We. Are. Back.

This is the very latest piece of artwork I have done - 'Bristol Blue', mixed media on paper based on a feathered raptor type dinosaur. It will be on sale on my shop soon. It's unusual in that I'm not doing dinosaurs now.....and I also don't do blog posts now! I just checked in on here and noticed that I haven't posted since 2011. My art has changed a fair bit since the last post, so thought it would be good the put something current up for people to see if they come here. I seem to remember I stopped doing this blog as it was taking too much time. Sizing all the images, writing all the stuff and publicising all the things I was doing was getting on top of me and getting in the way of doing the actual artwork. I think that also social media like twitter became a faster way of putting news out there. These days I tend to share an image on Instagram via Twitter and Facebook and that's it - job done. Is that enough though these days? Are there people not on those networks who don't see any of this? Does anyone bother much with blogs these days? It might very well be another two years till I post on here again, so in the meantime might be a good idea to look me up on the aforementioned social media sites. Signing out...... Andy

Styracobristol

Painted on a very cold day in Bristol! Based on Styracosaurus, made of spraycans, houses and Westmoreland House. On the gold yet again! Glad I wore my gloves that day.

Big Churz to Deams, Boswell and Tarks who I painted with. There's a full joiner pic of the piece with everyones work in here.

Here's the drawing it's based on with my original colour ideas. The horns are alot less wonky!

Patternasaurolophus

Gold!
always believe in your soul
you've got the power to know
you're indestructible!

Except, nothing is indestructible or lasts all that long at the top of Picton Street/Ashley Road in Bristol (except maybe the rotting shell of Westmoorland House).

This was a reasonably quick hit on the practice boards. Pattern based design of Parasaurolophus. Went for a decorative look using gold and reds. Concorde for head, SS Great Britain for tail and Suspension Bridge in there. Shout out to Reeps who painted alongside me, all of the people who asked if I was Banksy and especially the dude who suggested the next piece I paint has Jesus in it.

Zombie Bristol Dinosaur

Hello! First blog post of the year sees me involved in some Street Art mural work. I teamed up with artists Boswell and Deams to create a dark style mural on City Road behind Hamilton House in Bristol. It was good fun to do, I enjoyed being out on the street painting again dealing with bad weather, hedges with needles and bottles in, going up and down ladders and dealing with people asking what we were doing. It was most fun to do though as I was working with two great artists who are a good laugh to be around. Anyway here's my part of the production....

It's a kind of Zombie Bristol Dinosaur Stegosaurus. Featuring the Council house, Concorde, SS Great Britain, Suspension Bridge and Cabot Tower. It's pretty close to the sketch I did for it originally as it goes, which is good!



So, Big shout outs to Boswell and Deams and also to Chris of PRSC for ladders and sorting out the wall!

More Wall Painting at Saint Annes Park Primary

So, last week I went in to Saint Annes Park Primary school in Bristol and painted a big old owl in the library and today I went back and painted a dirty great Bristol Dino on the playground wall! Here it is -



I was asked to do quite a general Bristol type beastie, so fitted a few landmarks on it - Clifton Suspension Bridge, Wills Building, Cabot Tower, Tobacco Factory, SS Great Britain, coloured houses and Westmoreland House with BC graff on it. Turned out OK despite the heavy showers and having to dive under the shelter of a tree now and then. I put balloons in the piece also, even though I'm not that keen on them murals. Ah well, tis a school mural.

Here's the original design I did for the piece. I altered the final wall painting to have a different angle on the neck so that the creature could fill the wall better. Dinosaur I loosely based the creature on is Pachycephalosaurus.

St Annes Park Primary School Library Owl

I went into St Annes Park Primary School in Bristol a few weeks back and had a chat to the pupils about doing a mural creature of mine for their library. They went away and drew some ideas which I went through and came up with this from -



Library book owl! The owl is made of. as you might have guessed, books, but also pencils and the words 'Learn, Share, Enjoy' which I think is the school moto. I went in yesterday and sprayed him up on the wall. I ran out of time to do the falling books and leaves but reckon he's a good un still.

Dare Devil Divas

My partner Liz's production company Drastic Productions is working on an exciting new project - Dare Devil Divas! Here's a bit of info on the project - more is on the Drastic Productions blog (link above).


Dare Devil Divas is Drastic Production’s fabulously frivolous explosive new project! We are producing a fantastic show in Novemeber featuring dazzling daredevil feats of female prowess. We will be working with a group of women participants (up to 15) over 6 weeks who will learn about vaudeville, cabaret, physical theatre, burlesque & aerial performance. We have invited a team of top professionals to run specific masterclasses and to perform at the event.

Liz asked me to produce a poster/flyer design for the show that had a kind of Stunt or movie poster feel to it and features some of the performers and what they will be doing in the show. Here it is!



Drastic Productions is also on Twitter, here!

Weapon Of Choice at Howies Bristol

A couple of weeks back I went along to do a spot of live drawing at the Weapon Of Choice show in the Howies store in Bristol. It's a nice big exhibition space there and loads of the old live drawings from the previous WOC club nights were up there. They all looked really good up together, the black and white colour scheme of them making a really cohesive show.

I finally managed to finish off the canvas I started painting at the WOC gig featuring the Furious Five a while back. I'm glad I did as I don't like leaving things unfinished and it turned out alright.



I then had some time left and there was a space to fill on the main wall, so came up with a kind of Bristol Triceratops head on the spot. See if you can spot it!



'Big Ups' to all who painted that night and the WOC boys. Cheers to Sylvia Meller for the pics.

Mural At The Meriton

This week I have been working with a group of young women at the Meriton in Bristol to produce a mural to go outside the centre.

The Meriton is a specialist school based in Bristol focused on providing education, support, mentoring and advice to teenage girls and young parents. Working with pregnant girls and young mothers both pre and post 16 in the Bristol, Bath and the South West region the Meriton's aim is to protect the welfare of all children, including unborn children and vulnerable young adults.

I went in and worked with the group to come up with one of my 'Lots Of Stuff' designs to represent the school. We took photos, brainstormed, made lists and drew sketches. I then went away and looked through all the ideas and information and came up with this Butterfly design.



I returned with a bag full of spraypaint and had the group help me paint the piece. Everyone worked hard and here's the final painted piece which we are very happy with!



It's a shame the trees in the way, can't see the top bits. If I had time I would go back with a saw and get a better pic.

Planet Bristol

This is Planet Bristol, my illustration for the Bristol Green Doors event. It's a kind of a more complicated version of the Green Globe illustration I did last year. The event is about domestic green refurbishment throughout all areas of the city, so the illustration features lots of Bristol type houses and landmarks, installation of solar panels, insulation etc and people getting together and communicating. More information on Bristol Green Doors here.

The piece was as you can imagine very complicated to do and a bit of a headache. Needless to say there was lots of swearing in its creation. I started off by sketching out the various different types of housing around Bristol based around reference pics that Stu from the project sent me.





Then it was a case of placing all these buildings into a globe along with parks and landmarks roughly positioned to be in where they would be in North, East, South and West Bristol. I did this by tracing off a globe shape with perspective lines A2 size on my lightbox. I then worked over the top of this putting in key points and roads. This took several attempts and quite a bit of guess work. this first rough looked more like the Death Star.



I had to scrap bits and start again, eventually came up with this rough which I then went on to add more detail with in pen and colour up using the limited colour scheme that I was given to work with.



All in all, its a bit of a beast! There should be Ltd edition prints available to buy of it soon. A bigger version of it where the details of it can be seen better is on my Flickr.

Battle Bunny at Glos-tonbury, Golden Lion, Bristol

Battle Bunny is the latest in my war themed series of illustrations and paintings. The running rabbit is cute yet made up of tanks, helicopter gunships, tank buster planes and bombs! I was really pleased with how this design turned out so decided to paint it at the Glos-tonbury Festival yesterday. It's called the Glos-tonbury festival as it takes place on the same weekend as Glastonbury festival but is at the Golden Lion pub on the Gloucester Road in Bristol. The festival has live Skateboarding, Graffiti, Breakdancing, plus food stalls, clothing stalls, facepainting and Djs.

The painting turned out alright on a scorching day. Took me ages as usual and was last to finish as usual also. Could have done some bits better blah blah, but over all pleased with it.

Shout out to James for sorting it out. Painterz - Soker, Hemper, Nik Ill, Rich T, 45 RPM, China Mike and the Jago. 'Big Up' as it were to all who came down including Mike and Steff, Tails, Tess and Jo and Roxy and co. Special mention goes of course to my wife Liz and our little un Felix, who picked up a can of paint and tried to help Rich T on his piece.

Secret Wars - Bristol Vs Malmo

Another round of Secret Wars went down at Start The Bus in Bristol a couple of weeks ago. I was determined to put in a better performance than I did when up against Glasgow a while back. I met up with Sepr and we came up with the idea of Ciderzilla versus a little Viking dude as what we would do to battle the Swedish team from Malmo. Dylan Shipley got called into action on our team at the last minute and decided on doing a warrior farmer character.



When it came round to the night I managed to hold it down on the drinks a fair bit and we went into action. I find it a bit nerve wracking being up on stage drawing with loads of people looking at you. It's also difficult as one of the rules of Secret Wars is that you can't work from a sketch. Needless to say, Bristol beat Malmo 2-1. Sepr and Dylan worked very quickly and added a comedy cock that must have helped swing the vote. I added value by doing crap drunken dancing. Well, what d'ya expect - I was drunk on a stage in Corn Street with loads of people watching me.






Photos by Sylvia Meller.

Live Drawing at Furious Five

I think it was way back in March I did a spot of live drawing at the Furious Five gig at The Tunnels in Bristol. Was a bit of a funny old night. I wasn't really on form and wasn't really feeling it. I got part way through drawing this kind of hip hop inspired sloth beast when the Five came on and everyone went through to watch them. I ended up going also, so as a result it never got finished....

Seem to remember being told by someone that night that I was copying Andy Councils style which was quite funny.




Photo by Tim Jones.

Pond Illustration

Thought I would stick up this pond illustration I have done for North Somerset Council. It's for a nature reserve information board at a place called Locking Castle. It's quite a straight up illustration job, but I am pleased with the end result. Nice Carp!

Secret Wars

Hmmm, I wonder who they have got in to help represent Bristol then????

Bartonhillasaur

A few days ago I painted this beast with the help of some of the local yout at Netham Park, Barton Hill, Bristol. The dino has flats and houses on similar to those in the area. The wall wasn't as tall as I thought, so the beastie looks a bit less like a Stegosaur or Dimetrodon and more like a bloody big Newt!

Still needs some work doing on background bits - took this pic before the sun went down.

It was quite a chilled spot to paint in a way - nice chip shop round the corner!

Shouts out to Rowdy who was in charge of this project and Cheo who painted also. Also hello to Cheo's brother and everyone else who showed support.

Here's the original design drawing I did of the piece...

Drunk Drawing For Weapon Of Choice Magazine Party!

This is the piece I did live at the Weapon Of Choice Magazine launch party on Friday. Wobbly, sketchy style and wonky photo......I was very very drunk!!!!! I like the piece though mind, little tanks, cars and diggers amongst the junk. It was good to use a bit of charcoal as well as just paint markers like I would normally.

The magazine is available as a hard copy around Bristol, but can also be downloaded.

There are more pics of the night up on Lokey's Blog. Some of the pics might be of me looking in a bad way....laying off the booze for a bit.

Council Is Doing A Talk!

I'm going to be doing a talk at The Watershed, Bristol UK on November 5th as part of SweetTalk 38.

Nevermind that it clashes with the fireworks - Council will have a slideshow of work and will no doubt be talking about his detailed drawings of dinosaurs, his involvement with the Bristol Street Art scene and maybe the beast of Bodmin!


The other speakers at the event are -

Gabriel Solomons / Designer / Editor / Decode Publishing

Maria Mochnacz / Photographer / Video Maker

Ian Anderson / The Designers Republic (!!!!!!!!)

Tickets are £10/£8 student
Available from Watershed Box Office
0117 927 5100 www.watershed.co.uk

Mega City Fauna

Coming to Weapon Of Choice Gallery, Bristol UK 15th January 2010....


Megacity - A city and/or metropolitan area with a very high population or average density.

Megafauna - Large or relatively large animals of a particular place or time period. Saber-toothed tigers and mastodons belong to the extinct megafauna of the Oligocene and Pleistocene Epochs.

An Alternative Portrait Of Edward Colston

Invada Record's label boss and Portishead member Geoff Barrow is to curate a days worth of music, film and art at Bristol's legendary Colston Hall venue, which has recently been extended, adding a brand new 30 million pound building onto the existing structure. The 'Invada Invasion' takes place on Saturday 26th September...

As part of the days events there is to be an exhibition entitled 'An Alternative Portrait Of Edward Colston'.

This is my take on the man who, amongst other things, became extremely wealthy, mainly from slavery...

I have to say that I was quite stuck on this one and in the end did this pretty weird looking piece where his wig is made of skulls and cables and his head of speakers.

I quite like the colours!

Acrylic on paper, 297 × 420 mm