Quick boredom buster

So whilst we’ve been working on a few different bits and bobs including some massive B0 bits of paper which should be ready soon we realised we haven’t posted much stuff as of late. To remedy this i’ve got a quick face i painted on the studio door as i was waiting for paint to dry. Now back to work…

Cheers

id-iom

I see faces. Even when trying not to.

Out of all the pieces of canvas we found this was the most complete with a somewhat creepy face that the other half of id-iom just did not like. After a few minutes of discussion on what we were going to do we decided we were going to go abstract although we had no concrete plans on how we were going to go about achieving this.

We find the easiest way to proceed when you have no plan is to just start and see where it takes you. This can lead to some unfortunate circumstances however…

On the journey to abstraction we had to start somewhere so our first idea was to turn the piece into a half man, half pineapple kind of thing. Luckily this idea didn’t hang around too long before the other half of id-iom decided to become a bit of a can killer and pierce any almost-empty cans we had hanging around the studio.

Whilst, it was fun we had clearly gone too far by this point. So we gave into the inevitable and went back to rescuing some of the face. With a little finesse and a whole lot of luck we set about trying to pull this canvas back from the brink. A square stencil here or there, pulling the face forward and pushing the abstracted area into the background I give you ‘I see faces. Even when trying not to’.

Cheers

id-iom

Flowers from a superhero

Gary was just like you and me until the day he accidentally wandered through a field of genetically modified flowers and became ‘Nosegay’ with the ability to grow the most amazing alien-looking bouquets of flowers right from his fingertips. Now, whilst this wasn’t very helpful when it came to fighting supervillains it did give him a certain celebrity appeal. Which he revelled in. His client list was quite something to behold. 

Despite this, his newfound wealth, and his access to jaw droppingly beautiful women he had repeatedly failed to impress any of them into going on a date with him. He imagined it was because he was ‘vertically challenged’ but in reality it was because he was arrogant and boring. Sadly he’d never have the insight to realise it…

This piece is based on an old sketch and is on a big bit of reclaimed canvas that was originally about 5 metres wide but had to be cut down into a slightly more manageable size. Which wasn’t really manageable at all. It’s now been rolled up so long that it’s no longer really viable as an actual canvas. Why I did it so large in the first place I’m not quite sure. 

Perhaps I’ll go and grab a smaller canvas and paint it again. That would mean that I have to take myself to the art shop though which is never an action to take lightly as who knows what I’ll come back with.

Cheers

id-iom

It began in Africa

Although Michael had been born in London his somewhat eccentric Nigerian parents would always tell him ‘It began in Africa’. Of course Michael could only ever think of the song by the Chemical Brothers whenever his parents said it but then it would always be accompanied by a weird and wonderful African legend or morality tale. 

His parents, it turned out, were truly encyclopaedic on the subject. Over the years he’d heard hundreds of these tales and decided to rate the nations involved on the quality of their storytelling. He had every intention of visiting them all, in the order he’d worked, to find out if he was right. This was going to take a while…

Made on a National Geographic map of Africa using the power of imagination, spray paint, stencils and acrylic. It is 48 x 63 cm in size. Drop us a line or it’ll be on our Big Cartel page soon.

Cheers

id-iom

Johnny Omicron

We’re easily sidetracked, it appears. One half of id-iom had ventured out into the cold to scrape and blank out our previous wall as the weather was just about sunny enough. After an hour or so out there I head out to see how he’s getting on and rather than paint over the previous wall he’d decided to adapt it into something else entirely. Then I got involved. Then it got dark and we had to come back the next day to finish what we were doing. And it’s still not ready to be painted on again. Like I said, easily sidetracked. 

Anyway, if at first glance you thought this was 90’s cartoon legend Johnny Bravo then you’d be very much mistaken. For this is his second cousin twice removed Johnny Omicron. He’s twice as chatty but half as much fun. Now he’s got to go. The wall will be blanked out…

Cheers

id-iom

Neon flake mistake

When you do commissions you always hope for the best but plan for the worst and this was the outcome of one of the bad times. We’d found the perfect colour to use but we later found out this was the last colour we should have used. After we had finished and dropped the piece off to the client we got a message back saying some of the spray paint was coming off the wood. We thought they must be mad as spray paint magically seems to go on anything or so we thought. Little did we know that the neon colours we used were made using some different type of alchemy to be produced and resulted in the paint flaking off the wood we were painting. After we got the piece back and started the remedial work needed to get the piece back to looking its best I happened to take these shots. Pretty but i must not forget it came out of disaster

Cheers

id-iom

Disco Queen

A friend got in touch asking if there was anything we could think of by way of promotional ideas to assist with raising the profile of his fledgeling charity clothing label Disco Queen. Immediately I suggested stickers as a potential way to raise a little interest. Then I saw their logo and decided a neon wall version would be a good idea. 

Why I’m not quite sure as we’ve never attempted it before. But since when has that stopped us before?  It’s definitely not as easy as I first hoped but with a little work I’m pretty happy with the end result. 

Now we’ve got the logo in front of your eyeballs that’ll hopefully lead you to investigate further. Check @ladiscoqueen on Instagram for more…

Cheers

id-iom

Mein Sorgenkind

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…

Cheers

id-iom

The lady with the copper earrings

Our first mural of 2021 has been a long time coming but a couple of days ago the clouds parted long enough for the sun to briefly pop its head out to say hello. That cheery greeting was enough for us to put on our painting jackets and get outside for a bit of freestyle al fresco painting.

We’d recently given the wall a spa day in preparation for mural season and stripped her back to her under layers but we’d stopped short of giving her a new coat of white because we both agreed the wall looked pretty cool as it was. A free background if you will. Time to put it to use.

All we had to start with was the basic stencil of the woman and after a fair bit of hoohah about what exactly we were doing we ended up with is the lady with the copper earrings here. She looks like she knows stuff she’s not going to tell you. And that’s most certainly the case. You just don’t have the correct security clearances.   

Cheers

id-iom

Kev

Ever felt the need to paint an ugly man-child who’s looking at you like you just spilt his pint? I can’t imagine you have so I’ve gone and done it for you. Kev here is angry pretty much all the time at just about everything imaginable – from the cost of a pint to how people cross the road. If you see him whilst out and about it’s much easier to give a cheery wave and carry on your business for if you’re unlucky enough to engage him in conversation you’ll understand why the cheery wave is the preferred scenario. 

His anger for so many things simultaneously is both impressive and depressing in its magnitude. The main thing is to extricate yourself from the conversation as swiftly as possible before his ire manages to get under your skin. If you find yourself agreeing with him then the best thing is just to drop to the floor and play dead then hope he’ll get bored. You have been warned…

I think I might go and have a cup of tea and reminisce about all the walls at the old studio that I didn’t manage to paint.

Cheers

id-iom