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

 

Royal Academy Summer Exhibition

 Thought I would update on our recent visit to the 248th Royal Academy Summer Exhibition.

I have not included all the photos I have taken (as that would be a HUGE post) but thought I would share just a few of them.

 This looked like oils on an old metal tray and was titled "Roman 2" by Jock McFadyen RA.

I loved the depth and colour as I felt I was able to transport myself into the picture and could hear the traffic and smell the ozone.

This amazing piece was called "Migration" by Cathy de Monchaux and is made from copper wire, bandages, silk and pigment

 Whilst this was "Silver Hart" by David Mach RA and was made from steel and coat hangers!

  

Sadly I didn't make a note of these two, but I loved them both

 This was a bronze statue of Iggy Pop (full size) by Stephen Haines and in the back ground you can see the shipping container "The Bridge" by Jimmy Cauty (of the band The KLF) with spy holes whereby you can look in and see the 'scene' 

 He produced a HUGE version (an entire room) of this for the Banksy exhibition at Dismaland" in Weston Super Mare last year.

 Sadly I didn't make a note of who created these (though the artist on the right we have seen in previous exhibitions)

 As previous years there was an architecture room and this pencil sharpener caught my eye.

Finally in one room was a large Gilbert and George painting (once again I didn't get the details of who created the skeleton piece).

The exhibition is on until 21 August in London.  

Anyone can submit a piece for consideration and the BBC (usually BBC4) make a programme each year following the story from the point of view of an artist-such an eye opener.  

If you get the opportunity I recommend it, the work is varied and there are over 1000 pieces, some by very famous people, other by unknowns but one thing they have in common is that they all got the opportunity to grace the walls of one of the most famous galleries in the world.

Kyla

 

Watching resin dry

Hello peeps.  

I thought I would share one of my latest makes with you.

My Aunt Jackie is visiting from NZ and has always been a HUGE Disney fan.  Over the years she has owned a few Disney watches and the inevitable has happened and they have broken and been replaced (with another Disney watch of course).  

She kindly gave me the broken watches in case I could use the parts in my mixed media (which of course I can-a lovely idea, thanks Jackie).

As a way of saying 'thanks' I decided to set one of the Mickey Mouse figures (the arms are the clock hands) into resin and make a keyring for her.

I am still fairly new to playing with resin but I was pleased how this turned out and as I have given her the gift I can now share it on here!

I now have a couple of watches that I am going to try to take apart (searching the tool box for my glasses screwdriver as I am hoping it will be small enough to try and salvage as many lovely watch cogs as possible).

Happy crafting

Kyla

WOYWW

Wednesday again so that can only mean one thing - sharing the desk of shame at 

"What's on Your Workdesk Wednesday".

Full details can be found over at the Queen of desks blog here as the lovely Julia has taken the crown back from Jan who was minding the desks on her behalf for a few weeks (bit like the politics here in the UK at the moment!).

On my desk this week is my 365 Journal and my lovely new posca paint pens and Upfest sketch book.  Upfest is Europe's largest street art festival (full details can be found here)

It takes place each year and see's some of the worlds top street artists come together to create beautiful art.  Some pieces are several stories high on the side of buildings others are created on wooden hoardings placed around the festival site especially. 2015 saw 300 global artists and 30,000 visitors and it is all for FREE in Bristol.

Each year they look for sponsorship and depending on the amount you donate you can receive a thankyou gift.  The book and a couple of paint pens above was our thankyou.

It takes place 23-25th July and if you are down in the South West of UK I recommend it as it's a great festival atmosphere with paint jams, workshops, stalls and SO much to see and do.

My "Man Bites Dog" cards this week are 'Crooked Lawyer Defends Girl Prez'...well a bit odd and made me laugh when I realised the sentence as a new female Prime Minister takes her seat today...our version of a Prez!!

So, dare you join us and share your desk of shame or glory?

Happy crafting

Kyla

 

 

Ghibli daps

 Now, I know I am not the only one to fall into this trap.  

You see something on Pinterest and think "ooh, I could make that"

A few weeks go by and several hundred pins later you get round to making a start!

You finish and sit back to admire your work....its rubbish and looks NOTHING like the pin!

Well, on this occasion I was really pleased with the result!

I am a massive Studio Ghibli fan (Japanese Anime) and have seen lots of hand painted trainers on Pinterest recently so thought I would combine the two.

I bought some white daps (Bristol speak for plimsol!) from Lidl for £5 (bargain and surprising comfortable)

Then started sketching out the design in pencil to ensure I had the dimensions right.

  Then I filled the design in using a variety of paints I already had, a mixture of fabric paints and screen printing paints.

I outlined the designs in black and then allowed to dry overnight before setting them with a hot iron (not easy, it involved lots of padding with newspaper and quite a bit of swearing!).

I also gave them a couple of coats of protective spray (the sort for walking boots) and voila, one of a kind Ghibli daps!!

I love these and wish that I had bought more than one pair of shoes now!  If I see them on sale again I may be tempted to buy a black pair and see if I can decorate them too.

I love wearing these and my plan is to try to paint an umbrella next (if anyone has any tips on this then PLEASE get in touch as at the moment it's just a crazy idea!!).

Happy crafting

Kyla