Book Signing

Many thanks to Mr FLX for my copy of his Children of the Can book...

Last night at The Bell was a great little meet up for the artists involved in making the book to meet up, grab a copy and run around the place looking like excited little children on a treasure hunt, collecting tags from as many of the heads who turned up as possible...

I think i got y'all!

A Doting Dad

Wednesday 19th November 2008 at 7.23pm my life changed forever...

Toby James arrived and made me the happiest guy around. Thank you Laura x

So, all of a sudden painting and making prints has become totally insignificant, and I even forgot that I turn 30 tomorrow. The only photography going on around here at the moment features this little man in the arms of family and friends - but that's cool with me.

More art related stuff here as soon as I get the smug grin off of my face...
:-)

Children of the Can

OK, so you have probably heard all about Felix 'FLX' Braun's book, Children of the Can - 25 Years of Bristol Graffiti by now, but having just had the pleasure of a preview i have to tell y'all... It is awesome.

I was more than happy to help Felix out with this book and gave him a good chunk of the Bristol graffiti photos i have collected over the 15 or so years i have been snapping away in this city - and it is great to see how many of those flicks made it into the publication.

A book about the past and present of Bristol graff has been talked about by writers for as long as I have been painting - I have even thought about putting something together myself, although thinking about it was honestly as far as i ever got...
In my opinion, it needed someone who has the patience to collect and collate all the photos, carefully write up all the text, and deal with the huge task of piecing it all together - as well as mix with all the writers from both the early days in the '80's through to the hardcore boys who are keeping the illegal side alive and kicking today. And I couldn't think of anyone to handle the job better than Mr FLX. I know how much time, effort and thought he put into producing this book and that dedication has certainly paid off. So good on ya mate - you did what we have all talked about doing for so long, and fully did it justice too. I tip my purple beanie in your direction...

After dropping in on FLX for a quick cuppa, I left two hours later - having read not a bit of text, only scanning the photos. I cant wait to loose a few more hours in the text.

Go and grab yourself a copy here. Highy recommended!

Quote of the Day...

"Problems are opportunities and there are lots of them around".

I overheard someone say this quote today and it made me smile

:-)

Making Screens

Popped past Screen One this afternoon just in time to catch the boys preparing the screens ready for printing...

As soon as the paper we are printing onto arrives, we're ready to roll...!

Prints and Inks

Small update on the screenprint...

Layers turned into grayscale and printed out onto A2 acetate.

Colour matched inks to original Belton spray paints used to paint the street piece.

More updates soon - Hoping to make the actual screens this afternoon...

Above the Portway

A few Sunday evening snaps of the Clifton Suspension Bridge. Strong winds made long exposures a bit of a nightmare but my flimsy tripod held up enough to capture a couple of nice images...

Analogue Layers > Digital Layers

Having to tone down my eagerness for getting on with playing around with paper and silk-screens and mixing up coloured inks, took some serious patience yesterday… especially when working on a 2 gigabyte file in Photoshop.
The Mac did its job excellently though, as did the boys at Screen One, helping to tidy up the scans and prepare each layer ready for making the individual screens - as well as providing a lousy cup of tea…
:-)

Scanning

This project has turned into an interesting mix of new digital technology - digital photography, Adobe Photoshop and A1 scanners, and old traditional techniques - OHP's, freehand painting and building layers from acetate, paper and card. I like that...

So with the white, red, yellow, blue, purple and highlights layers completed it was time to scan the transparencies. Getting A2 acetates scanned proved more difficult than anticipated and would be virtually impossible for the average home PC set up. But after a few calls were made from the boys at Screen One we found someone who was able to do the job properly.

The £50,000 worth of scanner we used was a mighty bit of kit, firing a huge beam of light from above and presenting the scanned images on a nearby monitor within seconds. Now we have the huge digital files saved onto disk, the next task is to get the screens made ready for printing...