Years ago we did a piece of artwork for Diageo, the drinks manufacturer, where we were asked to paint something within 90 minutes. They were then going to use it for some promotion or other and then we were meant to get the canvas back.
Four years later we remembered we still hadn’t picked up the canvas, so set about trying to find it. After some considerable sleuthing we found it on the wall in one of their London offices. As they are a huge multinational company with many millions we said they could buy the piece or give it back and – you guessed it – they gave it back. Cheers for that.
Now what to do with an old canvas? Like any self-respecting pair of artists we decided to paint over it but with what? It just so happened that at the time I was rewatching all the old Batman TV shows with Adam West. The rest is history…
It is painted on a 1m x 1m canvas and is most definitely available. if you’d like to get this professionally upcycled piece on your walls then drop us a line. If no-one buys it we will inevitably keep adding to it. Stop us before go too far…
When the in-laws arrived they bore with them a small robin that had definitely seen better days. I really should have got a ‘before’ picture. He looked sad, rusty and dishevelled. I was asked if I could possibly do anything with him. ‘Of course I can. Any reasonable job undertaken.’ was my snappy reply. Ladies and gentlemen I present a dapper, rust-free and slightly mad looking robin. I believe my work here is done…
In these dark and worrying times we all need heroes and I present the superhero power couple of Lady Themis and Dishonest Robin. You may be wondering what the lady of good counsel and personification of justice is doing hanging around with a robin who will steal, lie and cheat his way to gates of hell (and the deaf and dumb boy whom Robin commands around as his glorified perch/sidekick).
Well, when Lady Themis is disregarded in her judgement then Dishonest Robin comes into his own. He dons his superpower guise and turns into Nemesis, Lady Themis’ rightful antithesis. As Nemesis, he brings just and wrathful retribution to all of those who would not heed Lady Themis’ wise counsel. Basically a superpowered version of good cop, bad cop. Probably best to do just do what she suggests…
‘Lady Themis and Dishonest Robin’ are each on a 61cm x 61cm wooden panels and are made using the magic of acrylic, spray paint and paint pen. Drop us a line if you’d like to give them a new home…
You give love a bad name (featuring a very angry robin!)
So it’s Valentine’s Day again and we’ve been busy. This shot has really got it all – something Valentine related, an earworm and even a bit of wildlife. A winning shot if ever I’ve managed to take one. Despite the fact that the robin looks cute he was, in fact, very angry. He didn’t seem to appreciate our work. Everyone’s a critic…
We’ve previously done an earworm and I thought it was about time to give it another go. The success or otherwise of this piece hinges on the fact that just about everyone is familiar with Bon Jovi’s ‘You give love a bad name‘ and so I’ve done my best to try and get it playing unheeded in your brain. For no reason other than I can. It’s difficult to know how successful I’ll be but them’s the breaks.
Another day and another piece in the id-iom demolition sale. It’s starting at just 99p and here’s the Ebay link.
Here we have ‘Batman & Robin – The Early Years’. There are many myths surrounding the Dark Knight and how he came into being. The Man would have you believe the moment he became Batman was when his parents were killed by a mugger in Gotham City. It turns out the seeds were sown a lot earlier than that. He was born to be Batman…
It’s a A3 screen print on paper with unique hand finishing. This is a brand new print that we haven’t featured anywhere else. Signed on reverse.
Now here we are again settling in and hunkering down ready for those cold winter months and it’s getting so that you don’t want to go out – especially to be traipsing around the same shops as everyone else buying uninspired Christmas gifts. So, here at id-iom we’ve decided to hold a Yuletide Fundom Demolition Sale!
This has mainly been inspired by the fact that we have had to move out of our basement studio as the building it’s in is getting demolished. We’ve been covering our attempts to give the old girl some new interior decoration on our blog for a while now so at least she’ll be looking good for her final bow.
As of yet we haven’t been able to find anywhere else so are having to get rid of a lot of stuff that has been hidden away in various nooks and crannies (and it was a pretty big space!) But it’s also because we are a pair of Santa’s little helpers in a gonzo artists guise. We will be selling all the artwork that we’ve had lurking in the studio on Ebay and starting them off at cheap and letting them go for whatever it is they go for. There will undoubtedly be bargains to be had.
Our idea is to start all paper items off at £0.99 and all canvas pieces at whatever cost a replacement blank canvas costs right now.
We’ll be adding more on a pretty much daily basis in the run up to Xmas (and possibly beyond) so check back regularly for updates. We hope you can find an original bit of art for a loved (or maybe even someone you don’t really like if you’re that kind of person). The very best of luck if you’re bidding…
The fruits of today’s labour consists of a couple of newly commissioned prints which will shortly be ready to grace the walls at their new residence.
The Call of Duty
If you’ve ever played Call of Duty online and you’re about as good as I am (which isn’t to say i’m rubbish but I’m definitely a casual player as opposed to a hardcore 6-hours-a-day dedicated type) then you will undoubtedly have come up against an opponent much like the commissioner of this picture.
He works exclusively with a sniper rifle and will take you out before you’ve even seen him. Then take out the rest of your team too. To reflect this highly annoying level of skill we created a Call of Duty themed print that I’m pretty sure will hit the spot. Featuring all the deadly weaponry you can think of and his gamer tag I can only hope it’s an inspiration on the rare occasions when things aren’t going his way…
Storm Bird (pretty in pink)
Our next piece was commissioned for a young lady – hence the very fetching pink colour. It’s a one-off special of our Storm Bird print which was originally created as thank you for the good folks who helped us out with the creation of our video. And if you haven’t seen the video then you can turn the sound up and sit back for a couple of minutes of graffiti based oddness (featuring the god-like being of Tom Selleck – what more could you want?):
Sometimes in life we end up being the person that everyone else wants us to be and then sometimes, just sometimes we manage to transform into the person we wanted to be through a combination of determination and good luck.
Take this girl as a case in point. She used to be a straight A choir girl who read books on advanced maths in her spare time just for a laugh – but then one day things changed. The day in question is a little tough for me to talk about though as I was there in person and can’t really say any more until the current court proceedings are over. What I can say though is that it involved plenty of alcohol, copious amounts of drugs, numerous firearms, a small amount of explosive and, of course, one of the cutest kittens I have ever come across. Well, one thing led to another and the woman we have before us today was forged in that crucible of fire – a crazy cross between a Robin Hood, Major Disaster and an American Apparel model. Who would ever have guessed? That’s all I’m legally allowed to say for now…
Hmmmm. How to explain Stormbird. I’m not really sure if any explanation I can give can adequately describe our thought processes when creating this stop-motion epic. The ‘storyline’ just kind of suggested itself. It’s probably easier to explain it’s conception than how we developed such a monster. It came about when we had id-iom’s good friend Dave over from LA for a while. He’s known for doing a bit of video production/editing so after consumption of a few beers down at the studio we (stupidly) decided that a short stop-motion video might be a good idea. It wasn’t. After over 2600 shots over the best part of a week in the freezing cold basement making just one tiny adjustment after another we were close to death by exposure but were finally able to call it a wrap.
There is plenty of footage which ended up on the cutting room floor that will hopefully never see the light of day as it’s more than a little weird and would probably emotionally scar any viewer for life. And all that took long hours of standing around in the cold that i’ll never get back. I bet the Aardman animation studios are all cosy and warm. If i’m ever to attempt anything like this again I’ll be making sure it’s warm outside or we have such mod cons as central heating…
Anyway, once principal photography was finished we realised we needed some musical accompaniment befitting of such a creation so we put out the call and came up with 3 very different soundtracks. The first version will probably not play in certain countries on youtube as The Man probably has certain copyright issues as it features tracks that are already out there but that’s where our other versions come in as both feature an original score which should play internationally no problem. The other video’s will follow this in short order and we’d really love some feedback on which one people prefer (so watch this space)…
What else can we say about the video apart from the fact that it features anthropomorphic spray cans, the Graffiti Removal Squad (first featured here), sharks (one of which is gay but we had a hard time portraying that!), Tom Selleck (although I like to think he’s in his Thomas Magnum persona), a fireball (from Streetfigher 2 obviously) and, of course, the plucky little robin a.k.a the storm bird in Norse mythology.
Finally, whilst I like to think our video has a certain naive rustic charm there are those who treat the subject with a little more professionalism. So for those who haven’t seen it here’s a little link to a much more polished creation featuring light stencils by our good man Pahnl.
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