Night Club Mural / Dynamite Hip Hop.

I was asked a few weeks ago by my friends Paul and Charlie at Sound Night Club in Penzance, if i would like to have a go at doing some kind of painting in Room 2 of the club. This room is normally used for Dynamite Hip Hop nights, and they wanted a kind of urban feel going on. Initially they wanted something on the front of the bar, and on the front of the new DJ booth that was going to be installed.

My first idea was to do a design that involved a skyline silhoutte of Penzance that went around the front of the bar, and also went around the front of DJ booth (under construction in the photo above!) aswell. The guys wanted to keep the colours of the design in keeping with the colours of the club, ie black, grey and white. The also kind of wanted the design to go from the DJ booth and onto the wall too, so i started to have a go at some ideas which you can see below.

The skyline was now going to go on the wall next to the booth, and carry onto it too! I needed something else, so i decided to use the telegraph poles i used to use in old paintings, and the clouds that i've been doing in recent ones! I then decided i needed to come up with something that was in keeping with the musical connections to the venue, so i had a crack at a stack of old vintage speakers. So now i had the elements for the mural, all i needed to do was make them fit into the space and make it look good! Here's some photos below to show the evolution of the mural.

The design kind of took on a life of it's own, as i took it behind the booth aswell to make it look like the DJ is surrounded by speakers in an urban setting, even though the buildings are based on Penzance! A final touch for the finished mural was to use UV paint in an old school way, to put highlights on the speakers and the windows in the buildings as you can see from the photo below!

Now it just needs me to get some photos of the space in action at the next Dynamite Hip Hop night, which will feature UK Hip Hop artist Jehst! For more details of the gig follow this link http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=120952084646971. Look out for more Dynamite Hip Hop events coming up over the coming months here http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=226031831204&v=wall, including Mystro, Dr. Syntax, Genesis Elijah, and Del The Funky Homosapien, and another possibly major US Hip Hop artist! There'll also be some more artwork from myself to help promote the best Hip Hop promoters in the South West! Big shout outs to Tom Sweetman from 1Step Productions (http://www.1stepproductions.com/) who's responsible for getting some of these guys out on tour!

My A'th Kar NQY, Police Station Mural.

Last week i completed the final mural for the My A'th Kar NQY public art project. This finished mural will soon be installed on the central tower of Newquay Police Station. Myself and Kasha, one of the guys from the MAKN group painted this mural on 8, 8' x 4' panels. We carried out the painting on the roof of Burger King in Newquay in the beautiful sunshine of Easter week! Here's a few photos that kind of show the progress of how the painting went from bare panels on Monday to the finished panels stored on the top floor of Burger King on Saturday!

My A'th Kar NQY - Second Mural Update.

I went to check out the site for the new My A'th Kar NQY mural on Wednesday, and as you can see from the photo above it's a pretty drab affair! The hoardings that have been erected are to cover up the old derelict bus station, and go all the way around ffom the public toilets to the derelict hotel at the back. There are 87 panels in total, and we're on a mission to paint them all in a week this half term!

Here's a few rough designs of what we're intending to paint on the hoardings. I've tried to keep it as simple and effective as possible, in order for the production of the panels to go as smoothly and as quickly as possible, while working with groups of young people who will be helping us with the process.

Hopefully we can still keep the message that the young people want to convey with this project, just by using the large text to spell out one of the phrases used in the first mural. I'm going to be using the silhouetted figures from the first mural, and the Police Station design too, keeping a theme running throughout the whole project.

I might use the figures as spaces between the words to break up the text, or just randomly insert them within the letters, not sure yet. Got a bit more drawing and designing to do before we actually start painting. Gotta get it right! What ever will appear on these hoardings, it's going to a whole lot brighter than what's already there!

My A'th Kar NQY - Second Mural

The My A'th Kar NQY Public Art Project will be entering into it's next phase in the next few weeks, with work on a second mural about to take place in Newquay town centre. We've just scored a major coup in our campaign to blast away all Newquay eyesores. We've managed to secure one of the towns most hated sites, the dirty and dragged down old bus station!

This site is in the process of having hoardings put up all around it, to try and cover up this derelict space. Our job is to now decorate these hoardings with a mural that follows on from the first mural. I've already started working on some preliminary sketches for the design which will incorporate text into it, like the previous mural.

There are a total of 87 panels to transform into a message from the young people of Newquay, about how they feel about the place that they live, and about how they would like visitors and tourists to treat the town. It's going to be a massive team effort from myself and the group of youngsters i've been working with, and also members of the general public who will be donating their time for free to help transform a depressingly derelict area of Newquay!

The idea is to try and create a bright and fun piece of public art, that will carry a message to the general public. At the moment we're looking for a large school or church hall to paint the panels in, which will be then transported to the sight and installed. If there's anyone out there that can help us with such a large space, then get in touch please!

At least on this mural, i won't be having to climb up and down scaffolding, or be outside painting in the snow! It's always nice to be able to creative inside in the warm!

Finally Finished A Massive Painting!

After many delays and hold ups, myself and Kasha Miller put the finishing touches to the My A'th Kar NQY mural in Newquay town centre last Friday! It's been a long old slog, with lots of obstacles being thrown in our way, but we finally finished!

Big thanks need to go out to my band of merry helpers who have braved the elements with me, to help produce this awesome piece of public art work! Drum roll please...... big love to Kasha Miller, Stevan Hyde, Becky Bryne, Andy Weir, Jourdan Brewer, Leigh Campion, Leanne Smale, David Britton and Chelsea.

We've had some late nights, some minor setbacks, and freezing conditions, but from the original idea of the project from the core group of youngsters (Kasha, Stevan, Becky, Jourdan and Spryo and Matt Casey who unfortunately didn't participate!) it's been a bit of a journey and mammoth effort to bring this mural to completion.

Safe to say, it has been very successful and extremely well received by the local people of Newquay. The amount of positive comments about the artwork and the message that it's originators wanted to say has been fantastic to say the least!

So many people have commented on how Newquay needs positive messages to lift it out of the general publics perception, that it is a destination for visitors with a lack of respect, and who don't drink responsibly. Everyone has said that they would like to see more of this kind of work to brighten up their home town, and to get a message across.

We have a new site at Newquay Police Station, which i have mentioned before, where we can hopefully carry on spreading a positive message about the town from the mouths of it's younger generation.

Myself and Tom Cowles from Excess Energy went to meet Sgt. Bob Murray yesterday to see which part of the station we have been allocated to decorate. It is a massive space, one that i hadn't anticipated, but it will look amazing once the decorated panels of artwork have been installed!

Me and the gang are going to be spending the next 2 weeks before Christmas getting as much painting done as possible, in order to get it up and into the public eye as soon as possible. It's an amazing opportunity for myself and the group to produce a piece of public art on a very unlikely building. How many other people do you know who have painted a Police Station without being nicked? I'll let you know how it goes, either from home or from a cell!

My A'th Kar NQY - Phase Four, 'Back In Action'!

After a 6 week break, i'm 'Back In Action' on the My A'th Kar NQY Public Art Project. Yesterday was my first day back on the mural after being a full time carer for my missus after she had a hip operation. My first day back on the job just so happened to be one of the wettest Newquay has had this year, it was belting it down! Lucky enough, the site is undercover, but this didn't stop the rain from coming in sideways at me!

The main job that needed to be done yesterday, was to start drawing out the figures that will eventually populate the landscape of the mural, and the text that will evoke the voice of the young people of Newquay. I was very surprised to see that there was only one piece of 'unofficial' graffiti which had appeared over the last 6 weeks! Someone had written their name onto the sign post, and didn't really do a very good job of it.

The only other marks on the wall looked like someone had gone to the toilet on it, but upon further inspection found that someone had smashed a bottle of beer against it, which i found out by sitting in the broken glass while i was drawing! So with an ass full of glass, and smelling like a brewery, i proceeded with the drawing that needed to be done.

Everything apart from a couple of figures, is now in place for Saturdays painting session. The group of young people will be painting in the silhouetted figures, and around the text to make it stand out. This is of course weather permitting, as the country seems to be at the mercy of snow at the moment. It's been snowing on and off all day in Cornwall, but none of it has been sticking around by us! I hope people turn up on Saturday, but to be fair, this really isn't the weather to painting murals in!