THE STARS IN STRIPES

WINDOWS: Rotherham Part 2

starsinstripes — Wed, 22 Dec 2010 16:26:57 +0000

After a couple weeks of working around train delays, heavy snowfall and illness from certain member’s of the Stars, we’ve pulled together some nice pieces. The space by our own admission isn’t the easiest to work in as it’s been one of the coldest winters we’ve ever had in the UK, the lack of heating in the space has made it a challenge but all the more impressive that the artists have gotten on with the job.

The variety of illustration work on each window pane shows diverse snapshots of a scale and playful images. Each artist has taken it upon themselves to have fun on their space and to experiment with something a little different.

To see the whole image gallery from this project, click here.

My (Geo) approach to this space was to experiment with scale and the feel of transparency when working onto the windows. I had fun at first drawing a giant bear and took ages to decide whether to fill him in with black paint. From the outside it looks imposing and plays with the aspect of inverted image. My second piece was to draw to a winter theme, I suppose this was hugely due to the adverse cold conditions in the space and at the time it’d been snowy and frosty.

By Geo Law

Left by Geo Law & Right by Sarah Abbot

Thomas Ball excelled in playing around with landscape scenery, juxtaposing it against the view outdoors where buildings obscure the skyline, he painted mountain ranges and forced through a river painting it across the space itself. Joining the river from the other side of the space, Thomas has also spent time painting a giant bird who’s malting feathers merge with the indoor river.

By Thomas Ball

Sarah Abbot is our group’s flourish artist, in the past she’s leant her typography and symbolic painting skills to us for finishing touches. From her work on the windows we have a very botanical wintery feel placing itself against the outside backdrop. Sarah has been able to interweave and merge her style with the other artists on their windows, helping each piece loosely tie itself together with other adjacent work.

By Sarah Abbot

Nick Deakin and Lord Bunn collaborated together on their window piece, choosing to streamline their use of lines and create scaled up characters in pure solid black acrylic. Their characters both take up the window space as a whole but also extends onto the floor, a feature that you may only notice when you’re inside the space. Their clean and bold approach is very simple and lends well to their playful approach to illustration.

By Nick Deakin & Lord Bunn

Jane Faram has taken to the space with playful imagination and childlike nostalgia, her signature birds, ribbons and bird houses adorn the front window/ door panels and work really well alongside Sarah’s floral flourishes. Her pen work is not as simple and bold as most of the groups but the attention to line and detail is impressive. She’s drawn and painted a carousel horse on the other side of the building which is brilliant and looks out down a hill for passers by to see. Her drawing is situated in “craft corner” an area assigned for children to take part in arts and crafts, I’m not too sure if she chose this area by accident or she was being very clever, either way the horse adds touches of child like memory.

By Jane Faram

Bottom Area by Sarah Abbot & Top Area by Jane Faram

Mute’s window piece manages to spread across 3 panes with its homage to computer gaming, an area of interest which is very diverse across most ages. His piece links together many famous icons and symbols from various popular video games from Super Mario to The Legend of Zelda. Before this project, Mute was concerned about how his style would translate onto windows with the use of Posca pens, but from what we all could see, he has an eye for good layout and balance mural work even if he’s sacrificed his signature depth in detail.

By Mute

Lucy Robert’s piece is playful and reminiscent of something from a poem or children’s story, with a picture of a hunter shooting down foxes attached to balloons, the description alone sounds baffling but it’s pleasant to see when walking around the space. Her work seamlessly sits along side Sarah’s flourish work and balances against some of the more bolder styles in the space.

By Lucy Roberts

Hailey Evenett has taken to her signature style of surreal faces and animals, in her piece we see a rat emerging from a cat, a slightly darker piece compared the rest of the works in the space, she’s chosen to play with colour fills in a more subtle minimal approach.

By Hailey Evenett

Louise Wheeler has also chosen to have her image spread from window to floor with her giant illustration of a head peering from the window. The white fill in the eyes gives this piece a creepy but effective feel as the drawing peers at both people outside and inside of the space.

By Louise Wheeler

By Louise Wheeler (left)

Joseph Feather was a late comer to this project but has slotted in nicely with his conceptual piece of letting your thoughts fly away. Joe has interesting ideas and his style derives mostly from the music he listens too, his line style has that urban thickness to it.

By Joseph Feather

Alix Peck (or as Polish as the group calls him) came into this project later on after falling victim to the weather and flu. It was Alix’s first time working in the space in the freezing cold temperatures which led him to reflect this in his illustration. And yes it’s constantly cold in that place.

By Alix Peck

SO WHAT NEXT?

This was initially the first part of our group project, after a little rest and pleasure over the Christmas holidays we’ll be back in the space to plan our first group exhibition in January. Be on the look out for details of this from this page.

For now, we’d like to wish you all a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

WINDOW DRESSING: Rotherham Part 1

starsinstripes — Wed, 22 Dec 2010 14:28:20 +0000

The Stars In Stripes have been busy this month working on windows in an artspace in the center of Rotherham. This has been the first project which all of the Stars have worked on together with a blank canvas of 6000 square metres and windows panes 8 feet high. We were invited by Peter Martin who is part of ROAR (Rotherham Open Arts Renaissance) who required their exhibition space to be spruced up in time for the Christmas holidays, to give a sneak peak to passers by on their shopping trips.

After our first week in there this how it looks so far.

FRIGHT NIGHT: The Crucible Theatre

starsinstripes — Mon, 01 Nov 2010 14:58:19 +0000

For Halloween, The Stars were asked to take part in live drawing at The Crucible Theatre for Fright Night, a special event held through out the centre of Sheffield where the streets turn into a carnival and everyone dresses up as ghouls, vampires, monsters and all sorts of Halloween related things.

Scott Barton from Yellowbus Events, runs Fright Night as well as other events such as Grin Up North and After Dark, I happened to meet him at an informal network do and he loved the idea of live drawing. We gathered up some ideas and decided to illustrate famous monsters individually, and then utilise Sarah’s style of typography to link it all together. Hailey picked to draw, Cerberus the hell hound, Louise took on Frankenstein’s Monster (not Frankenstein himself), Thomas scribbled out the Headless Horseman, Sarah painted a sugar skull and I (Geo) splattered out a Werewolf.

For more pictures, click here to see the gallery.

Start

Scribble

Paint

Finish

VIP EVENT: The Leadmill

starsinstripes — Thu, 28 Oct 2010 19:51:41 +0000

The Stars In Stripes were invited to join alongside the Hantu Collective in a show of art and other highlights at the VIP Event at the Leadmill. The event itself was put together by Sheffield city council and various other organisations to promote the issue of Road Safety. The Stars were scouted via this blog and individually chosen to take part in participating in live drawing for the day, the event kindly primed and provided us with 3 large white MDF boards to draw on. All they asked of us was to illustrate a mural based around the idea of Road Safety, we hit on the idea of using birds and animals associated with road crossings. Spot which crossings you recognise…

The artists who took part on this little job were me (Geo), Sarah Abbot, Jane Faram, Louise Wheeler and Hailey Evenett.

SOYO LIVE: THE BOOKCLUB

starsinstripes — Wed, 06 Oct 2010 11:07:23 +0000

On Monday the 4th of October, Sheffield was buzzing with a variety of great acts at SOYO, one of the best live music nights, SOYO Live put on a line up of The Bookclub, The Pirouettes and The Wet Nuns, which would prove a pick n’ mix of the city’s finest up and coming bands playing for free. The head honcho behind SOYO Live, Matt, asked me and the Stars to get involved with the live art side of things. Antony from The Book Club asked me to draw up a tour banner for them to take around with them, which I duly and happily obliged.

The banner took me around an hour and half to complete which I was pretty chuffed about, Antony set about to hang it up behind him before their set started which I was very grateful for. Sadly throughout the night I was assigned as the camera man for us all but as the free beers kept coming, my photography skills lapsed. So there are only images of the work as everyone was starting it. Whoops.

The rest of the live artists moved into the next room and started working on boards with their pens and paint. In particular, Jane Faram’s piece was impressive and very different from our usual thick and bold line motifs that we all tend to draw.

Jane Faram's Birds Making Their Nest

Thomas and Lucy were coming up with some interesting pieces, Thom moving onto Mexican Day of the Dead inspired skulls and Lucy drawing Umbrellas and diamonds.

The other artists who were down on the night were Alix Peck, Hailey Evenett, Sarah Abbot and Louise Wheeler

THE WICK AT BOTH ENDS

starsinstripes — Wed, 06 Oct 2010 10:14:32 +0000

The Stars were asked by the owners of The Wick at Both Ends in Sheffield to spruce up an area of their lovely bar. In truth we needed to liven up their area around the toilets too and help out with a problem of theirs, to make their toilet area a little more obvious to which was gents and which was ladies.

This time around we wanted to go for a regal woodland feel to the artwork and we all discussed this before hand. I was pleased to see everyone instantly had the same idea and had gone for animals with crests and shields, once we shared some ideas we set about to doodle away for the whole afternoon. We were treated to some nice hospitality from the staff with drinks and even pizzas being delivered to our table, this did settle the stomachs of a certain few which I was thankful for.

I feel very proud of how the group has been developing their style over time and with the Stars jobs piling up everyone is getting into rhythm of live art and interior art. There’s a good vibe amongst the camp with the quality of work and progression of how flair that everyone is delivering with their mural work and it’s great to see, we’ve found the more you draw the faster and better you become. Can’t wait until the next few jobs we have lined up for October, watch this space.

The artists who took part were Alix Peck, Jane Faram, Thomas Ball, Louise Wheeler, Me (Geo), Sarah Abbot & Hailey Evenett

INTRODUCING… LUCY ROBERTS

starsinstripes — Wed, 06 Oct 2010 10:11:30 +0000

We’re introducing a new member to the Stars In Stripes, and her name is Lucy Roberts, another graphics and illustration student at Sheffield Hallam. It’s good to see we have a range of style to our little group and Lucy’s work is very individual, naive lines mixed with good layout and a very humble style which is pleasing to look at.

Lucy’s Blog

Lucy on the Right

SOYO Live Art by Lucy

HANTU PRESENTS… AT THR CATHEDRAL

starsinstripes — Fri, 24 Sep 2010 09:54:26 +0000

The Hantu Collective hosted the first ever fashion show at the Sheffield Cathedral on Saturday 18th September, a weekend that coincided with London Fashion week. It was a night that included live music, experimental art and of course, live art. Music was supplied by some pretty good dj’s namely Chris Moore who can be regularly seen down at Sawa and some live music from Liam O’ Shea and Hey Sholay. There were some pretty good clothes on show from noticeable labels such as Lois, Cherry Head, Syd & Mallory’s and of course my own Hantu Collective taking the main aisle and turning heads. The night intertwined with some awesome dancing from Sheffield’s Steel City Rockers, spinning and flipping all over the place, sometimes you forgot you were in the Cathedral itself which is a brilliantly extravagant building. The venue management even opened up a bar for us so alcohol was on sale and flowing at a respectable rate, remember we were in a holy house! What I found amusing was seeing my own doodles turn into moving real life costumes, dancing down the aisle and in a sense, being as whacky as they are when I doodle them down on paper!

The Show Highlights:

The Live Art Battle

This was an idea conceived by me and fellow Hantu colleague to have a live art battle between illustrators and graffiti artists, we thought it was an interesting enough concept to have two sets of artists compete, who differ in style but more or less do the same thing which is, doodle. The theme of the murals we would be creating turned to “Sheffield” which was simple enough. In the end the graffiti artists won plaudits from the crowd where as we were a close second, nevermind, we all still had fun and had a couple of drinks afterwards, not to drown sorrows though!

I have to give out a big thanks to Ruth Block and Nell Block for helping Hantu put together the event and also Caspar for sorting out the boards and priming them up! Also to our Stars in Stripes, Hailey, Louise, Thomas and Sarah!

To see the full gallery of the Live Art Battle, click here.

WEST END PUB: HAILEY & LOUISE

starsinstripes — Mon, 20 Sep 2010 10:03:49 +0000

Two of the members of the Stars In Stripes are members of Sour Jam, an independent t-shirt company run in the heart of Sheffield. Hailey and Louise were the lucky bunch to be plying their skills directly onto the walls of the pub. I popped down to have a gander and met with Johnny who runs Sour Jam, he was sharing his opinions on the amount of talent that is in and around the city and also said that there was need to pool it together, I couldn’t have agreed more.

Hailey & Louise Collaboration

SHEFFIELD NORTHERN GENERAL HOSPITAL

starsinstripes — Sun, 19 Sep 2010 20:17:47 +0000

For this particular job we were asked to decorate a small waiting room in the Northern General Metabolic Bone Centre, a ward where specialists tend to bone and joint related illnesses. The Stars were told only to make the room look funky and pleasant for someone to sit in.

The artists involved in this one were, Geo (me), Thomas Ball, Jane Faram, Louise Wheeler, Sarah Abbot and Hailey Evenett, all keen to draw and paint for the day. When we arrived we sat down for about half and hour and planned our piece on the spot, this time we wanted to arrange our drawings around each other’s work and we settled on the idea of illustrating our take on Sheffield’s Seven Hills. Every now and then the staff would walk past and peer into the room, seeing us working on top of each other, and having a good time, their hospitality was pretty nice too, dishing out cups of tea and coffee to keep up going.

The end result was a nice mixture of line and colour and some really nice characters floating around the scene of the seven hill.