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.....

Uh huh

An undisclosed location somewhere north of the Pyrenees.

Well, I do say Dr *****. Not that I would advocate this type of behaviour or practical agricultural science projects, but this years harvest appears to be doing very well! June 2009.

Well, hello there!

Dublin Airport, December 2010. I spend a lot of hours in this place. Killing time before my flight boards for home. This was taken on my Lomo LCA (before it was broken) using expired Fiji Neopan 400cn film which is a little too grainy for my liking. It's not a particularly great photo but as I spend so long in this place every month, it's valid. I am very much looking forward to time travel in the (near) future.

Storoway - Zorbing / Fuel up

Unsigned (at the time), indie-folk band Stornoway (they are from Oxford) making their Later with Jools Holland debut after enchanting all who saw them on BBC's Glastonbury coverage. November 2010. It was a Friday night. I was sitting enjoying a few drinks when I first seen these guys on Jools and thought, wow! Beautiful sound! And the trumpet player in Zorbing is tasty! (not the dudes!). I replayed it many times (the wonders of sky+). I wish Jools was still on the telly as it was a real treat on a Friday night!

I want to ride my bicycle, I want to ride it where I like...

Johnny Flynn - The Wrote And The Writ

Last weekend, I was fortunate enough to be locked in a very nice bar situated in the Town Hall Market Square area (better known as Raekoja Plats to the locals, I think) of Estonia's capital, Tallinn. I must say, the Old Town is beautiful, in body and spirit. (More on that later).

Late into the evening my good friends and I got chatting with another group of cool people (courtesy of Continental Pek) who turned out to be very good friends with the girl behind the bar. The place was alive! Friendships were quickly formed, stories told and a great time was enjoyed by all, over pints of beer, mojito's and a host of assorted shots. We were made to feel very welcome and are indebted to those we met. So thank you.

I spoke to a pretty young lady, who's name I shall not mention. As we talked we discussed music and in particular folk music. Seemingly, we had a similar taste in this subject and she mentioned this guy, Johnny Flynn. In return, I am always keen to promote the good word of 'The Tallest man on Earth' and 'Stornoway' respectively. So back in Aberdeen I checked him out and was super impressed with what I heard. He's awesome! So thanks...Kris!

Nice Photo

Karate for beginners

Well, this is interesting. Having had a bit of experience in martial arts in my yester years I like to 'keep my hand in' as it were. Although not factually accurate... this is good.

Adam Neate

I was going to write about this guy as his work is amazing, he seems really nice and there's a great story of his eventual success as a painter. I first heard about Adam Neate on Current TV (Sky, channel 183) about a year ago. You can watch a short documentary about him on Current called 'The Art of Neate'. His main influences are Picasso and American graff artist, Daze.

Initially he started painting for his friends and family, giving his paintings away for free, just for the enjoyment of it but he soon accumulated a massive amount of work (1000 paintings a year approx) in his friends garage where he was living at the time in central London. Not having much luck in finding an outlet to sell his stuff he gave a bunch of his paintings to a charity shop in the hope that at least someone might like his work and buy one for the good cause. However, He passed by the same charity shop a few days later only to find that all his work had been put out with the rubbish for collection.

Obviously he was fairly disappointed and came to the conclusion that it would be better to leave them on the streets than have them thrown away. He spent the next five years leaving thousands of his paintings on the streets of London. After a while there was a good buzz about his work and interested people would search the streets and lanes trying to find one of these rare gems. He was subsequently interviewed by a well known London based journalist and this caught the attention of Elms Lester Painting Rooms who still represent his work today. In 2008 one of his paintings 'Suicide bomber' sold for over £78,000. And his exhibitions always sell out within the hour. He has been dubbed the English Picasso and the artist of his generation. His paintings also look like there is a hint of Francis Bacon in them.

Keeping close to his roots, in the same year he held an event called 'The London Show' which seen him leave a million pounds worth of his paintings back on the streets, resting in doorways where they started. He also collaborated with Pop Artist Supremo, Ron English. 2008 was a busy year!

I bought one of his prints off eBay a few weeks after seeing the documentary on him. The credit card was burning a whole in my pocket. EBay drives down the price of all this type of artwork which is both good and bad. The giclee print I bought is called '2am Blog'. There is better one's but I had not seen any of his stuff on eBay before and went jumping in! His street cardboard drop offs are also a regular occurrence on eBay although there is no way of guaranteeing they are genuine and at times there is word on fakes kicking about. He has stopped painting so much these days and trying his hand at sculpture and other mediums. Well enjoy.