Shooting stars.

Recently friend and photographer Anthony Saint James paid us a visit from the US to take part in a exhibition called 'The Witches'. This show was a collaboration with Inkymole, Tom Hare and Ed Garland.
During his visit to Brixton I managed to get to shoot a sequence of pictures while I painted.
What I like about Anthony's work is he captures a unique but interesting look in what he shoots. I had a Busta Rhymes photo of his from XXL magazine which I'd ripped out of the mag unknown to me that it was Anthony that shot it. Happens to be one of my faves.
I managed to snap a shot of Anthony on my Canon, not sure I got the exposure levels correct but if Blue Peter had been down there that day I reckon i would have scored a few badges for my efforts. I'll let you decide whether you think I need to stick to painting....

Portrait shot of Anthony taken on my Canon powershot A1100 is

www.anthonysaintjames.com

Its November, wrap up!

Love this city.

Close up of heart mural.

More detail.

Love, up close.

Abu Dhabi Grand Prix.

The Abu Dhabi Grand Prix kicked off in October at the Yas Marina circuit and I was asked if I could paint a series of pictures to coincide with this event at Abu Dhabi International Airport.
The project was to paint and encourage travelers to interact with the paintings and also do some drawing themselves. Having a studio in the departure lounge in one of the richest cities in the world didn't seem like a bad idea and top that off with people from all over the world passing by to do outlines I felt like this could be the beginning of something new.

The highlights of this project were discussing art and poetry with a delegation of Pakistan Government officials and a great Russian family who missed their flight and joined me for 2 nights in a row.

The paintings I made were fast productions. I had one day on them and they all could have done with some major tweaking but on the plus side, the Abu Dhabi International Airport Company liked them so much they now want to display them around the airport for the world to see!

The Race.

Heat.

Circuit break.

Speed.

Faith.

Deserted.

Love speed.

The seed.

The circuit.

Burnout.

The Formula.

The flower.

Company representatives take a closer look.

Back-up support for the fill-in.

Betty and Feiruza join in.

Sinan helps out on drips.

Serene and Ines worked overtime in overdrive to make it happen!

Great drawing! Get the blu-tack out and stick it up.

Ines worked too hard.

Serene brought tranquility to this project.

Customer services were great!

Olga, Marina and Nina from Moscow.

Olga and her squeezy flower.

The tallest mobile phone mast palm tree in Abu Dhabi!

Zayed University mural

On the 28th October I was invited to Zayed University in Abu Dhabi to talk about the work I have done on the streets around the UK. I was also asked to paint a mural with members of an art group at the University.
For the concept of the mural the basic idea was the word Zayed. The University was named after the late Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan who ruled the Emirate from 1971 to 2004.
Sheikh Zayed through hard work and vision united the Emirates into the U.A.E. He had to overcome many obstacles to make it happen but his commitment, dedication and love of his people shone through and he created a great country.
For the mural the word Zayed was written in Arabic and in yellow to represent the desert. The trees either side are the growth of the U.A.E and the blue eye is the sky.
The students helped out with painting and added words to the trees in Arabic.

Thank you to all the students who took part and to Dr Justin Thomas and Naz K. Shahrokh at the Art and Design department for organising the materials and the team.

Back to University

Abu Dhabi's finest.

We start with the blue..

The students working hard

The basics are in now we can start the filling in.

Find a spot and paint... if you can!

I let the experts take care of the tree.

The students work the colour scheme.

Amazing henna art, U.A.E. style.

Great henna art.

and now for the finer detail.

Dedicated to Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan.

What's in the tree?

The beautiful script.

The honor code.

Finished!

Where are we going with this?