The girl with no name

She has no name but a pretty face? An emulsion soul and a heart of grace?

Hungover and tired, Sunday was indeed a day of 'productive rest'. I was going to be spraying up some stencils outside as it was nice and warm but the back garden (that is shared) had some of the neighbours clothes hanging out to dry and no doubt, they were going to end up being covered in overspray, which would have been a bit of an inconvenience for them I'd imagine.

So undeterred, I painted in the living room instead, exchanging spray paint for wall emulsion. I have a few small (some may say extensive) decorating jobs to finish in our flat and one of these was putting the final coat of paint on the bathroom roof. In the process of digging out all my tools and brushes, I found some old paint samples that we had laying about. You know the story, the colour looks great on the tin but once you get it home, pop it on the walls, it turns into something completely different. I'd cut this stencil a while ago and it was one piece that was going to be incorporated into another but I was just glad to be painting something (other than the bathroom roof) to be honest.

It turned out alright but it's fairly rough in comparison to using cans and it takes ten times longer to do. The paper also starts to curl up and peak when the paint goes on making it a little harder to work with. I might add some more to this or it might just be best to set her free and paste her up somewhere around town. Fly my little one, fly!

Layer Cake

This was my first attempt at making my own multi layered stencil. It didn't turn out too badly (but has its faults) considering I cut the image layers by eye as I did not have the luxury of owning a copy of photoshop at the time.

I ripped the original image from the net. It was a caricature of a pretty lady. I thought it could work well as a stencil and would be good practice. It has no deep meaning or message behind it. Just a visual. The original image size was tiny which made it harder to cut as the pixels were huge once I'd blown it up to a nice proportional A4. I found the actual picture of the woman later and she turned out to be not as tasty as first thought. I've seen this sort of re occurrence in the more recent stuff I've done. A beautiful looking woman doesn't always transcend into a beautiful looking stencil. And vice versa. So it's trial and error but I've learned to spot what works best, to a point. And what imagines will look bad due to lighting/contrast.

Having no place to actually paint I had little option left other than to start doing these in my lunch hour at work or not do them at all. This itself can pose a few logistical problems. The first being time or the lack of it to be precise. And the second is people. Being curious animals by nature, everyone wants to have a look at what you are doing. (This eats into your very limited time). Once people have attributed this stencil work to you, they know where it originated if they pass by it on the street. Unfortunately, not everyone agrees that this is a good thing to be doing with your spare time! The police especially.

But anyway, I love doing this and it's all about developing your skills and getting better right? And if they happen to be pasted up in the odd doorway around town. So be it. You have to go with what brings you happiness and fulfilment. Well, this does it for me.

Eelus

Eelus is a lovely chap. I've been a big fan of his work for a good while now. Having viewed his pieces on the interweb and in person, it reaffirms my love of this free art form.

I've passed by his 'Lost Angel' (left) many times on South William Street in Dublin while out for a tasty pint or two of Guinness. It's an amazing piece of stencil work. One of the best in Dublin (there's a few) and is only spoiled by the obstruction from the local restaurants and bars wheelie bins at times (Sort that out). It is in a great area of the city, with many an amazing, rustic, untouched, gloomy, decaying drinking spot near by.

Last year, having looked at his work for awhile I decided to purchase one of his prints. I bought 'I said I'm happy, what more do you want'. Thinking it may appeal my fiancée as well and thus pose no threat when framed and up on our walls!

Delivery:- Can take up to five weeks. So I knuckled in, waiting for its arrival (like it was Christmas). Each day...'has it arrived'.......'sorry, not yet'. Days turned into weeks until the five weeks passed. Then seven weeks. So I emailed Eelus through his website. He was very apologetic, and reassured me that the print would be on its way once he got into his studio the next morning. Once again, weeks floated by until finally a delivery from Eelus.com. Yay, it's here! On collection, the package turned out to be a bunch of postcards! Holy Mackerel! What are you trying to do to me man!!! I emailed him again.... 'The postcards are lovely, thank you'. 'But on another note, the print that I ordered, I'd love to actually have it here'. More apologies and he explained that he was a one man band and had been out of the country a lot recently (which I was aware of). So we chatted back and forth over the net for a bit and he seemed like a genuinely nice fellow. A week later, I picked up my cardboard print tube from the post office. I walked back to the flat, with a feeling of contentment and joy wrapped around me.

Opening up the tube I was pleasantly surprised to find that the good man himself had slipped in a second print for my tales of woe. I was chuffed to bits. This was a very thoughtful thing to do! The second print 'taken' was awesome. And to cap it off it was an artists proof! What a nice guy!

He's doing very well at the moment with quite a few projects on the go and in many a great location! Teaming up with some great artists including Logan Hicks (who is, on a technical level, one of the best). His studio is absolutely amazing, a thing of beauty, in essence, all I want in life! Ahhhhhhhhhh, one day.....

And so it begins...

Well, here it goes again!

I started a blog about a year ago but it did not amount to much to be honest. Maybe a single post. There was alot going on at the time and it was thrown 'on the back burner' as these things tend to go. Incase anyone was wondering, it was called 'memoirs of a gingi'. But I cannot find it anywhere! Completely gone. I'd created it through a made up email address that had no ties to me as I was going to post some of my graff stuff but lack of a decent place to spray my pre paste up stencils put tee to that.

Well, as I trawl the interweb I come across cool (pics/vids/blogs) stuff all the time. And old photos push my button. So I have loads of stuff on my laptop. So much so that I'm in need of an external hard drive. Blah blah blah.

Anyway, so this is it. This is going to mainly center around my interests (selfish bugger). Art (including some of mine), music, old stuff, quotes, photographs, people, travel, technology, drinking, film. I hope you like.

So to kick it off and being quite app check this out. The Felice Brothers, Roll on Arte.