I do feel for the drinking establishments that don’t have an area dedicated to outdoor pursuits, without endangering pedestrians, traffic wardens bonuses, or your hairstyle in the rain.
The Rose Villa Tavern (a Grade II listed building) recently asked for an all-weather seating area to be decorated, together with my very good friend Glen, who I battled alongside to reach the final of the Secret Wars Euroleague as the Brum 6…
It was quite an honour to be asked to paint such a beautiful tavern in a very nice part of Birmingham. Since returning from Europe, it was the kind of painting work that I had hoped for, especially after painting the ‘De Buurvrouw’ bar in Amsterdam.

Where is it?

Located in the historic Jewellery Quarter in Hockley, Birmingham, next door to the sister venue to the Custard Factory, the Big Peg, is a beautifully classic old tiled pub built originally for the Mitchells & Butlers brewery back in 1919.

View Larger Map

Design proposal

The rough plan was to paint the ceiling and walls from the perspective of a door threshold between a cold, outdoor garden and a huge, warm mansion interior. The room is only 7m x 2m, with a skewed elevation, making for a very adventurous interior. We painted it knowing that seating was going to be installed around the walls, meaning we were only required to paint above the 1m mark. The initial concept was to recreate an old library, or gentleman’s club in aerosol paint. From the viewpoint at the centre of the room, you are faced (on entering) with a scene containing trees, a greenhouse and a balcony fit for Oliver Reed. Whilst behind you are bookcases, swimming pool, wooden furniture and skylights.

A usual method of decorating a cubic space (room) with a mural is to use the parallel lines of the existing space to explore false depth, it was quickly decided to construct everything on a slight skew. This would mean that the horizontal lines would, in the main, be on a slanted perspective. Although a challenge to construct in paint, it serves the purpose of sending the viewer into another reality once inside. We painted the whole piece on a black background and worked with existing lighting to add to the illusion of being in a larger space.

Oh, before I forget – you have to try out the amazing burgers and ales when (and hopefully, if) you visit…

360 Panorama

To see the interactive panorama, you will need to be viewing in a web browser equipped with Adobe Flash player. Once you’re in, you can view it full screen and see the detail of the room. Either that or see it in the flesh, equipped with Human Brain v1.0

Also on schudio.co.uk:

1. 360 Degree views of the Birmingham show
2. Berlin freestyle by the Birmingham Squad
3. FIFTY ONE DEGREES, Solo show in Birmingham

Beautiful six colour print, limited to an edition of 33, 500mm x 700mm on archival acid-free, bright white 250gsm.

Description

Initially created for a concept to paint an indoor market in Brixton, this stereoscopic print has a total of 60 definited layers, or planes of artwork. Each and every mark has been duplicated with care and the magic really happens when you view it through some 3D glasses (a pair is supplied).

Previously featured in Issue 16 of UK based magazine VNA.

Edition of 33 signed and numbered by the artist

Adequate packaging is supplied at a surcharge of £3 GBP, this is referenced in the checkout.

**PLEASE BE AWARE – WE CAN ONLY DISPATCH TO SHIPPING ADDRESSES in UK & EU**

Gallery

Since my sales area died some months ago, I have resorted to taking payments via Paypal. Payments and credit card details are secure, and most major credit cards are accepted, even WITHOUT a Paypal account.

Purchase options

Please choose:

Standard Parcel (3 days min.) £64.41 GBP Special Delivery Next Day (trackable) £65.90 GBP -EU only- Airsure (3 days – £500 comp.) £68.94 GBP

Also on schudio.co.uk:

1. F**K Hue – Limited edition print
2. Time lapse video of 3D cube
3. 3D screenprint for Chinese New Year

Guinness World Record attempt

The world record attempt that I painted a few years back is not being considered by Guinness World Records.

The proprietor of the Hole in the Wall, who commissioned the piece, have failed to recognise all the work I did to raise awareness of the building, the painting, or their fabric shop. The BBC Midlands evening news featured on the painting’s completion in September 2007 live as they broadcast the weather from there too, as had been previously arranged, in order to celebrate the world record attempt. The coverage lasted around 4 minutes, worth quite a sum of money in terms of exposure (almost half of the west midlands) to the viewers at home watching the news while eating their dinners. Aside of that coverage, there was a phenomenal double page piece in the Midlands broadsheet, The Birmingham Post.

I fell off the scaffolding during painting the piece, scaffolding that wasn’t even reaching the top of the wall. I needed another step ladder on the top level of scaffolding to reach the top. On the first storey of scaffolding ‘flats’ they supplied only palettes instead of the usual planks.

When I began to paint the section on the right, the huge pile of bricks on the ‘floor’ prevented me from ascending the wall safely to reach the top of that section. Very unsafe indeed. Nobody was prepared to ready that area safe for my work to continue, but I had to finish the piece. Scaffolding was insecure and in general there was no safe access to all of the walls.

The reason that the Hole’s management gave for non-payment (the final payment was short by more than £1000) was that the painting took too long… In all I spent 42 days against the breezeblock and mortar, sometimes through to midnight.

Good as new

View on Google or click and drag/zoom around the Google Street View scene above

It is still there, brightening the landscape in its full intensity, advertising the shop. The site was previously where two buildings belonging to the shop once stood, they burnt down in a massive blaze which kept the fire brigade busy for around two weeks. A very sad moment for Walsall. This event inspired the mural concept. I would create a portal where all the destroyed buildings in the town would rebuild themselves; the power station cooling towers, The Woolpack Inn, old Walsall train station, The Dolphin, Ratners jewellers, Fellows Park, Shannons Mill and the WS2 skatepark to name but a few. I studied the extensive local history archives for any reference to the once great buildings of the town of Walsall, there was no shortage!

The odd shape of the wall also proved to be quite difficult to paint. The illusion that the wall is flat was hard to construct when there’s four floors of scaffolding in front of it. There was extensive planning for the wall, after my first site visit.

Originally I painted during the Summer of 2007, over the space of 5 months, for 42 days, starting during Mayday bank holiday weekend and finishing mid September. I used over 700 litres of paint

Finished painting in huge detail

As i type, the finished photograph has now been viewed 6,010 times on Flickr:

360° panorama

When I returned to Walsall recently I had to take a 360 degree photograph of the inside of the compound. Its a very difficult place to take photos of the whole piece. The wooden partition seperating the footpath from the compound was decorated with the shop’s website address (it had been retouched) and the holes I designed within the address were still there too, albeit not synchronised with the lettering of the gigantic website.

Competition

As a supporting activity, I was not only going to print commemorative tea towels (the Hole in the Wall is a fabric outlet) but I was also going to run a competition. And here it is…

Simply tell me how many holes can be counted in the painting.

There is a distinct advantage for anybody going to view the site for real, although viewing the XXL image on Flickr would help anybody that is incapable/intolerant/internet only. Enter the competition by sending me your guess on the contact page with the number of holes in the message. You must have a working email address and also be able to provide a valid land address so I can post the prize to you.

The winner (denoted by being the first or closest to the actual number of holes) will be notified in time to receive their prize before Christmas this year. Unfortunately this competition is only open to entrants who provide a UK mainland address ONLY. The prize is a beautiful print proof of Sodtherich, limited to an edition of only 10. Competition entries will cease to be valid after 00:01 December 2nd (2 months, 2 days ago).

Adequate recompense?

I am a great believer in supporting the roles of both artists and businesses in the local community, long may it last but what happens when the business doesn’t fulfil it’s obligations?

If you would like to know what happened to the money, please contact them via their website, or leave a comment below, thanks

I officially finished the mural 4 years, 4 months, 21 days ago

Wonderful quote from passer-by

I don’t know why they let them paint on top of the old buildings, I wish they’d leave them alone.

(mistaking the painted brickwork and windows as a real structure)

Also on schudio.co.uk:

1. Putting the Wall in Walsall…
2. Sodtherich
3. Weekend warriors

There’s very few magazines relating to graffiti that I actually read. Sure, there are graffiti magazines out there, few can compete with Very Nearly Almost – with plenty of quality eye candy and decent in-depth interviews with artists etc.. VNA has been going for 16 glorious issues now. Its a really pleasant read, sitting comfortably in a5, and printed in matt stock for that luxury vibe.

They approached me to answer a few questions a several issues back, but with all the usual suspects’ interviews for shows and big changes in my schedule, it only came to fruit for issue 16. Speaking with Roly on the blower whilst holidaying in Barcelona, he had a great line of enquiry. He actually asked some really good questions relating to the reasons why I ended up painting in the first place, stuff I never even connected for a long time–my passion for computers at a very early age, being raised in middle earth and my time painting alongside Desire & Goldie. The interview went really well, and there are more than a few good quotes spread through the article.

“My life’s changed a lot as a direct result of my aerosol use, it’s like a drug”

Then came the challenge of finding & resourcing the imagery to support the interview. It had been 12 years since a (inter)national publication had interviewed me. My work has been changing quite a bit over the last 5 years, so I had to show off some of the newer work. Most of the digital archive was back in London, 700 miles away. Fortunately I had a fair amount of recent material, from my work with mathematics and perspective, so it was a great opportunity to show the ‘Cover your tracks’ 3d design (which was a prototype sketch for Brixton indoor market).

VNA 16 is now available for £5, or for £26 you can have 4 issues delivered to your door (UK prices – more HERE).

Where were you painting in those days?

Back then you couldn’t afford a train ticket; you’d get a coach down to Bristol with a bag of paint. Because I worked for Walsall Youth Arts, there were only three sites supported by the local authorities in the country; Barton Hill, Selly Oak and Walsall. The one in Walsall was called The Paddock, which was a sunken foundation for a block of flats. So we came up with the idea to take it over and develop it as a painting site on submission of all this bureaucracy. I became the caretaker of the place, so journeys to Bristol and Selly Oak became the backbone of my graffiti world.

Extract published HERE

Also on schudio.co.uk:

1. All new hippo show
2. Some early walls
3. Walsall Copperworks

Late 2010 I painted alongside Amp, Bon and Alex at Chulalongkorn University Faculty of the Arts, Bangkok. I was out there making the Sodtherich screenprints and some adhesive propaganda with Souled Out Studios…

Also on schudio.co.uk:

1. Rose Villa Tavern, Birmingham
2. Berlin freestyle by the Birmingham Squad
3. Southbank Freestyle

This website that I finished designing recently, is for my good friend stationed in Afghanistan, David Gill. It was clear from the beginning that it was to work like a dynamic library of photographs and interviews that David can upload with comfort, publishing these amazing stories to the world – without it looking too much like a blog.

Site is now live

His site www.kabulatwork.tv (which is now live) chronicles the lives at work for the thousands of the population of Kabul, Afghanistan’s capital city, where life goes on, war or not. Its seriously, seriously worth checking out. The photographs only compare to the text, beautifully inspired and ripe for the study, this other world.

There will be updates every week, so far there are 15 characters in 10 chapters, ranging from Sport & Recreation to Magnates & Moguls.

There is an intention, I hear that there is a book in the making…

Early designs

The logo remained the same for a good while, I dabbled with a few different icons and layouts for the chapters, before settling on something a bit more ‘trim’ and changing the font to something slightly more legible than stencil. The look for the site was inspired by an early photograph that David showed me, of a battered road sign. The server had some issues when updating services, but I resurrected it from the ashes to give a better, crisper design the second time round.

Logo design

Chapter Icon designs

Each chapter had to be distinct when journeying the site. When looking at one character, it had to be clear which chapter they were from, and when the chapter was selected that all the characters were visible within that too. There are a few basic categorisation and ordering tools (such as keywords, or tags – which are used but only in the background to calculate similar characters/chapters), although content is still king, so the key is to ensure correct and apprpriate data entry (text & image/video).

As I was designing the online persona for the site, it made sense to also design the icons for the avatar inside the discussions, and icons for the social network sites that link to the identity of the project (Twitter, Youtube, Facebook, RSS etc)

Also on schudio.co.uk:

1. Wallords of Afghanistan
2. London venue refurb

I was going through some photographs of my work for an article in a magazine (coming out soon) when I realised that these haven’t seen the light of day for many years…

The first image (above) is a ceiling in a pub in a town i used to live, Stourbridge. In fact I painted three in the same town, two of which were in the Meeting Place, on the High Street. These were my initial steps in making illusions work inside interiors. The ceiling on the bottom floor was best viewed through one of those convex, bulging mirrors, which enabled you to see the whole ceiling without arching your back!

I apologise for the quality of some of these images: I haven’t got access to all the work I have ever made whilst not in the UK, I just came across these and thought they deserved a mention on this site, as you may not have seen the work. Some of it requires further explanation, but here they are for you to simply enjoy for now…

Also on schudio.co.uk:

1. Mirror in De Buurvrouw
2. Walsall Copperworks
3. Cubic Experiment

1 hours work, hotfoot. Thanks to Diego & Julio.

FTC celebartes their 25th anniversary this year with a big bang in Barcelona.

Also on schudio.co.uk:

1. Championship production
2. Smoking can make lampposts vanish
3. One Foot in the Dark

An overnight paint session features in this little video of the illusion I painted in Manchester…

Whilst painting the ‘Everything Everywhere’ illusion in Altrincham (Manchester, UK), I managed to grab a timelapse with the help of Keef. We set up a tripod at the very start, this spot had been defined way before, for the illusion to work. The video shows some close up work on the floor, so you can see it was not exactly flat! Its all shot on stills and it all happens a bit quickly. Really looking forward to painting my next illusion…

Keef also helped me sort out the floor priming too, it took ages to dry so we started a little late. The trick is, to paint the latex very thin, so it dries in the fastest time (take note Dan!).

The video shows the day beginning, after working the whole night through, nice to see the light changing (similar to the Ninja Tune XX video). Sounds by N4T4. Security by Little Brother.

The video

Also on schudio.co.uk:

1. Everything Everywhere illusion
2. Ninja Tune XX piece video
3. Weekend warriors

After the success of the previous wall, the good folk at De Buurvrouw asked me to back to decorate their main wall in the bar. The inspiration came from the famous song by The Beat ‘Mirror in the Bathroom’ (there’s a fantastic interview with Dave Wakeling about the origin of the songs’ lyrics, not what you think). More details, a few 360 degree panoramas and a video after the jump

Mirror in the bathroom please talk free
The door is locked just you and me.
Can I take you to a restaurant that’s got glass tables
You can watch yourself while you are eating.

Concept

I wanted to develop the square tile pattern from the first room, to create a black and white bathroom scene complete with mirrors (more about that in a bit) and a spot colour (initially some flourescence too). At first I even wanted to put up some toilet roll holders around the bar, but it got sidelined as a result of concerns over hygiene. The ceiling was really narrow, so the effect would be quite limiting overhead. There was a diagonal staircase creating an obscure corner, which proved to be just the right kind of challenge. I’d force it to continue upwards beyong the constrains of the ceiling.

For a few reasons I chose to create a huge hole in the wall, with the mirrors. When speaking to some of the staff and clientelle at the bar, it soon became apparent that they were uncomfortable looking at the same, inanimate scene over again. The ‘hole of mirrors’ would simulate the ever changing ambience above the bar in front of it, literally reflecting it as it would be created by mirrors, stuck to the wall. It was just the right height to avoid being used by the vain amongst the patrons. I looked into having a glazier make the 3 (very large!) pieces to create a really special effect from the sweet spot, it was just way too expensive.

I painted the artwork in aerosol, straight over the edge of the square, adhesive backed mirrors, hiding the edge and creating a convincing hole effect. As you walked into the bar, it really does have the initial impact of there being some wall removed.

Play with the new 360 viewer

ACTIVE NOW!! New display feature for the site in v2.0

The digital sketch below shows how I began planning it out in Sketchup. The overlay (in thin red line) is from an approximate measurement I made with a few torn ligaments in one arm since I had recently flown like superman after an accident on my bike near Centraal, injuries are as of writing (August) not healed completely. What I get excited about is that the 360 degree photograph that I took on my initial site visit is beneath the Sketchup version, and it is almost spot on!!! (*polishes fingernails*).

When I had the mathematics nailed, locating the sweet spot (at the end of the bar, beneath the raised DJ booth) and distorting the planes, I then had to create the faux realism. I used Sketchup again to realise the lighting, I didn’t have too long in the bar to finish the painting. I produced it in 3 nights, after the bar had closed, through to the afternoon. I don’t usually go this far with the modelling beforehand, but I had to build & position the props in the scene.

I never aim to mimic the line quality of a computer render, opting incessantly for an organic edge – natural to aerosol paint. To this end, the 3d modelling economises on positioning the camera correctly, with basic geometry to simulate light fall correctly. Once this is as complete as possible, in the time frame, sketches on myPalmtop v1.0, running HumanBrain v2.0 are produced:

The scene is a plane-shifted bathroom, on each plane there is an object found inside most domestic bathrooms. This one belonged to the imaginary De Burrvrouw (dutch, meaning the neighbour’s wife, after the venue’s name). On the regular plane was the toilet cubicle, on the floor plane is a sink, and on the wall plane is a shower. Its quite an energetic start, using ladders to create the manual layout planes, and getting all the dynamics & scale correct. On a large scale this can have an eerie feeling as you move around the sweet spot, viewed from the floor the distortion is in its purest, undressed form.

Watch the timelapse video

I set up a timelapse camera, capturing every 30 seconds or so. The video below also has a soundtrack made by Amsterdam’s own Dr Marshmallow Cubicle, featuring the many talents of another long time collaborator and dear friend Steve FlyAgaric Pratt with guitar by Vicente Pino.

Version of soundtrack used in video

The title (Sodtherich) speaks for itself, rhymes by Steve Fly.
SODTHERICH by flyagaric23
The paint came from the lovely people down Henx supplies. Thanks to Daan, Robin, Steve & Chris for all their help and patience.

Final 360 degree panorama

The neighbour’s wife left something switched on, can you find it, and do you know what she left switched on? Answers below…

Also on schudio.co.uk:

1. Bar interior in Amsterdam
2. 360 degree view of 55DSL store
3. Painted car in Amsterdam II