Once, when Sarah was a small girl being tucked into bed, she got the strange notion that the sun wasn’t going to rise the next morning. She tried to explain her thoughts to her father but he waved her concerns away and wished her a good night. Sarah didn’t sleep a single wink that night and while it was still dark she crept out of bed and down into the garden.
She waited for what felt like an eternity in the cold and dark willing the sun to come up. Eventually the first rays of sunlight heralded the arrival of dawn and, a short while thereafter, the sun’s warm embrace. Once the sun was fully up she crept back to bed with a jubilant smile on her face. To this day she still occasionally gets that same notion that the sun won’t rise so she’ll stay up all night to ensure it’s arrival and she can once again feel the sun’s warm embrace.
‘The sun’s warm embrace’ is painted on A2 paper and has been made using acrylic, paint pen and charcoal. She’ll be available from our online shop or you can message us directly.
Ladies and Gentlemen. May I present to you our newest debutante, Lady Samara Linoleum. A most mysterious lady indeed. We’ve given you a quick glimpse of this majestic A2 lino cut before she was inked up but we can now reveal her in all her majesty. I absolutely love how she’s come out complete with glitchy printing. Once you get a bit of hand finishing on there we’ve got a glorious little edition of four.
Lady Samara is on A2 Bockingford paper and made using the magic of hand cut lino print, ink, paint pen, watercolour, spray paint and imagination. If you need the esteemed Lady Linoleum for your wall then you can find them in our shop or slide into our DM’s…
As a small aside, we’ve run out of ink so can’t currently do anymore at the minute but that does mean it’s Art Shop Time! Yay! Once we’ve treated ourselves to one of the best places in London we may do a run of just the print without any hand embellishing. But that remains to be seen.
For our next foray into lino we’ve decided to go big. Now I have to admit I’m not really one to cut stencils and usually leave that up to the other half of id-iom but recently whilst tidying up in the studio I found an unopened package. It turns out it was some A2 size bits of lino. This was perfect as we’d just done some small lino cuts a couple of weeks ago.
Unlike cutting stencils I have managed to smash this one out without a single complaint about my sore fingers. Saying all that it does take a while though and am not quite finished yet. How we go about making the actual print at that size is currently still a mystery. When it’s all done you’ll be the first to know…
We’ve come across Patrice before here at id-iom but the last time we saw him he was dancing in a monochrome world. Anyone as FAB-U-LOUS! As Patrice deserves better in my opinion. So we thought we’d take him to the east end for a night of debauchery ending up at a warehouse party. To say he stole the show would be an understatement. He had people coming up and asking for selfies until it all got a little too much for him and he had to head into the centre of the dancefloor and show the world his best move.
If you ever see him out and about raving his udders off, my advice would be to just join in, he certainly knows how to party…
He’s A2 in size and made using imagination, stencils and acrylic.
Sometimes things go your way and sometimes they don’t. For Maggie here it’s definitely the latter. There she was watching Netflix late one night when she came across a dead pixel on her screen – or at least that’s what she thought it was.
After some intense experimental use of ayahuasca, however, Maggie now believes some parts of her face are teleported to the void and vice versa. She never knows when it’s going to happen but it’s always inconvenient. Missing parts of films at the cinema or conversations with potential suitors. It’s all rather embarrassing really.
I can attest to this because just as she was about to sit for her portrait for me some white shadowless void spots appeared on/in her face and stayed there until I’d finished. It really was very strange..
She’s on the finest a3 bockingford paper and has been lovingly handmade using the magic of acrylic and watercolour. If you’d like Maggie and the void for your wall just drop us a line.
Sometimes it’s difficult to know where inspiration comes from. Was I listening to Joy Division’s ‘Love will tear us apart’ when I came up with this design? Or did I come up with it independently as it seemed fitting for the design? I really couldn’t tell you.
I can tell you however that the Joy Division version was released in June 1980. Apparently the lyrics were inspired by lead singer Ian Curtis’ marriage problems and frame of mind before his suicide in May 1980. Which is really quite sad all things considered. I’m not quite sure where I’m going with this so maybe best just to leave the rest to you.
It is made using the magic of imagination, stencils and spray paint on 60 x 60 cm canvas
It’s day 2 of Insect Week here at id-iom and today it’s the turn of the UK’s largest beetle – the mighty stag beetle. It is now accepted that stag beetles, whilst of an interesting design, are harmless to humans – but it didn’t always be this way. According to British folklore they were capable of summoning thunder and lightning and even flew around with hot coals in their jaws setting fire to buildings! Now if that isn’t slander right there then I don’t know what is. It’s downright rude. In an effort to rectify this we’ve started legal proceedings against British folklore on behalf of all stag beetles. Until then all we’ve got to hold your attention is a picture of a very regal looking stag beetle called Gatsby.
If you need Gatsby adorning your wall then his critical dimensions are 21 x 29.5 cm (A4) and he’s been created using the magic of acrylic and paint pen. Just drop us a line and we can make it so…
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…
We here at id-iom love a good collaboration, we’re doing it pretty much every time we make a piece. We especially like it though when it is with someone else and today we have Background Bob (aka Noah).
We were asked along with a load of other artists to paint on some bits of cardboard that Noah had already done his magic on. All we needed to do was come up with something suitable.
Now all the pieces are up for grabs on Ebay and if that isn’t enough all of the proceeds will support East Suffolk and North Essex NHS Foundation Trust Charitable Funds. After having a peek at ours why don’t you type in ‘Background Bob in to Ebay and see everyone else’s pieces and if you are feeling particularly fruity you can even throw in a bid or two.
“Noah (aka Background Bob) is 12 years old and has hydrocephalous, cerebral palsy and epilepsy. Despite all this he is a very happy, smiley, cheeky young lad who loves to paint.
The project started with background bob painting some abstract backgrounds on cardboard, and then we reached out to artists via social media to come and collaborate with him.
The response was huge! Over the next 4 months we sent out and received back a massive 240+ artworks back from artists from all genres and from all over the world.
We followed up on the success by producing a beautifully put together book containing all the collaborations. So far to date our book has made a whopping £18,000 profit, which has already been donated to Colchester and Ipswich hospitals charity, and in particular towards the children’s ward at Colchester hospital, as a huge thank you for all the support and care Noah has received from them. Our book is also available via ebay, so why not buy the book to accompany your artwork?
The project grew and grew, got huge media coverage including The One Show, BBC Website news, Sunday morning Live, as well as numerous online and local press articles in this country and abroad.
The whole collection was then exhibited at Firstsite gallery in Colchester
You are bidding on a unique original piece of the @background_bob project.
All artworks are original one off pieces. The mediums used vary vastly from spray paint, screen prints, acrylic, oils, collage and even embroidery. There is something for everyone.
All artworks are painted on hand cut recycled cardboard. Due to this, some have wonky edges, creases and tears, which all add to the artwork. The sizes are approx. 20cm x 28cm, which is slightly smaller than A4. All pieces are signed by the collaborating artists either on the front or back. Some backgrounds also have personal messages to background bob on the back
Artwork will be sent securely packed, and signed for.
100% of all proceeds will be going to Colchester and Ipswich hospital charity, so bid high and help us make a real difference. Happy Bidding!!
We will do our best to get your artwork to you as quickly as possible, but please be patient and expect possible delays during these strange times are all experiencing. Stay safe!
Please give us a follow over on Instagram @background_bob as see what we get up to next…”
Well, well, well. Look who’s shown their face after all this time. Storm Bird is back and is angrier than ever. You may recognise the feisty little redbreast from short films such as Storm Bird (Dave’s remix).
With the very recent reintroduction of sunshine, I decided to do a bit of gardening to try and alleviate the relentless monotony induced by having to stay indoors all the time. Gardening has never been my strong suit and Storm Bird was more than happy to point out every single one of my glaring mistakes.
First, the worms weren’t fat enough and that was my fault for not feeding them sufficiently. Then the caterpillar turned out to be poisonous and how dare I try and get the mighty Storm Bird to eat tainted food? The list of my errors went on and on and on.
For 5 hours straight whilst I was toiling away in the garden I had Storm Bird continuously berate me for a myriad of different things including (but not limited to): being too slow, being too fast, not admiring his golden red plumage enough, staring at him too much, not listening, making too many cups of tea, interacting with the neighbours and pretty much a constant barrage of insults regarding my hairstyle. Really quite uncalled for if I say so myself.
She’s A2 in size and on high quality Bockingford paper and made using the magic of imagination, acrylic, spray paint, paint pen and watercolour. That’s about all I can give you on this one…
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