14 years in the making and some other bits and pieces...

Burning ha ha.... Nice little lo-key spot hooked up by all round good guys Bene, after the relaxed vibe of this un-pretentious hideaway it was time to head in to hipster fool central... Surry Hills.




OK, so I'm sure there are some dedicated cycling purists who have been riding for years and can legitimately claim an affinity and appreciation of Fixie bikes... but sadly, Vans sporting, tight jeans rocking, poncy courier hat, fashion-blow-in-victims of Surry Hills... ...that ain't you. Get fucked and get with the program. You live in a psycho traffic infested wank city, with hills far too steep for your weedy skinny legs to pedal up or brake whilst riding down, leaving you to ponce up and down the relatively level roadwork of Crown and Bourke St... The only ray of hope in this new wave of wannabe wankers is the almost Darwinian potential for the blatant unroadworthiness of the bikes, coupled with riders of limited athletic ability constantly distracted by their reflection in passing shop windows to add up to plenty of mangled and maimed hipsters fucking off to the Oxford Art Factory in the sky....






I had the roller pole ready to launch straight through the front wheel of the first fixie clown I saw but was lucky enough not to have to witness the lameness and pumped a quick piece in Surry Hills to promote the Keep Australia Colourful response to the Keep Australia Beautiful graffiti clean up. The wall was a minimal graphic work with Beastman providing the minimal pallet and Numskull rocking the signage style slogans while Roach and I keeping the rap paintings rocking. Check out more info on the event day and ongoing resources for writers and people wanting to really learn about what the culture has to offer at www.keepaustraliacolourful.org . Extra shouts to Ironlak for slinging us some paints too!


Many years ago as a little graffiti grommet down the coast I would pass this one wall on the train going to school and wish I could rock as piece on it with local legends like Idiot, Pudle, Slap, Pearl and Comics. I would study the pieces and collect the flicks, and whenever I managed to corner one of th guys painting ask a million questions (Slap even hooked me up my first ever proper caps, to that point I had scalpeled and glued together all kinds of crappy nozzles from Dads garage), which on refelction was probably as annoying as hell for them, however, the mentoring and skills passed down from them was an integral part of me catching the fever and painting with the dedication to this day. It also inspires me now to try and educate and get young writers I meet on the skills and achievement path, rather than perpetuate the negativity in the scene. It was with a strange sense of accomplishment that I was able to rock a piece on this spot with local shredder Fetish and the one and only Idiot. In coming blogs I may try to track down enough pics for an Idiot special, definitely one of the most underrated writers... until then here is a dodgy phone shot of one of the country's most elusive style masters...






And a snippet of the work on the day from yours truly, probably been dogged by now though, going... going... Gong!

Until next time, learn to signwrite fuckers... http://vimeo.com/10562000

Quick Easter uploads...

Some quick promo for the matey's exhibition in which I had a work, only 5 minutes or so of painting, som of the letters are a little wonky, but the effect was pretty cool. Funnily enough one of the rare times I actually wore a mask at a wall recently...



Some quick funk at the WYC on the way to the folks...





Old train porn stolen from Roach's blog http://theopeninghours.com.au/roach/ the guy has the lurks!




Scrounged this from the net...





And erched this from a flickr, eaten away by time but not forgotten...




Finally, a million miles from the sydney graffiti rat race, peeling point break and cool southerly change is good for the head.

Fonts, Superheroes, Carriageworks, Savants, Shots from the move and Shit Cunts.

As previously mentioned (Angsted over?) in this blog, I was fortunate enough to get a guernsey for the Go Font Urself show which kicked off in Brisbane recently and then had the Sydney show last Wednesday. The night was top fun, slanged a print, got to watch Bones burn the place down with a live demo of the real old school style sign writing steelos (Why he wasn't writing down the numbers of all the ladies ogling in the gallery behind him is beyond me?), caught up with heaps of peeps, scoffed some Thai with the wife and Daddy Depoe and then finished the night with a beer with the organiser and some other cool kids. Nice one Mart!



Boner burns the signage styles...


While Saynt-Koons slangs prints slagging off shit Sydney steel (Sounds suspicioulsy like Dr Seuss)


Recently myself and a couple of the boys rocked a pretty sweet super hero themed proddy, some sneak peaks are below. Unfortunately some jealous shit cunt decided to cap a good portion of it as part of his continuing campaign for attention based on slashing his betters... they say you are nobody until someone hates you, and to quote a famous Surry Hills trend forecaster and all around purveyor of cools... 'I'm on your mind, you're not on mine!'
I got my flicks and the skills, you ain't got shit toy...

Some bad ass Bruce Timm styles crushing 'Laks in his bare hands...

On a far more positive note, on Saturday I was priveledged to get a run on the painting demo at Platform 3. In the company of such legends as Days, Dream, Unique and more, I pumped out a quick piece using the unusual palette provided and came up trumps, in what I am certain was a close competition. It was great to see so many peeps I have not had the chance to catch up with in ages, and in true graffiti space cadet style I missed the winners announcement and luckily the lovely wife was on hand to fill me in. It was a fun afternoon, and a real credit to the organisers and participants, Sydney finally rocking some of the good aspects of hip hop culture in stark contrast to the mentalities of some of the gronks out there such as mentioned above.


Scribbling away... finished pics to come soon or check out the C.O.P coverage for more on the event.


Finally, got my grubby mits on some old flicks languishing on a long lost CD unearthed during the recent move...


Peep the dope pink-scale Stone cazza, in a secluded bush spot that was a fave back in the early 00's... So dope. Had the pleasure of rocking a piece with the man last weekend, his first in over a year, more needed, get back out asap mate!


And in tribute to the dope signwriting inspired public letter funk display from the one and Bonely earlier in this post, also unearthed in the move was the below set of public style (Nuisance?) pics, from one of my old fave writers... video grab of pretty fast back jump action... somewhere out there exists a super sneaky pic of the finished article lurking in the sheds later...



And finally, I have been doing a lot of drawing lately as part of an art class I am running to teach disadvantaged young people art skills for stress and anger management. It is great fun and recently have been discussing the work of this guy, an awesome note to end of for anyone who thinks that they can draw... peep this lad- Now that's drawing!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gWTeSvCOFyE

Digging in the crates again, digging in the swamp, under the bridge, down south, and some new stuff...

While you were in church we were out painting... Another quick sunday morning piece, another nice effort from Emz, she has the hang of outlining now... look out!


An underrated writer and all-round good guy from the coast has recently started whacking some connections into his pieces... look out!


In 2005 this dude was convinced buff paint and hoarded Exports was the future, in preparation for the eventual prohibition of aerosol and the revolution of paper clothes he started to learn how to do pieces almost entirely in buff paint and studied up on the 3rd Wave... Look out!


This guy was also massively underrated in 2005 and handy with a 100mm roller, whether it was flanno fill patterns or graphic funk he blazed a trail of originality and then dissappeared into obscurity...



2010- From the cutting room floor, surplus piece of a vicious cranky graphici rant that features in a Saynt work for the upcoming type and art show Go Font Urself, a top line up will be continuing the run of trey cool letterbased exhibitions on Wednesday 17th March, more info at www.gofonturself.com.au ...Oh, I almost forgot- Free Beer you bums! Look out!



2005 was an awesome year for just fucking around, this guy has some brain surgery in the 'S', indigenous looking dotty type stuff in the 'N' and 'O', and some cool ass primitive tags... loose as a goose, lurky like a turkey... Look out!


Lurking? Over here... Over here... in the trees... Or the swamp... HyperMondriac steelo mixed with a Predator style photo makes this kind of creepy... Almost stalker-ish... Maybe I been watching all along from out here... Forget rainwater from the top end... how about some salt water from Roseville... ...Look out!


Wanted to end on another set of tasty vids off Youtube, but after the accidental multiple post debarcle of last week I will be avoiding posting anymore video until I get the hang of it, so here is some greased lightening from a while back... Til next time... Look out!

The weekend, some more from the bottom of the crates, some trains, Chinese, Piranhas and Snakes... Why does it always have to be snakes...?

Raced the clock in Enmore on Saturday with some usual suspects to pump this quick one out in about an hour and a half, classic 'what I had in the boot/could scrounge off the peeps' colour combos, wasn't too bad tho... Got sunburnt in spite of suncream, shirt and hat, fucking sick of summer.



This is an oldie, one of the first Saynt pieces I did, not sure what the background means, another one of those yelly at the telly type days...




Red NYC subway cars getting dumped off a barge to make new reefs...




He's got the whole world in his hands... this is the handywork of one of the most gifted (And reclusive!) writers I know, so dope... Yes its perfect HO scale (For the modellers out there), yes its got full bogies and running lights, yes they come in full four car sets, yes there are ridgys and ghosties on the way, think it's time I got my layout re-assembled... Dope, Dope, Dope!



Stumbled drunkenly along the drain, around the corner and.. voila- Hidden treasure! An authentic ancient Phibs piece, hands up if anyone else remembers the dope Haring-esque heiroglyphs all over the inner west? A good era in sydney graffiti.

Now the nightly random dose, even though I haven't set foot on a board for about 3 years I still love watching surfing footy, and have been researching tidal bores lately... hectic!

Digging in the crates/RIP Sydney spots...

In honour of the miserable wet weather (Wet, but still hot as fuck- I hate summer), I thought we would kick off with a little all weather lad cazza from a sneaky piece in middle of winter 2008, shorts year round, full air soles and lairy yellow nautical get up is what it's all about... This was painted as a quick one to scratch the itch at Guilford, a wall which is sadly no longer there...


Wish there was no 'N; in Newcastle... A love hate style from a trip to Newcastle in 2008... I think I will give the colour combo another shot, it was a nice bit of happenstance as I ran out of some colour or other and what is here is what I could scratch up on the spot, but the connection over the top of the 'N' is a hunk of shit....



This is about 90 minutes of itch scratching at 8am on a Sunday, again at Guilford legal (Bulldozed recently, a result of the combined efforts of fascist local council and shit head kids bombing the neighbours), at this stage the 'Breakdown' caption referred to the breakup I was having at the time which got me in the habit of being out painting on the weekend in the early morning to avoid the house...




Speaking of good little walls done in by deadshit local government and dumb writers, Telopea was another sweet spot to go and rock a piece, which unfortunately I was only able to do twice. This Jamaican fills number with Bonesy was good fun, pretty sure he burnt me hard on this one- Cool RunningS!



I still like to get up and rock a piece on the early, and now the lovely wife is starting to rock a couple of pieces too, this piece has concept credits going to Emz one, nice one!

Odds and ends

Bit of quickness at Westleigh to scratch the itch with badass Bones, that wall is getting way too rough... well and truly gone now, even though its only 38 hours later, peeps were queing up to paint as we left, its a sad city but at least we know the flicks are a rarity....



Which is a shame as I knocked this one out with the wife at the same time on the other side. She is really coming along and is pretty good on the graff concep side of things... Eshay Asslay!



Couple of bits of MDF, box of 'Laks and and some keen local kids= sweet little install-a-wall at Riverwood a couple of months back, best job in the world.


Speaking of cool jobs, this is the brains behind the only school graffiti (actually the name is Street art as it's council bankrolled) class that I know of (And am lucky to be a teacher in). Art teacher, graff fan, street artist, fine artist, this is part of a cool 3d sculpture series exploring suburbia... yes the people are fucking. More info/art at www.shaneforrest.com.


Dug this old one off the phone, with my bro in W.A. showing the west coast slack jawed fucks how its done my lounge room has been short on gas axe action lately, miss the big unit (the guy, not the twin oxy tanks on a trolley), looking forward to him coming back and more plumber humour and ridiculous burnouts...


Ilchay bra, ilchay... When asked what to write in the time out/chill out room the kids at the behavioural school were united by a love of atinlay...

Another semi oldie but a goodie, made the missus some one of a kind custom shirts for Christmas, a chance to flex the rusty illustrator skills and a very cool result. Emz ideas and my bodgy design skills= the good gear.

Happy Straya Day

In honour of straya day I have a collection of some of the more interesting bits and pieces I have come across recently in this great southern land...


On a sports shed on the outskirts of Lismore someone just could not take it anymore... Nice drips.

One the other end of the handstyle spectrum comes a truly epic piece of airbrush signage, again in Lismore... Spin Cycle isn't do anything by halves... although it had the vibe about it that it may have gone out out business...



Now this is something. A crazy relic confiscated in the wild criminal past of Sydney town... Is it a knife gun or a gun knife? People at the pointy end of it were probably too busy filling their jocks to contemplate the finer points of firearm design. Police and Justice Museum is some gangster shit... literally.

Bunsen burner... yeah, in jokes. This wall was about an hour and a half worth of graff fun with the little lady last week. Mental note- no more coaching, she must not be allowed to get better at graff than me...

Finally, the Straya Day production down the coast. Part of a joinup with Bones, Gooz, Emz, Fetish Katze and more. Coordinated color combos, nicely spaced pieces, fresh theming, chumps need to take note. Look closely at chugging grog peeps in the background, we had life size reference the park, and the following day we did a pretty good reenactment around Surry Hills. Carn fuck yas....