Friday 30 April 2010

Brixton Cycles

Tonight the streets are ours.

Wear your helmet

Ride safely

Slow down at Junctions

Tuesday 20 April 2010

Stickerbomb 2 is out

The guys at www.thesrk.com have just released the fantastic Stickerbomb 2.
I was asked to write the Intro to this book having, during the late 90's, covered London in Royal mail stickers, so many they had to withdraw production of them!
The book features some of my favourite artists like Daniel Cacciatore Angelucci, Darbotz and Bom.k.
Each page is filled with stickers you can peel off and possibly stick somewhere fun!
Get stuck in via good bookstores or check it out here.

Future elements At Sadlers wells.

Recently I worked on the Future Elements project at Sadlers Wells which involved working with a small group of young people to produce costumes and artwork. Our brief was simple, take about 30 young people and work out an idea to make a music video in one week. The video has to have a storyline, dancing, music and be filmed by a professional crew.
After the first day the concept was nutted out which was the geeks vs the cool kids. They were to have a dance off 'Beat Street' style and what would unite them in achieving how to Bop was a character called 'Mr Merkage'.
My graf group was responsible for making the cool kids and geek outfits and also the background piece. We took lyrics from the song and painted them onto the board with a huge Bop which went across the whole 20ft section of the boards. Stencils were used to make all over images of the word 'Bop' on the Tshirts and at one point I was seriously thinking I could get this lot a stall at Camden Market and knock these out for serious cash!
As with most things video and music, the deadline was tight and the group worked up to the point of shooting for the video. The filming was done by Mo-am (youtube) headed up by none other than Overlord X, a rapper from the 90's who inspired me very early on with his music. Jonzi D headed up the rap section with Kewba on music.
Many thanks to Kate and Roisin at Sadlers Wells for putting together this programme and for the young people who put in the hard work to make the finished product happen. The video will be shown at this years Breakin' Convention 2010 and also on Youtube.

Future Elements

Its Geek time

The prototype Tshirts on Day 1

Lyrics from the song are painted up

We're the cool kids cos we can BOP!

Calling out to Dr.Merkage

We go straight over with SPRAY!

The crew worked hard

No paint was wasted

Do the BOP

The costume dept at work

The geeks sit at the front

Geek/ Cool kid Throwdown

Dr. Merkage represents

Sunday 11 April 2010

Meerkat throwdown.

Recently I designed a mural for The Samuel Lewis Estate in Camberwell in conjunction with Signal Project, Groundwork London and Southern Housing Group.
After a couple of sessions with the young people from the estate I decided on incorporating nature into the final design. The idea of the meerkat came about as they are possibly next to Ostriches the funniest animals on the planet.
In the main picture the head meerkat is looking out across the piece and this was referenced from a picture I had of the head meerkat looking out for predators whilst the others feed. As soon as he makes a noise they all scarper. Hmm, I kind of see that in the human world too.

I was joined on this wall by Luke and Mark from Signal project and we managed to get it done from start to finish in 3 days. I have to say a big thanks to the weather for blessing us with sunshine on the last 2 days and boosting the vitamin D levels to the maximum.

First on the wall gets to paint

Some kind of car I guess

Everyone up on the wall.

Armed with supersoaker

A whole heap of names

Head meerkat in charge

The mural livens up the wall

No words, just nature

The meerkat, he watches and waits..

Paint your environment.