It's Smallworld after all!

Smallworld May 2015
This awesome conscientious wind and solar powered festival takes place in Kent twice a year, in May and August. It is put together by the people who bring the Smallworld Solar Stage to larger festivals like Glastonbury, Buddhafield, and Secret Garden Party.

This May at Smallworld I did some spray paint art workshops and painted a few other things (if they stayed still long enough).

Drawing on Ice

Earlier this month I got up very early and, using giant paint brushes, rollers and car wash sponges added some art to Truro Ice Skate rink...

'Tree Milestone' skate park wall

Okay, good workshop this one. Super-fast consultation last week at Mount Hawke skatepark with the group that were all set to paint this wall at their local park. It was the sort of design meeting where someone mentions a tree and it all snowballs from there.

Today I turned up at the park and helped them put their idea on the wall.
The village is called Threemilestone. It's three miles away from Truro, or something like that. One of the local mums, Kelly (an active member of the parish council) is working wonders to get all kinds of things done in this park to make it more of a user-friendly environment for the community, and getting this art wall built at the skate park area is just one of them.

An art wall is a dedicated wall for art, street art or graffiti. Some places have them free-standing which is so effective.

CN4C (Cornwall Neighbourhoods For Change)'s Simon and Sian work closely with Kelly and support her plans to make the area a more positive and vibrant place. So, when they heard of her idea for the wall, they called me in to run this Drawing On Things workshop.

aaaaargghh! it's The Bruton Dragon

Yesterday I went to Bruton in Somerset, about a mile from Glastonbury, and ran a Drawing On Things workshop for 8-16 year olds at the Bruton Festival of Arts which runs for over three weeks annually in this seemingly unassuming and quaint looking country village.

There are loads of activities and displays: art exhibitions, huge sculptures (see pic), even a writing sweatshop (which sounded amazing).

The organizers wanted to arrange something which could get the young people involved and had got in touch with me.
There were about 12 young people involved all at the same time. It was held in the garden of the local pub called "The Castle" and just down the road was this giant dragon sculpture. So we had our theme!

This workshop was fantastic and the preparation before I had arrived was first class (see pic) there was even a tarp ready to pull over the painting if it rained.

Bruton Festival of Arts is well worth a look. The village is a warm, friendly hive of creative activity. If you are anywhere near Somerset at all, call in!

Introducing: The Door Of Perception!

This is a new drawingonthings workshop where spontaneous doodles are drawn on a freestanding door by any number of people present.
Sounds simple. But, is it?

Yesterday I took"The Door Of Perception" to The Eden Project's EDEN CAFE in St Austell's new White River Place for local young people visiting the cafe to draw on as part of a Barefoot Games workshop. The ideas and images that emerge will be discussed and used in further community projects and activities.


Why "Door Of Perception"?
Since William Blake inscribed the immortal lines in his poem The marriage of Heaven and Hell into a slab of molten granite on top of a ferocious volcano somewhere around the dawn of time, man has held the humble door as a totem symbol of our understanding of the universe. Blake:

"When the doors of perception are cleansed, man will see things as they truly are, infinite."

Author and creative adventurer Aldous Huxley read Blake during his A-levels in the 1940s, and used the term for the title of a book in the 50's. Rumor has it that he gave a copy of his book to a young Jim Morrison at a party on Venice Beach ten years later.

Jim was looking for a slogan at the time as he had recently began printing t-shirts with ink and a simple silk screen press he had bought from Andy Warhol who was recently at Venice on his summer vacation from New York.

Jim went on to sell thousands of CLEAN THE DOORS t-shirts to people on the beach that summer. The slogan had CLEAN written in small, red letters and THE DOORS in big, bold, black capitals underneath.
A somewhat bizarre motto for a celebrated "genius" to come up with, but the hippies loved it!

Anyway, to cut a long story short, the red ink Warhol had sold Jim was a dodgy batch he had made while experimenting with tomato soup, and it faded in the sun!

Morrison was in an unknown band at the time called The Chairs, and they were going nowhere, fast! When the band were looking for a new name, keyboard player Ray Manzarek pointed to the hippies walking round in t-shirts with just THE DOORS written on the front in bold, black helvetica font... and the rest is history.

So it seemed to me perfect sense to carry a phrase with such lineage forward into a new era.

Bullseye!

The big blue phone with a capital C on it was flashing in the studio. The bell is so loud on that thing, the ringing is almost deafening! I hopped off the treadmill and swiftly lifted the heavy receiver. "Speak." I muttered down through the voice modulator.



"Is that Cosmic Images!!?" someone yelled on the other end of the line. "Zafiros bar in Truro have a new darts board as part of their celebration of being the modern traditional local pub in the city. They need your help, and fast!!"

That was two weeks ago last thursday. So today I visited them and painted something cool enough to protect the walls from hip city-dwelling darts, yet with enough laid back and traditional appearance to not seem out of place with a few felt caps and some knitting going on in the bar, should that ever happen.

The board is a protective material which loves darts.

Cornwall College Cosmic Corridor Collaboration

The corridor to The Treg, which leads from the canteen, needed brightening up. "Call Cosmic!" someone yelled.







The Treg is the common room at Cornwall College St Austell campus. To find it you have to navigate a short cellar-like route of corridors with plain white walls, a complete contrast of the atmosphere to be found once you are there.

This place has doors leading out to a garden, pool taples, ping-pong, advice and services, info on parties and is place to chill out during breaks from studies and lectures. In other words, the most important area of the college!



I visited the college during the first part of the term to meet students, and staff, to ask them what images they thought I should aim for. It soon became clear that I would have help from both students and members of staff.
During the consultation it became apparent that The Treg might one day move location so another part of the college, so we decided to do the artwork on boards which could be hung in the corridor and moved with the Treg if it ever changed location.



So, during the consultation we painted an octopus, a dragon and the student union logo made up of fish and waves on a large decorated board hanging on the wall inside the Treg itself. I was starting to understand that there would be some very interesting ideas to work with on this project.

I left some sheets of paper blutacked to the wall to collect more ideas and returned this week (during half term) and, with the help of students and staff created the images to be hung in the corridor.

I will add another post with pics when they are hung.

Last chance Truro

The large flower and garage doors in Truro may soon be removed.

Jane Adele Flowers have moved premises to the sunny surf-laden shores of Porthtowan.
Their old building is ready for new tennants. So, it is most probably the last chance to get a peek at this stuff.

Big wall in Nottingham

Angels By Day nursery in Nottingham. This project took a week, with a return journey from Cornwall, all initial sketching and layout and full consultation and ideas from the children at the nursery included in that time.



The nursery is a Montessori nursery which uses the educating methods of Dr Maria Montessori from the research and discoveries of what she referred to as "the child's true normal nature" in the early 20th century. Applying this method involves the teacher in viewing the child as having an inner natural guidance for his or her own perfect self-directed development.

It was an amazing experience and the result is a mixture of the children's own ideas (some of which were called out to me as I painted them on the wall) and criteria from a foundation brief set out by the very cool and enthusiastic nursery management and staff.

Here is a video which gives a walk-about view of the whole wall.

whale

A friend of mine is about to return home any minute now to find a new addition to his back garden...

Style Spotting Some Santa

An occupational hazard for me is drawing Santa. Between now and just before I collapse on Christmas eve I will have drawn 100's of all of our favourite holiday characters. Most of them jolly bearded chaps with red outfits!

So to keep it interesting for everybody (including me) I like to draw them using various styles, and see if people still notice it was me that drew them. See how many you can spot this year!

I did this one yesterday, it can be found at The Riverbank, Truro:

Invinci-Ball Artwork!

Surfers Against Sewage have a Cosmicphone in their office too.
Last week, Just minutes before the SAS Ball 2010 was due to begin, there was an emergency. People were about to descend on the eco park at Porthtowan to party, quite literally, like superheroes and... there was no art in the whole place!

"Only one thing for it..." thought Hugo Tagholm, Chief Commissioner of Gotham Beach and Director of the St Agnes based environmental pressure group, Surfers Against Sewage.

"...This is a job for Cosmic Images!" he yelled, and reached for a red 1960s dial phone which was inside, what can only be described as an up-turned fish bowl, on top of a plinth.

A silver letter "C" with a small "i" in it was the only 'number' on the dial, (it was where the "9" would've been on a regular phone)... TBC

FINISHED ARTWORK PICS TO FOLLOW (when i find the wall and TAKE SOME!!)

"SAS represents all recreational water users in the UK, from surfers and sailors, through to bodyboarders and windsurfers. The campaigns protect the coastal environment for all to enjoy, and promote a clean and safe water environment for people to enjoy and practice a wide variety of sports that rely on these marine resources." - www.sas.org.uk

First Santa of 2010 (In August!)

November Update: Recent weather conditions in Cornwall has lead to a rise in concern for fictional holiday celebrity cut-outs and I was called in to give Santa some warm clothes and friend!







From August 2010:

In case there is any confusion, it isn't Christmas! (A lot of people who saw this today commented exactly like this: "Christmas, already?")

The Riverbank in Truro has some amazing deals with their Xmas parties this year. Manager Phil Willey knows I get busy at close to the festive season and had the good sense to reach for the 'Cosmic Phone' he had installed in his office.

"Cosmic! We need your help!" He screamed.

I hung up the phone, shot down the Cosmic Pole and immediately flew out of the Cosmic Cave, in the Cosmicmobile, on course for Truro.

Within four minutes I had designed, painted and finished the fattest Surfing Santa in all the land.

And the world was saved.

(Story may be slightly embellished for dramatic effect. ...might have something to do with the super hero theme of the SAS ball, creeping up just a week from today!)

Tappy float for Aggie Carnival '10

I gave local pub and bistro The Taphouse (the Tappy) some help with the decor for their float for this Saturday's Carnival in St Agnes.

The theme was 'Hip-Hop' and they had a DJ and some break dancers to perform behind the float. So I did the panels in different graffiti styles to go along with the theme. The dancers good but I was more keen on taking pics of my artwork as I hadn't taken any when I painted it so i've cut a lot of heads off in my shots (...either that or it was something to do with the amount of rattler being consumed!).

The day went really well and this float drew a lot of interest, especially when they stopped to do their party peice outside the pubs by rolling a mat out and having an 80s style breakdance-off.

A drawingonthings workshop sponsored by Cornwall Fire Brigade.

Dracaena Youth Centre, Falmouth. Sunday 11th July 2010

MP Sarah Newton, Cornwall's Chief Fire Officer Des Tidbury, and almost 100 young people from 5yrs upwards took part in covering this wall with graffiti (not all at once) to help share the important message of road safety during a massive fun day at the youth centre in Falmouth last Sunday.

Other activities included an alternative petting zoo (with tarantulas and lizards), a funfair, bbq, football tournament, skate, bmx and scooter comp, and archery.

All the young people that took part on the wall took the theme seriously and all of the slogans are theirs. I wrote a few, but I was being dictated to. Graffiti artist 'SIN' turned up and did a peice with a road safety message too.

The result was very successful and enjoyable day for everybody involved, as well as carrying a very important message.