Graffoto Round Up of the Year - Part 1

Welcome pop pickers! A post I have meant to do for the last few years on Graffoto has been a look back at the year, be it a good or a bad one. The problem in previous years was that I just always ended up leaving it too late in the holiday, my bingo wings thus being held down by my own weight in mince pies and turkey leftovers and sapped of the energy to bother.

So whilst the intention this year was to start this post pre Christmas in the hope it kicks me up the arse to finish the rest closer to the end of the year, here I am a couple of days away from New Year's.... So it's more than likely that this will be a post that carries over into 2012. I'll split the year into 4 parts so as not to make the post so long.

A picture heavy and word "lite" effort it's about my third post of the year and certainly the biggest on Graffoto. My favourite pictures and work that has gone up throughout the year, starting right at the top of January. . .

All pictures are by HowAboutNo except where stated.


Cept & Sweet Toof


Nychos & Vibes


Photo supplied by Mr S. Toof

Philth (indeed!)


Kid Acne's Artfags (Spectre also on the decaying shop front sign)


Plastic Bones


Dscreet & Kid Acne


AMAZING to see Zezao work up in London in his unmistakeable style


Milo Tchais also getting up more than I remember in previous years.


Roa


In fact this whole spot got a lot of action in 2011, Mr Sperme popped up and knocked out this one. Shame there weren't many others.


Ranking highly as my fave piece of the year...and it's a sticker :( Sadly Stormie Mills didn't paint any London walls that I found in 2011.


Slipping in a little bit of South Coast action . . .I found a nice little spot closer to home in Hastings. Unfortunately I have only managed to go there once with a camera in hand. Must change that in 2012.




Michael De Feo had a show in London and left a few flowers.

A few artists hit the Grand Union Canal at Broadway Market one weekend in March, am not sure there was any event other than perhaps a meet at a local hostelry. . .


Xenz


Teddy Baden


Dotmasters

Just oodles of generic damage was often my highlight of the year...more in later posts but this was a big big fave. . .

Gold Peg did a few activist/occupy related pieces through the year (more later) This was the first and boldest, the ad company blocking the message out days later.

Tizer went to Leake Street and did this piece in amazing quick time. I think the squiddlywinkswould call this one SICK!

Gold Peg hit some of the most eye catching and clever spots throughout the year as far as I am concerned, proving as always that half, if not more of the work is all in the placement.

My fave other placed spot this year was a piece by Revok, which featured on his blog



Revok was later arrested in April 2011 for failing to pay damages to the victims of his previous vandalism crimes

So that's it for part 1 of this round up which covered January to March (at least in the order I found them, as mentioned some of the pieces are years old) Part 2 to follow soon covering, you guessed it......April to June.

Sweet Toof And Paul Insect, London, 2011

Lots of fun recently quietly observing a furtive pair of artists working silently and swiftly on one of London’s less accessible rooftops.

Sweet Toof and Paul Insect, London Rooftop, 2011 from NoLionsInEngland on Vimeo.

It took 4 nights and about 50 litres of paint for Sweet Toof and Paul Insect to blend signature imagery in this visible-from-space collaborative masterpiece. In essence, the painting is a double headed face munching away at the rooftop hut. Best viewed from 1,000 feet, the symmetry ensures the effect is the same whether viewed from the east over the Olympic Stadium or the west.

From the photography point of view this mission had a few tricky aspects. Obviously you can’t go throwing huge illuminative arcs of light around so you work with the natural light. The first night, after about 20 minutes the low cloud base boiled away and the urban-orange sky turned black plunging the rooftop into darkness. At the end of the clip you can see the opposite happen. Exposure times varied dramatically between 10 and 30 seconds.

There are two gas boiler outlets on the upper level, the output from those condenser boilers is bloody wet. Using a patented knotted rope to get up there to set up a camera position, the wind would veer and back unpredictably giving the camera a misty drenching.

I flew BA over the Olympic Stadium the other day but couldn’t find any landmarks other than the Olympic Stadium, there should be a prize for the first photo from a scheduled airliner!

Dark Horse, Sweet Toof's first New York solo show opens at Factory Fresh on 29th of April 2011

Paul Insect has just collaborated with Sickboy on an installation at the onethirty3 space in Newcastle

Artists: Sweet Toof, Paul Insect

Photography, video: NoLionsInEngland

Music: Booze - Insanity Drive

Cept, Sweet Toof - Backyard Colouring

all photos: NoLionsInEngland


Graffoto went out hunting Swoons yesterday lunchtime, Boris Bikes for transport, cameras for the kill, separating and meeting again to cover more of the East London concrete jungle. Diddley squat, nada, nothing new, just the three recent pieces already located.

However, at the last rendezvous HowAboutNo excitedly reported that a known Burning Candy wall had been updated and the pelmet over a nearby raised shutter showed evidence of a new CEPT. Howaboutno being the less thick element of Graffoto came up with the genius suggestion that NoLions might find both the shutter down AND no parked cars blocking the garage wall if he swung past on his bike first thing in the morning.


Old - Before Colouring


And so it came to pass, there were no cars and shutters were down.


Cept, Sweet Toof


The CEPT lady is absolutely stunning, and borrows from the Black and white illusions CEPT has created in the past and a face portrait seen previously on CEPT prints (www.spradio.com – “Fly Wonder”).

CEPT has even painted the lamppost and the weird booby trapped water butt thing, though I found the optimum viewing point a little low giving a poor overall perspective. Doh.




The characters on the right are all by Sweet Toof.


Sweet Toof


The shutter nearby continues a long Cept saga of ambiguous loves won and loves lost.


CEPT


Then exploring a nearby rarely travelled lane we spotted the tips of an instantly recognisable CEPT painting and a pair of Sweet Toof teef opposite. A peep through a tiny hole confirmed a hidden secret graff art treasure trove.

Returning at lunchtime, the challenge was to find out which property the yard belonged to and could we get in. The people behind the new CEPT shutter said they could see it but it wasn’t theirs, they directed us around the corner. We pressed voice entry phone buzzers, CCTV cameras swivelled but no one answered (chiselled features, statuesque physiques and a tendency to be found at crime scenes leads to Graffoto often being accused of being five-oh). On a hunch we skirted round the whole block and came across a previously un-known art gallery. On the pretext of admiring the art, we tried the back door and it gave out onto the holy grail.


Sweet Toof


Hopefully this link might allow you see see this image LARGE(ER) (pls email if it doesn't work because I prob would need to tweak "rights")

Arch 402 is brand new, only opened last night. The gallerists know nothing about street art or graffiti and had actually been asked if they were going to “deal” with the growing amounts around the Cramer St garage. They enquired at the garage who the artists were, and let the garage mechanics know they liked the stuff on the walls and wanted more of it. Well and truly dealt with then.


CEPT


Those garage mechanics have previously featured in Graffoto reports for their resistance against the council who issued a written demand to remove the graffiti on the walls. So, a few days later, presumably about the time Sweet Toof and Cept went back to the garage wall, the gallery found it was now the proud host of one of the most stunning Sweet Toof/Cept collabs ever.

The interesting question arises – with 8 characters on the truck and one horse, which of the 9 strong Burning Candy crew is the mule and which one is the driver?


Name That Crew Member


If you travel the new East London line you are assailed by throws and pieces by Burning Candy types in the few hundred yards just south of Hoxton station, Mighty Mo and Gold Peg have running riot across the roof tops eye level with the trains whilst these two spectacular sites are immediately opposite eachother either side of the track.


Any number of street art gallerists would give their right one to have a private mural of this calibre on their walls. They’re parting question to us: “are they any good?”!!!


Sweet Toof


There you have it, Graffoto shares another lunch break with the World and Sweet Toof and Cept get a mention as well. Big Celebrations.

(ps - the bit about often being asked/accused of being cops is true – thing is, when someone wanders up to someone taking photos on skanky back lanes and says “are you a cop?” what happens next if the answer really is “yes”? The other one, really flattering...”are you a photographer?”]

Hackney Wicked

Hackney Wick
30 July - 1 Aug 2010



Hackney Wick is bohemian, decaying, swampy and trendy though a lot of its post industrial bleakness is being surrendered to the concrete sports temples rising out of the mud and mire. Some of the resilient local artist community, 670 or so the promotional bumpf proclaims like some kind of statistical triumph, have had their doors levered open for the annual Hackney Wicked art festival now in its third year.


One of the coolest bits of work was an outdoor-internal installation called Tompson’s Tunnel, featuring miniature concrete steps leading up to a tunnel burrowing into the building with tiny Slinkachu-esque naked figures striding the landscape. The figures looked like they may have been wrapped in foil then lost their skin to first degree burns in some grotesque bbq related accident. The illusion of depth in the tunnel was enhanced by a mirror fitted at the end. Bugger to photograph mind.


Tompson's Tunnel


Quite a bit of live painting had taken place the day before in and around that White Post Lane car park including pieces Snoe, Cept, Seks, DScreet, Busk and Xenz.


Snoe, Cept, Seks, DScreet, Run (&Busk?)


Also in that same car park, intertwined down the structure of the back staircase is one of those robot wooden arms similar to the ones seen at Prescription Art in Brighton last year.




Normally you wouldn’t have polite access to these sweatshop buildings, various handwritten notices pleading for the return of missing items or threatening dire retribution if perpetrators of theft are caught indicate why. The best part of these buildings being open is the opportunity afforded for access to roof spaces and elevated windows, yielding panoramic views and close up shots of rooftop graffiti gems.


Sweet Toof



Sweet Toof


Arriving early like around mid-day, when stalls selling home-made carrot cake out-number carrot cake eaters, had the dual peril of artists still being tucked up in bed and if they were there, you were likely to be the only rubber necker keeping the artist company. You hope as you mooch un-certainly into the heart of the studio that your face doesn’t betray any particular look of horror.

On a hunch that he might have finally surfaced by 2.30pm, a return to the Peanut Factory found Joseph Loughborough aka illjoseph, bright eyed and demon breathed after a bit of a session the previous night.


Joseph Loughborough


Joe has been an artist I have admired for several years and the work on his studio walls was just stunning. Some of them are on his flickr account and without being critical of Joe's photography, flicks don't have a fraction of the impact of seeing these fo' real. Joe was sitting there producing one of his latest series of frenzied, fragmented and smudged charcoal portraits. For me this brief visit was the highlight and made the Eastwards schlep worthwhile (and the bit about demon breath probably isn't true).


Joseph Loughborough


In, around and beyond Hackney Wicked photographs 'ere

High Roller Society - Linoprinting Workshop

HIGH ROLLER SOCIETY
10 PALMERS ROAD
LONDON E2 0SY

24 July 2010



photos: NoLionsInEngland except High Roller Society where noted.


After last week’s hugely fascinating screenprinting workshop, Graffoto completed its 6 hour crafts major at High Roller Society’s linoprinting workshop. Guest demo man this week was printer, book illustrator and lecturer (among many other illustrative activities) Nick Morley from East London Printmakers, aka “linocut boy”.

He showed off the tense and dangerous art of cutting lino, creating a prophetic split composition of a sprinting cyclist and a cloud of dust which anticipated Mark Cavendish winning the Champs Elysee stage of the Tour de France the following day. Just for fun, Nick chose to demonstrate a colour blend print across the cloud of dust with a solid blue on the cyclist



Lino cutting the cloud of dust (photo: High Roller Society)



Blending colours



Inking up



Positioning the paper



Beron action



Go Cav!


Using Nick’s freshly cut lino block we participants and devotees had our first crack at inking and the critical skill of pressing the paper to the lino block using a “beron”.


Inking up


For entertainment and experimentation, the workshop had a go at printing on six lino blocks kindly made available by Sweet Toof, Paul Insect, Nylon, Cyclops and SheOne and actually used in the printing of “lim ed” prints on sale at the High Roller Society “Press and Release” show. With a number of different coloured papers and ink colours to try, some of the prints produced by us amateurs looked pretty damn lush.


Sweet Toof proof print


On a technical note, the prints taken off the blocks at the workshop are regarded as “proofs” and some of the noted artists were present and showing how their work could be/should be printed, SheOne showed us how to overlay an abstract piece over a colour background resulting in a gorgeous spikey bold combination. Three artist printed proofs are available from High Roller Society though we understand the online shop may not be fully functional you probably should email them.


foreground: SheOne creating printed image, background: LMNL inks up a block, her hair and her frock



Rather than part of any edition, the “proofs” printed by us amateurs were really have-a-go fun practise pieces for people interested in the process, there certainly didn’t seem to be any signing or numbering going on.


SheOne proof print (photo High Roller Society)


Although we tend to think of lino cut as an ancient but coarse form of reproduction, there are many ways it can go wrong in the hands of the novice. Inking up the plate requires a skilled eye to ensure that the ink is uniformly spread with no blank spots, irregular pressing can cause variations in the image transferred to the paper. The photo below shows an overlap comparison of our first and second attempts at printing on a Sweet Toof lino print. Blemishes? No, those differences are “process idiosyncrasies”.


Sweet Toof linocut prints, newsprint paper.


If you look at the proofs hanging from the drying rack below you can see how the detail in the black marks along the edge varies between the two prints, and they were printed by the artist!


SheOne, Paul Insect (photo: High Roller Society)


Under the guidance of linoprint boy, Little Miss NoLions went next level, cutting a dragon outline (which from Dad perspective got “tense and dangerous”) and freestyling the skin texture and background.




Three days later we have two dragon lino prints still wet, ink on the upholstery in the car (joining the legions of dabs and smears from previous incidents transporting kids' wet painting) and ink on the back of the settee, a window ledge and the dining table.




The demonstration covered a simple small scale version of the process, linocut printing can be done in a variety of more complicated and even mechanised versions of the basic process we learnt. Linocut supremo Nick told the story of how he drove a steam roller a couple of weeks ago to press paper onto some very large lino cuts. The Nolions' mental picture of a lino mat wrapped round the roller with a sweaty, oil stained Nick banging out a repeating pattern on hot fresh tarmac turned out to be wrong but how were we to know.



Thanks to High Roller Society and particularly Jenny for putting on these events, NLIE and LMNL thoroughly enjoyed these insights into such mysterious arts. Thanks also to the artists who allowed their lino cuts to be desecrated by amateurs and to those artists present at the workshop providing help and encouragement. We look forward to High Roller Society living up to its name and bringing a steam roller along to a future workshop.