Art Abandonment at Upfest

 The other weekend we went to Upfest in Bristol.

It is Europe's largest Street Art Festival and this year was the 10th Anniversary.

I will do a proper update of the art work once I have downloaded all the photo's but I thought I would post the art abandonment's and Free Art Friday drops I made during the festival.

This was a small stencil of a spray can on a brusho background

This was one of my hand carved stamps of a fire demon on a inked background

 and other one of my fire demon's but this time on a tag

my final piece was left at the suffragettes yarn bomb!

Happy crafting

Kyla

Upfest 2017

 Hello peeps.  The other weekend I went to Upfest, Europe's largest free street art festival. 

It is SO inspiring and I took over 200 photos!  If you follow me on Instagram or FB then you have already seen these but if you don't then grab a cuppa and skim though a few photos.

One of the main differences this year was how many women were taking part.  Over the years I have noticed this increasing but this year there was a marked difference.  It is great to see the younger generations getting into creating art, many with brushes as well as spray and stencils.

This tapestry is on metal wire mesh attached to a door!

Gemma Compton's work was amazing as always.

There are so many difference styles and subject matter on show

But some of them are HUGE, several stories high!

 There were a lot of faces at this years festival being painted in different mediums and different sizes.  The details were amazing though.

So that is another 3 days of Upfest finished.  If you are ever down in Bristol then I recommend popping over to the Bedminster area to check out the art.  Whilst the temporary hoardings are only up for the festival the art painted on the walls are often there until the next festival and some even longer.

I struggle to paint faces on a sketch book so I am in awe when you see these faces 15 odd feet across!  That is real skill and talent!

Kyla

WOYWW

I know, it's Wednesday and I have a clean desk!!!

The only thing on my desk this week is the supporter pack from Upfest.

upfest is the largest street art festival in Europe and happens in Bristol every year 
at the end of July.
Each year they run a crowd funding event to raise money to cover paint etc and depending on how much you donate they offer a small gift in return.

This was ours.  

A lovely blank sketchbook (nice thick smooth paper inside perfect for wet mediums) which was embossed with their logo and three posca pens (my favourite marker pen as it takes on most surfaces).

How is your workdesk this week?  Don't worry as mine will not stay this clean for long (it never does)!

Kyla

Upfest and Art Abandonment

I thought I should warn you in advance this is a heavy photo post but nowhere near as many as I actually took but hopefully enough to give you a rough idea of what I have been up to.

I have taken part in Free Art Friday (google it-its a great idea) for a while and recently joined the Art Abandonment facebook group.  The idea is you create art and leave it somewhere for strangers to find and enjoy!

So for my first 'abandonment' I decided to make some tags using a stamped face and a devil icon that I carved (the words are stamps that I bought). 

 I added colour with spray inks and a little mica

I decided the time to set them free was this weekend at Upfest.  Upfest is the largest free street art festival and is held in my hometown of Bristol.  They have over 300 artists from across the globe and they paint, in real time, on buildings, hoardings, cardboard, floors, vans.....you get the idea.  They paint across an area of the city based around a few streets and parks.  It is great free family entertainment with music, art classes, sales, food and all round general greatness!

To set ourselves up for the day we popped into the local YHA for a coffee and this is where I made my first 'drop' (tucked into the bottom left of the notice board)

 

 My next drop was at one of the several large boards placed around for kids and adults to 'have a go'

 I soon got into the swing of things, abandoning on park fences

 and even in  a church garden

 When we returned the next day they had all gone.  Hopefully people will be in touch to say they found them, but if not, at least I know someone may have liked them enough to take one.

So, I took several hundred photos but I am hoping that these few will give you a flavour of the event.

 They painted buildings

 Skate park ramps

 Book pages painted and pasted onto junction boxes

 Sides of businesses

 Wooden boards placed up especially for the weekend

 Bristol is well known for being politically astute so hardly a surprise that there were several political ones

 Small stencilled faces

 Stencilled vinyl records (infact we even bought the 2nd on the left)

 This painting was several stories high and blew us all away

 This Game of Thrones/Jeremy Corbyn parody prompted a lot of comments

 

 These stencils are fantastic (Big Issue vendors are a big part of Bristol life-the people of Bristol even recently organised a wedding for one of them!).

 This was on the side of a train carriage!

 The background on this one is amazing, I watched the artist create it with torn cardboard and spray paint!

 I love this one, crowds walking through a rain streaked city scape.

 Again, another building painting (seriously I have NO idea how these artists scale up their sketchbooks!)

 These were painted on temporary hoardings

 Whilst this 3D image was painted on the floor (I was lucky enough to see his work in Malta last year)

 and this was painted on a double decker bus!!!!

 As usual the tallest was this 5 story building.  

Whereas these two were much smaller and not as colourful but just as powerful images leaving you wondering HOW they paint these!!

So a weekend of much walking, catching up with friends, art abandonment and watching some skilled artists create some amazing pieces.

Upfest - you did it again!!!

Kyla