Hen & Chicken - Upfest Bristol 2015

This year I figured I'd go do Upfest again. It's been a couple of years since I last painted on the green in Bedminster and it was such a buzz painting in front of a crowd of people in the bright Brizzle sunshine. 250 street artists from around 30 countries gather in Bedminster and around Bristol to paint the streets - all legit and above board, like.

Part of the deal is that artists are invited to bring some work for sale direct to the public. The only stipulation is that it must be affordable. So I figured I'd do a specifically 'Upfest' edition of barbecue grill bird sculptures. The idea was that they'd all be based around spray cans giving them a 'street art' connection. Four pieces were made, all treated slightly differently. I liked the idea of the cans being preyed or scavenged upon, so empty Montana 94's were torn open and painted. A fragment of each, hand coloured was then carefully threaded into the beak of each bird. A third can was artificially, but authentically rusted, and a classic Montana 'Black' was adapted to hang smartly on the wall.

The hardest part of all of these birds is getting the feet and legs to grip and hold each one in a stance that is both stable and gives the sculpture a sense of dynamic movement - not just standing there immobile. Likewise the choice of whether or not to add wings. They don't all need it, but it does give an extra dimension to the activity of the creature.

Right up until the moment that I arrived I had no idea of the space I was going to be painting in, so it was impossible to plan or prepare anything. Besides, I really wanted to try and keep things simple - so monochrome and brushes was the way forward. As it turned out, I was allocated a space at the Hen and Chicken pub, in the garden. This meant that the piece would stay up for the year - bonus! And in one of those lovely circular connections that I enjoy, this is the pub where my half sister Maggie worked in the late '80's and where my younger sister met her first husband. There's something satisfying in that sort of thing for me.

I've been working on a series of crow paintings for a couple of years which seem to have gone down quite well, so that was the image of choice. It could be quick and rough, not too "finished" and I could get on with the proper business of drinking - I was in a pub garden for goodness sake! The sun was again blazing and I fried. The garden was packed with a great crowd and I was well away with the painting fairies. Some of the punters even liked what I was doing! I got the bulk of the work done on day one, and as some of the other artists began to rock up for the evenings 'entertainment', it was clear that the details would have to wait for the second day. 

By 9:30 though, I was a write off. I'd hired a van for the weekend, the first time I'd driven anything for about seven years, and because of my worries about that, I'd not left home until almost midnight on the Friday, arriving in Bristol around four in the morning. I'd grabbed a few hours kip in the back of the van before heading off to register and hunt down some breakfast and coffee. So painting, burning and drinking in the glare of the Bristol summer, took its toll. I crawled back into the van and bedded down in Bedminster down.

The rain started smattering the van roof around half six in the morning. Loudly. And it continued on through the day pretty much non-stop. It was clear fairly early on that I wasn't going to get any more time on the wall, so spent the day hanging around, taking the tour to see what other guys had been up to and grabbing some lunch before heading back home. (**They do excellent pizzas at the Hen and Chicken). I'm not unhappy with what I'd achieved on the wall and I'm okay with it as it is. Sure, I'd have liked another day to fiddle with it, but it is what it is.


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