my entire printing set up and setting it up raised off the ground (to accommodate the fact that the canvas has 4cm deep box sides) I then had to put something behind the canvas to ensure a flat edge to print against. Anyway, enough of my problems. Suffice it to say I finally managed to get it nailed and this is the product of my endeavours…

Cheers

id-iom

Monopoly – Brixton stylee!

“Featuring some of Brixton’s more notable addresses – such as Billa’s 24hour booze, Happy Shopper and The Sultan – this is an exciting game that will bring long, tedious hours of ‘fun’ for all the family. Brought to you by id-iom and Parker Brothers”

We’ve just finished up our 1m x 1m Brixton Monopoly commission and are pretty pleased with the final result – especially considering how long this one managed to take. After a load of emails back and forth we came up with a finished design which incorporated elements from various international editions of Monopoly, some invented elements and a load of place names from around Brixton which had significance to the client. As they live near to us all the locations (including Billa’s 24hr booze and Pizza Man) are somewhat familiar to me too…

Despite the fact they are known to me many spaces on the board are undoubtedly unfamiliar to just about everyone else. If, however, you do happen to be know all the place names and are particularly eagle-eyed you may even notice that we even arranged the squares so that they are grouped together logically (i.e by location and/or function) and the board follows a circuit from locations at the bottom of Brixton up to the top of Brixton Hill.

By far the biggest problem was how to go about doing the small lettering for the place names so that it was the correct size and font whilst still being clearly legible. Using stencils was out as they would have been problematic and time-consuming to cut and wouldn’t have guaranteed the level of clarity which I felt was necessary. So we then had to experiment in order to come up with something that would work to our satisfaction. After a bit of research and some failed attempts en route we came upon the world of gel medium transfers which, once you’ve got the hang of it, gives a nice clean transfer – albeit with a little residue from the gel medium left on the canvas but I felt this was an adequate compromise given some of the other methods tried…

Once all the lettering was on it was largely downhill from there although it was relatively slow work due to the fact that any mistakes would be highly visible – so I had to be careful to make none. Thankfully it all passed with hardly a hitch although I was conscious that doing the line work last would only lead to higher stress levels until it was all safely completed as one small slip would have probably set me back a fair bit.

Below are a few in progress shots for those that like that kind of thing.

Cheers

id-iom

Title: Monopoly (Brixton edition)

Media: Spraypaint, stencils, paint pen, gel medium and varnish

Size: 1m x 1m deep edge canvas

 

 

 

 

 

Ready or not, here i come!

When i was growing up i think hide and seek used to be my favourite game (other than just generally destroying stuff). After looking it up on wikipedia it would appear that we used to play a variant of the original game and i’m pretty sure we used to call it ‘Buzz Off’ (although i only have my shaky memory to depend on for that!)

I’m determined to bring this game back as i’m convinced it will still be fun to play – especially if you have had a drink or two! I reckon that Health & Safety would probably have something to say about it although i definitely wouldn’t be the one to tell them…

Cheers

id-iom

Title: Ready or not, here i come!

Media: Screenprint, spraypaint and stencils

Size: 46 x 31 cm slate

£150

Let it ride!

The ‘Let It Ride’ table was perhaps one of my favourite commissions. It is named after an 80’s comedy featuring Richard Dreyfuss ( it only gets a 6.3 on IMDB but is well worth a watch!) Below is the completed questionnaire that we had to work with when coming up with this piece:

After absorbing the info in the questionnaire and a further conversation with the client we came up with the idea of the artwork being a playable (albeit almost impossible) board game which we would paint on canvas and then have set into a specially made table.  Once we had the initial idea nailed it was all downhill from there. It was basically to be a twisted id-iom version of the Game of Life…

We got in touch with a friend who works with wood and got him to create a table for us that we could set the 1m x 1m canvas into. Once that was underway we got on with the design. This is the digital version of what we came up with:

From there it was just a matter of painting the canvas up. Once we had finished and got our table delivered we had a brand new piece of art/furniture that i just knew the client was going to love…

The Game of Love

Some in-progress shots (and final shot) of our latest piece – The Game of Love. This picture reminds me of my (misspent) youth although I suppose a picture of a gambler/fruit machine would perhaps be more fitting….

FINAL IMAGE