Saint Mary's Dragon at Beachcroft

The day after the opening night of the RWA show I headed down to the offices of Beachcroft for a spot of window drawing. I was still feeling pretty drained from the night before, but managed to get the head and arms of this beastie up. The offices are right near to Saint Mary Redcliffe, so decided to do a dinosaur based on it's sky rocket Gothic architecture.

Here's the original drawing I did for it and a couple of close ups...





I'm particularly pleased with the tail section which is made out of the spire.



It's a shame that I didn't have enough time to draw the back section on the windows. It was starting to get to me a bit being in there pretty much on my own for 6 hours or so with only the sound of air conditioning for company!

Brisuanadon at RWA!

On my last blog post I stuck up a few teaser pics showing the early stages of creating my Brisuanadon sculpture. The piece was indeed for the Crimes of Passion show at the RWA. Here's some more development pics and shots from the show!

Here's my original drawing of how I imagined the sculpture to look. I wanted it to look a bit like my Bristol Dinosaur, but with fewer complicated landmarks. I based it on the Clifton Wood/Hotwells arial of Bristol so as to get the Suspension bridge and Cabot tower in. The houses there also look like those found in Totterdown, which is an arial people see straight away when they come into Bristol Temple Meads train station.



The dino model was made as a collaboration with my model maker friend Matt Pugh. the dino started life in Matts workshop over in Trowbridge. The pics in my previous post show it as the wooden frame and with the plaster coating on it. There are also pics of the little houses that were made out of wood and primed. These were then brought over to my studio in Bristol where they were sprayed up in different colours. This was pretty tricky as alot of masking was required to do the roofs.



The dino itself made it's way over from Trowbridge next and was painted a rock grey colour and given a layer of turf flock for skin.



Then the little houses were added.



The bridge was added on and also it's funny frog like eyes.



While waiting for glue to dry on the dino I went up to the RWA and painted a wall piece that would go behind it. I decided to go for a blueprint type of design with lots of notes on each of the different sections of the beastie. These include things such as - 'Cider and toxic waste food inlet', 'Defensive tree spikes', 'Underfoot bass propulsion unit' and 'Sewage outlet'.



We worked right up to the last minute to get the model finished. I had bought all the N guage size model railway trees available in Bristol and luckily my supply of them ordered from the internet arrived on time!

The opening night was crazy and to be honest with you I found it all a bit much. I looked over the balcony at one point to see all the people queing in the street around Mr.Rowdy's painted rocks. My friends were among the people below and I took the opportunity to wave at them as if I was the queen.



.....and here's the finished beastie! It's around 1.5m long and mounted on a wooden base.





I'm really pleased with how it's turned out. I'm not sure what baby Felix makes of it all though.



All in all it was a great night, although it was difficult to get to the bar and I was glad to go and chill out down the pub afterwards. Big shout out to the RWA, FLX, Jono, Kath and all the artists involved.

It's well worth going to the exhibition if you can, otherwise check this footage of the opening night featuring my dino and me lurking around...

Brisuanadon W.I.P

W.I.P Gunship Swallow painting

Here's a pic of my nearly finished Gunship Swallow painting. It's a tattoo style Swallow made out of lots of small helicopter gunships. It compliments my Tank Heart piece that I featured also on this blog. They should be ready very soon - I'm getting quicker!

Crimes of Passion

In Spring 2009 the Royal West Of England Academy in Bristol is hosting a major show of new work by the city’s best known and most successful graffiti and street artists. Crimes Of Passion is the first major show of its kind in the city since the Arnolfini’s groundbreaking 1985 show, Graffiti Art and is a celebration of the city’s rich and diverse contemporary scene.
Crimes Of Passion takes the love of (and heartfelt dedication to) the art form as its starting point, with Bristol’s leading street and graffiti artists working both directly onto the walls of the gallery and exhibiting works on canvas, as well as exhibiting threedimensional pieces and installations. The show will also include a city wide programme of large-scale painting, a film season at local arts cinema The Cube (www.cubecinema.com) and a series of painting workshops and talks run in conjunction with the local Council and schools in the city.
Bristol has nurtured many of the UK’s most successful graffiti and street artists, including 3D, Inkie, Banksy, Nick Walker, Sickboy and TCF Crew, to name a few. The city continues to be a breeding ground for a wealth of exceptional creative talent and continues to have one of the UK’s most diverse and thriving scenes.
The Royal West of England Academy (RWA) is one of only five Royal Academies of Art in the UK. It is a registered charity that has been self-supporting for over 150 years and possesses an outstanding Grade II listed building, galleries and permanent fine art collection. Opened in 1858, the RWA was Bristol’s first art gallery.

In no particular order, artists involved in the show include: 3D, Nick Walker, Filthy Luker, FLX, Sickboy, Cyclops, Rowdy, Inkie, Mr.Jago, Acerone, Dicy, Feek, Ponk, Seza, Banksy, Xenz, Ziml, Eco, Paris, Mudwig, What Collective, Cheo, Soker, Will Barras, and Andy Council.

Pineapple Wrestler for Miss Hubbard

Sometime ago now my friend James Bourne of Themlot asked me to take part in a project titled 'Dear Miss Hubbard'. Here's what it's about and what I came up with...

In 2004, artist James Bourne, stumbled upon an unopened envelope addressed to a Miss J.E.Hubbard postmarked 1970. James has worked closely with Solihull school children to investigate what could be inside this unopened envelope. James and other artists have made their own explorations and responses to the children's artwork and it is to be exhibited at Solihull Arts Complex, 16th March - 16th May 2009. Full information on the opening times and stuff here.

So, back in November 2008 I get this email and attached picture from James -



Hello Andy

Cheers for getting back to me about the project

Now that I'm getting work back off the kids, the project is developing slightly, and I'm able to extract the right kids work for the right artists

Instead of a letter, I reckon this attachment is more up your street
The kids were asked to design a wrestler
This kids has used pineapples as his inspiration

he has written the following text next to the character

"spiky pineapple mask to protect the head"

"pineapple juice on his body to make him slippy for his opponents"

"spiky pineapple hands to hurt his opponent"

let me know what you think!

cheers

james




Well, I thought it was amazing and this is what I came up with...



I have done a comic book style montage of the pineapple wrestler. He's a pretty dark character and looks like a bit of a pervy sex gimp or something. I have portrayed him about to dive on to his arch rival - the man from Delmonte!!!!

Beyond Architecture

I have some of my work featured in 'Beyond Architecture' by Gestalten. It looks like it's going to be a pretty interesting book. Here's a bit of info on it -

Beyond Architecture is the first publication of its kind to document the creative exploration of architecture and urban propositions in the contemporary arts. The projects collected in this book demonstrate how not only architects and designers but also artists are taking architecture as a starting point for experimentation. They range from performance, installation art and crafted sculptures to architectural models, alternative ideas for living spaces and furniture, as well as illustration, painting, collage and photography. Through stunning photography, visuals and complementary texts, these visionary concepts reveal the hidden creative potential for architecture and urban environments in inventive ways.

More info can be found here. The book is due for release in the UK end of February.