mytarpit

Shock and Awwwwww! - Alternative Ink, Holywood

What a whirlwind week and a bit! Last night both RockpoolCandy and myself put the finishing touches on our "Shock and Awwwwww!" art show at the opening of Alternative Ink tattoo studio in Holywood (62 High Street). I haven't blogged about it because I've spent every spare second putting finishing touches to new pieces. It also gave me the opportunity to finally finish off some old pieces the way I really wanted to in the first place. A lot of my pieces were getting a second showing from the "Underground Overground" show, and I have to say they look so much better in their new surroundings.

The 'Shock and Awwwwww!' show is on for 6 weeks and it's really worth having a gander at the beautifully mad pieces that RockpoolCandy has come up with, it was a real pleasure to watch her create these new pieces.. not a fibre in site!! These are exciting times for the pair of us.

I'm knackered so I'm just going to post some of the photos..

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... the studio has a lot of space at the front for the gallery and then at the back is the tattoo engine room..

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.. I finally managed to finish the broken skateboards off the way I had wanted to in the first place...

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... poor photo but this is a series of silk screen prints (three different colour ways) I did for the opening night featuring Mr. Shane Sunday the tattoo maestro and owner of Alternative Ink. I'm going to blog about these more later..

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... the good news is that we sold them all on the night....

... the return of RockpoolCandy's gorgeously fiendish stitchies...

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... et viola.. the stunning new pieces by RPC.... again apologies for the photo....

Prints in progress

heARTS for Haiti

I've donated a piece for "heARTS for haiti", Valentines Day, Black Box, Belfast.
I'm going to nip along and hopefully pick up a cool piece of art in the silent auction.. go on you know you want to!

..my donation.....

 

Big Eye & Tooth

News just in........

"My son and girl friend visited Mendicino in late December 2009. He found your art and was VERY HAPPY with his discovery of your art (big eye & tooth). He gifted it to us and it's now a piece if art in our cabin in Point Arena, CA with a great story to go with it. Thank you and my son Greg"

Thank you Steve, and now the sport.....

Finders Keepers!

Just this minute got an email from someone who has given one of the Williamsburg Tarpitters a new home! Hope he behaves himself!

.. click HERE to read the cool newyorkshitty.com blog entry all about it (it's a pretty cool blog anyway!). And remember there are more still out there (in the c-cold!) 

New Yoik, Neeew Yoiiiiiiiiiiik!

Day 2. Williamsburg, NY.

Quick note: KCDC is one of the coolest, friendliest skate shops around (thanks guys!).

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.....yum, yum, must eat leaflet!....

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...... bad ass.......

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New YoiK

... Ah, it all seems like a distant memory now.... Sorry about the delay in posting these photos but I've had to rely on my iPhone to take all my pictures as my camera got a dunking in Key West while shooting the "Whaler's Delight" post (see below). 

You've all been to New Yoik, so here are the photos from day 1....

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Is that a Dragon in your pocket?!

 I knew I had an iPhone for a reason, and the reason is ..."Dragon's Lair" (and it's equally nostalgic sequel 'Space Ace').

 I spent many an hour, and most of my pocket money in the 'Winter Gardens" amusement arcade on Bangor's decaying seafront playing "Dragon's Lair". It captivated me, it was a hint at the future of gaming graphics, and at the same time it is the most frustrating game ever devised.

While the arcade cabinets either side of it had "Pole Position" or "Pacman" this beast was animated! It was like watching a cartoon that you could determine the outcome of. Can I get Dirk the Daring to time his rope swing across the fiery chasm right, can I time his sword swipe right.. the answer was usually NO! You see the animations captivated me so much I couldn't pay attention to the actual game play ( I say game play, but there wasn't a lot of game play involved to be honest. You just had to nudge the joystick in the direction prompted on the screen to move Dirk or prompt him to do the right jump etc), so i always died pretty quickly. But I always came back for more. "Space Ace" was easier, but I still could only get a few screens into this one as well.

I loved spending time amongst the gamers in the "Winter Garden", there were guys there who could spend hours on Pacman, they knew the patterns for almost every screen, and they took pity on me and taught me how to smoke... ha,ha! Good Times!

So now I can finally help Dirk to rescue Princess Daphne, and who knows maybe smoke the odd nostalgic Embassy Regal (other ciggies are available)!

Key West

As I mentioned in an earlier post I'm playing catch up on my posts here so they are a bit brief but I'll revisit them when I get back to Tarpit Towers and flesh out the details a bit more.

RPC and I spent about 3 days in Key West and we had a blast. The strangest thing was that the old town and the docks looked really familiar to us both and obviously we'd never been here before. We couldn't put our finger on it, the wooden watch tower in the middle of town, the little market streets running off it, the old docks and the large amount of people walking around dressed as historical pirates... then it hit us.

If you have ever had the joy of playing "Zelda: Majora's Mask" on the Gamecube then you've already visited Key West! I swear!!

As well as setting "Whalers' Delight" adrift again I left a few tarpitters behind....

 

This last picture was taken with my iPhone at sunrise, so apologies for the quality, but this sign is at the end of a short pier and is the south western most point in the States, ooooh!

Whalers' Delight.

While sitting soaking up the sun on the shores of Lake Tahoe (Nevada) I spotted this piece of drift wood. Now I immediately thought it looked like a broken skateboard, but as RPC pointed out it was probably an old piece of wakeboard. Anyway it really sung out to me, so I dried it beside me on the beach and decided to take it with me and paint it as I travelled. I didn't know what I was going to paint on it, I was going to let it form organically, see what springs to mind so to speak.

For some reason I can't find any earlier photographs of my design than this one...

.. I was painting layers of colour, darker layers over lighter layers of the same colour and then sanding back through the top layers to create tone and texture. it also gave the design a weathered effect that fitted with the old beaten up board. It was a brilliant way to form an image on the board because I could use the sand paper to erase any parts that didn't work out. This meant that I went through about 4 design changes, the final piece was an honest reaction to the board and to the creative process.

This was the final piece: 'Whalers' Delight". I am really proud of this piece. But the board wasn't mine to keep, I was just embellishing it and sending it on it's way again. I had hung on to the board in it's various stages of design for nearly a month, then we planned a trip to Key West and I knew that I wanted to set it afloat again, let it drift off once more.

 

 So during a really cool eco boat tour of some of the mangrove Islands off Key West I decided to set it adrift again....

.... this is the last picture of Whalers' Delight as it winds it's way towards the open sea and maybe Cuba.

God speed good sir, God speed!