Tipi tents in Queens Square

A couple of weeks ago a tipi village was erected in Queen's square Bristol. It was part of the 'Eat Drink Bristol Fashion' event which I guess is now going to be an annual event. It consists of a tipi Tapas bar made up of a series of inter-connected tipis, a series of stages and a market. They showed live cooking demonstrations as well as local musical talent.

It's a good natured event in the day; the tipis make a wonderful space to be in, but true to Bristol fashion it does tend to get rather messy in the evening which isn't really my bag. Each to their own I guess.

I chose to draw them erecting the tipis because that was when I had the opportunity to draw it. The seagulls are there to foretell the nature of the event that is to come and also to balance out the composition. It was surrounded by a wire fence but chose to omit that because I felt it would make the image too complex.

Tree protest

Bristol City Council has started on a new metro system that will cut through green space out towards Frenchay, getting the local eco-warriors up in arms. Rigging up a network of tarps and ropes people have been sleeping in the canopy for several nights.

The structures were really quite impressive, cocoon like. It's a feat of endurance that they are sleeping up there on these cold, blowy winter days. Speaking to a chap from the Feed Bristol group that grow produce in the surrounding allotments it appears to me that it would be a shame to lose the land. The arrangement seems very professional, utilising big poly tunnels that grow produce for many different causes.

Corn street at night, what a sight.

Here's the final image of Corn street at night. Generally pleased with it but feel the characters lack, well, character. I'd like it be a bit more like a Hogarth in technical ability but I'm pleased that it is comparable in principle.

There are plenty of subtle phallic references, the warm inviting glow of the bar with the dominating scale of the building I hope says a lot about how drinking culture manipulates and controls the masses. It's big business in it's worst guise.

 I thought it would be fun to show the progress of this one as I was afraid of putting the brush to the page for months, and you'll see why.

 

 From the preliminary sketch that you can see earlier in the blog I produced an under drawing that I was pleased with then after months of contemplation I applied the first wash which turned out like this...

AHHHHHH what have I done!? almost completely lost the under drawing. But alas with a lot of work I managed to bring it back together and feel proud for being so bold.

Maccy D's

An initial attempt to do a series of portraits sat in a Macdonalds in Bedminster, Bristol. It took a while to find a good spot to draw from but I managed a few. Not entirely the characters I was hoping for but it's a start.

 

Free Palestine! and Down With Tesco

So I set off to do some drawing on Saturday and stumbled across a protest heading past the Hippodrome. It was a group of Palestinians marching through town and with pen in hand I tagged along. They were stopping traffic but moving along before people got too annoyed, just enough to get themselves noticed. Quite an effective strategy it thought.

 

They were mostly Palestinians but with the usual token paranoid British protester who would stop and shout at every supermarket we came across, he even started on a G4S van claiming they built torture chambers. Sigh.

 

It was a small group but they really knew how to get attention and when to draw the line so good luck to them.  FREE PALESTINE!!!

Why I can't rap.

I was just in the shower pondering various things when I suddenly came to realise the reason why I can't rap. I realised that in order to be able to rap you have to be deeply ingrained in a specific culture, to understand it enough to be able to rap about it. Don't get me wrong this isn't me lamenting over my failure to break into a career in rap, on the contrary I think it's one of my best attributes. For example a rapper I heard once rapped 'mr politician on your television..something something.. all those lies' obviously he's from a politically left culture and understands it well enough to put it to words coherently and sincerely. But has he ever met a politician? Is he talking about all politicians? does he really understand the politician? I'd like to believe I'm in a better position to do so and I'm glad about that. but alas I myself have nothing to rap about. You could say I could rap about being a Barista but I don't have a big beard, arms covered in tattoos, I can make good coffee but I'm not culturally ingrained in it. I spread myself culturally thin, take that as you will but I thinks it's a positive thing. Rappers you could say are on the inside reaching out but I like to be on the outside reaching in, giving them all a high five perhaps.

A quick sketch

Here is a quick sketch I did of a corner building on Corn St. It's a preparatory sketch for a larger drawing documenting the drinking culture on Bristol city centre. I think having the pub as a monumental back drop for the figures will make for a strong composition. It was drawn on a Friday night in situ at around 10pm. The kebab man was suspicious.