Upfest 2011

So what is Upfest 2011?

Well it is an outside urban art festival held in Bristol every year. Here is there website Upfest

And I will be attending, not as a spectator but as one of the artists ^_^ I am very stoked about this as it will be first outing as a proper artist.

I will be attending with the group of artists taking part in Colaberation Nation. I signed up to take part in this group a while ago. The premise is simple but produces some amazing results; Once all of the artists involved have signed up they are separated into groups of four. Each member of each group them starts on an A3 piece of paper, drawing whatever they want. This A3 sheet of paper is then posted onto the next person within the group for them to add to. And so forth until the completed A3 sheets are sent to the original artist who started it.

Here are my starting piece and the piece I was second to add to;

My starting piece

The first artist on this one is Huw Barm (Artwork to the right, the tentacles however are mine. First time I've ever drawn tentacles and had them come out well.)

Many of the artists from Colaberation Nation will be attending Upfest and we shall all be working on a giant collab together. What excites me the most about going to Upfest is that I will finally get a chance to meet some of the great artists that I have seen and worked with here on "that there t'internet". I must admit that it has been a bit of a lonely experience my return to the art world a few years ago.

Way back in the days of my first brush with art, street art in particular, I was living in Leeds. And although by it's nature street art is a furtive hiding creature, it is hard to live in a big city like Leeds without bumping into one or two other artists of a like mind. It also helped that I was taken under the wing of a fantastic artist and great bloke. This time round however I have had to make it on my own and strike forth to undiscovered places. It's been hard, and as I said lonely, but I have made some friends all around the world both on Facebook, deviantArt and even a few through flickr.

Come this June I will get a chance to meet some people for the first time. Physically at least, I have always found that you can get a fairly good impression of people through their art. Another of the bonuses of attending Upfest as an artist is that some examples of my work will be up for sale.

So if you are in the Bristol neighbourhood in the first weekend of June, come on down. Say hello, maybe even help a poor artist out and buy a canvas....