St. Thomas Primary

For 2 days I'd been working at St. Thomas Primary in Meadowhead, working alongside Year 2 and Year 3 pupils for their "Making History" Project. It was a very enthralling and engaging experience working with young enthusiastic children whom were very sweet and very bright.

The two mural pieces are interpretations of the children's input, where they would give me themes to draw or randomly find me in the day and suggest other things I should put into the murals. The looks on their faces at the end of each day was worth aching arms and back (my aching arms and back)

These pieces will be used in conjunction with a traveling caravan museum which the School will bring into the second phase of the "Making History" Project.

Fright Night: Halloween At The Crucible

For Halloween, Sheffield city centre was engulfed in Fright Night, an event organised byYellowbus Events and has grown in stature over the past few years to turn Sheffield into a Halloween themed carnival. Scott Barton of Yellowbus Events asked me to organise the live art side of things to set some artistic ambience in the Crucible Theatre, naturally I gathered the Stars In Stripes to take on some Halloween themed artwork.

This was a very pleasant event to work on even if there were hired zombies stumbling around trying to scare you every 5 minutes, on many occasions making kids cry. It was pretty cool and we were looked after by the staff which we were all thankful for especially as our collective hangovers were kicking in from a weekend of Halloween partying.

We all drew various monsters on our 6ft boards, I'd chosen to take on a werewolf as it's been the one thing I've enjoyed drawing over the past month. I think I'll start to work with more colour with my live art work from now on as I've noticed it adds a lot more to the piece as a whole.

For more images click here to see the gallery...

TOMS Blog

I've been put up on the TOMS blog as follow up for the Style Your Sole event which was held in The Office store in Meadowhall.

This involved me doodling on brand new pairs of TOMS shoes for customers who purchased in store for that day. It was a pretty lively event with Kopperberg cider being handed out to shoppers whilst browsing for footwear. TOMS are pretty unique as they have a good stance on an ethical business model that gives pairs of shoes to children who are in need of them, from what I can tell they're quite popular in the U.S where they originate from, I hope that in the U.K people will latch onto this as a popular brand.

http://www.toms.com/blog/

A Busy Week And It's Not Over Yet...

So this week I've been involved with the temporary Hantu Collective Pop Up stall in Meadowhall, which means trekking there and back (although I've only had to do this just the once) and having to sell to a different client base. It's always fun setting up stall and making the place look pretty but the selling aspect I always leave to Angga and Thomas.

Today I've been holed up in the Leadmill, watching over the Hantu stall where we were displaying a limited edition collection we've collaborated on with the council. The new shirts were officially unveiled today but you can have a sneak peek on the Hantu Collective website.

The design ideas were based around poking fun at the whole road safety aspect, as sometimes a serious message doesn't really work when it comes to selling clothes. Our younger designer, Aaran came up trumps and managed to design the staff event t-shirts for the day which I'm happy with him for.

Meanwhile I was also involved with curating the live art for the event alongside the Stars In Stripes our mural idea being recognisable birds associated with road crossings. It was pleasing to see people walk by and clicking with the idea, I suppose that's the beauty of illustration, it's all about being playful with the subject matter.

Weston Park Museum

On Thursday 21st October Weston Park Museum hosted a special event in tribute to apples. I was asked alongside Lord Bunn to do some live art alongside cider tasting, apple juice pressing and a live skittle band. It was pretty neat walking around the museum before drawing, it brought back loads of memories from when I was a kid.

My own drawing comprised of apple related characters from stories such as Adam & Eve, Sir Issac Newton and William Tell.

Lord Bunn's piece took a more traditional approach with washes of paint and some nice brush calligraphy, naming all the types of apples.

Live Drawing For This Week...

This will be a busy week for me, especially as I have t-shirts to finish off for the new Hantu Collective range but also the two live drawing events ahead of me.

This Wednesday 20th October I have been asked by TOMS shoes to doodle at their Style Your Sole event for the relaunch of Office in Meadowhall. TOMS run on an ethical business model where they donate shoes to under priviledged children for every sale made, something quite unique and pleasing to see. The event will hold stalls where there's free Kopperberg cider, Krispy Kreems Donuts, Toni & Guy hair fixing and many other freebies as well as a DJ to keep the atmosphere lively. Starts at 5pm and finishes at 9pm, if you happen to pass by then pop in and wave hello!

This Thursday 21st October I will be drawing at Weston Park Museum for their Apple Day

event, to celebrate the International Day of The Apple. I will be drawing a big piece on canvas for a couple of hours, hopefully I should be able to finish in time. I'll be drawing alongside, good buddy, Lord Bunn who's also a dab hand with a brush as well as pen, it should be interesting to see what we both come up with. The event will host activities such as apple tasting, apple cider pressing amongst other things and it's free entry, this should be a fun night at the museum.

Pecha Kucha 03

Pecha Kucha is an idea that came from Japan and has become a global organised event. It's origins lie in revolutionary format for presentations as two architects from Japan devised a way to lessen the boredom during lectures, they developed the 20x 20 format, 20 slides and an allocated time of 20 seconds each.

I was invited by Pecha Kucha in Sheffield to speak alongside other designers, entrepreneurs and even council member Paul Scriven.

Here's my presentation on the way Sheffield has grown around me and how I've come to adapt to it's vibrant art and music scene.

To follow the Sheffield Pecha Kucha twitter updates click here

Live Decorating at the Wick At Both Ends

The Wick at Both Ends is a nice humble bar on Sheffield's busy West Street. The main guy, Frankie asked me to bring some art into the place by doodling on the walls, I brought in the Stars In Stripes to chip in some ink on the walls and after 4 hours of drawing the results looked brilliant. I've developed a penchant for drawing birds and wild life as of late, something I never used to draw as a kid, but drawing animals is pretty fun.

The more I draw with this group the more proud I become, everyone's work and style is growing and you can sense that we're all influencing the encouraging each other too.

We aim to push more work through the Stars In Stripes and hopefully get more wall mural work around the city, bars and clubs aren't too a start but eventually, who knows? Maybe an exhibition would be great and there's talk of working on bigger walls. Only time can tell with what our group can and will do but I'm always looking forward to seeing what happens.

Live Art For The Book Club: SOYO LIVE 2010

Last night, there was a buzz in Sheffield and in particular at Bar SOYO, a long time collaborator with me and Hantu Collective. They played host to an eclectic local line up of Sheffield's most up and coming bands, The Book Club, The Wet Nuns and the Pirouettes, all bands which were to attract a big crowd, a crowd so big they even opened up the room next door just to fit us live artists in there.

The Stars In Stripes were present at SOYO doodling away, which topped off the vibe of the night, it was one of music and art and the two have always gone hand in hand. The Book Club's drummer, Ant has been a friend of mine for a few years and we keep knocking into eachother out and about, he asked me to draw a banner for them to take away on their tour, I happily obliged. I went into SOYO 3 hours earlier and drew out the banner during sound check, probably one of my favourite times before the night gets mad. Finished the banner in 1hour and 30 mins, a personal best for me when the pressure's on.

Live Art In Sheffield

Live art in Sheffield has become a vibrant regular fixture in the city with loads of artists coming out of their work spaces and doodling in front of people in bars, gigs and clubs. I'm proud to be seeing something like this take off in Sheffield, especially as I feel that it has certainly come leaps and bounds from when I first started it at the Hantu Collective Sweet Dreams Fashion show in February 2009, after that, SOYO Live decided to use the Live drawing aspect on a

weekly basis as background visual noise for their night. Unquiet Desperations also took on the live art aspect for their folksy evening of art and music, allowing artists, illustrators and etc another outlet for their creativity. Then came the introduction of the Tramlines Festival, a festival for music held in the centre of Sheffield, this also allowed live art to be seen in venues such as The Bowery, The Washington Pub and SOYO yet again, with crowds milling around in between

the live bands and acts, live art was happening around them, and they would gather and watch and ask questions. Sometimes I used to ask questions, what was point in doodling in front of people, what would I get out of it, and was it worth doing, only over time have I realised that all the times I've done live drawing I have met many people and possibly encouraged others to get involved.

Live art has become a great means for artists to promote their work, although it's never a gurantee that an art director or someone of importance will happen to pass by, there's still a beneficial advantage of being an artist who is always in the public eye for their work. Styles become more noticable and concrete which lead the audiences and passers by to sub consciencely keep tabs on certain artists who are seen to be drawing often. I'd never go so f

ar to stake a claim that I'd been a catalyst for live art in Sheffield, but the timing with the atmosphere around me and the people who I worked with on Hantu, SOYO Live and other such things, live art has grown in Sheffield with our involvement and association, something that I'm pretty proud of, especially as I see the impact it has had on budding new artists.

As I noticed more artists were taking part in live art, I came up with an idea, that those artists could be gathered together to work under one name or as a team. There fore it would become a collective of artists that could throw work eachother's way. I came up with the Stars In Stripes, a group who do live art and commissioned work and the only rule was that each member had to wear stripes as they were drawing. This group are compiled of who I think are the most enthusiastic and creative illustrators I've met in Sheffield and their appetite to put ink to board

and wall has only boosted my own enthusiasm.

I hope the Stars In Stripes is something that can grow, with more members and more commisions under it's belt. We've already amassed quite a lot of work in and around Sheffield, from the Harley Pub and Northern General Hospital but a little more couldn't hurt. Watch this space.

STARS IN STRIPES BLOG

Live Art at the Sheffield Cathedral

This is a late post as I'm seemingly pretty bad at keeping up to date on my blogging. Here are a few pictures from the Hantu Fashion show we hosted at the Sheffield Cathedral, an event which was the first of it's kind at the venue. I probably haven't been to quick on blogging about this as I'm still exhausted from organising the show, and trust me it was a lot of hard work! Thankfully we had an army of volunteers to help out with the music, bands, liasing with the artists and clothing labels, without them, it'd been nothing.

We also had a live art feature in the show where I had a band of illustrators draw against graffiti artists in a friendly contest where the crowd would vote at the end which piece they preferred. Unfortunately the illustrators didn't win but hey it was the taking part that counted... ha ha.

The Stars In Stripes

I've become a very lazy blogger, especially with the amount of work that has come my way recently and the kerfuffle of not having internet access at the new house I was living in AND then having to move out of one property into another... but I shall vow to get straight back on to the blog stuff.

In case you didn't know I wanted to create a group for the live artists to work under so we can share contacts and opportunities and just have more banter between us. The idea then became the Stars In Stripes, a group that wear Stripes whilst live drawing, simple concept really, anyone can join as long as they wear their stripes!

I've put together a blog for this to journal our doodling exploits.

THE STARS IN STRIPES BLOG

Hair Kandi Post

The lovely people at Hair Kandi have written a nice post about me on their website. Thinking back to that the launch party it was a good laugh and I'd be well up for looking at more live wall decorating in the future... Suppose when I have more time that is!

HAIR KANDI ARTICLE

Hair Kandi Wall Murals

There's a relatively new Hair Salon in Sheffield by the name of Hair Kandi, well it used to be on Ecclesall Road but now has moved to the city centre of West Street. The owner's Dave and Sara commissioned me to draw pieces on 2 separate walls, the main reception area and the hair wash area where they play films on projector and use a wall as the screen. The Projector wall area was very fun to do and as they gave me free reign I was able to mull over some ideas for a week and just get down to drawing.

The second piece was intended to be drawn live during their launch party, which to me was a scary prospect, what if I fell down from my perch, or smudged so badly I couldn't disguise it... luckily I didn't fall or fail and managed to produce one of the most proudest pieces I've ever come up with. It was more or less a re drawn portrait of my friend Alex Godwin and again one of my favourite pieces.

JDA Office Walls

It's been weeks since I'd completed the wall mural work at JDA but I've been so behind on updating the blog. JDA Marketing are based in the Shipley area of Leeds and can boast big clients such as Halifax in their portfolio. I was asked to come in and draw a mural on their main office and also dot some characters and illustrations in their recreational room. I had a lot of fun doing this, especially hiding illustrations on corners and above plug sockets etc.

www.jda.co.uk