Sunday, May 20, 2012

The Mystery Project.....let's go public!

So, you probably have gathered by now that I'm a big fan of the Art House Co-op (they of the Sketchbook Project and various other art adventures)....and here is the latest one I have signed up for.....the Mystery Project.

In a nutshell, each of the 2,000 participants worldwide were sent a marker pen courtesy of Prismacolor, and a theme, and were to take inspiration from these to make some public art installation of some sort - it could be anything, a painting, a sculpture, a zine maybe.  As long as it was left in a public space.

I was really looking forward to this one ....until I got my theme.  "If tomorrow came yesterday".....whaaat?  That stumped me completely for a week or two.....

But then I was chatting via email to a fellow blogger - Karen from I am Rushmore who is also taking part in the Mystery Project (her theme is fabulous - "Help! Robots are taking over the local elementary school!" - I was sooooo jealous :) ), and I was explaining my thoughts about my theme....about how if tomorrow happened yesterday you would have already seen a bit of the future....forewarned is forearmed and all that.....   and that sent me off into thinking I could do something with a man with four arms....

It kind of makes some sense to me anyway..... kind of :)

So here's how my submission for the project came to life:

I took four A4 sized white stickers, and randomly sprayed them with yellow and olive green paints to start with, the olive green was chosen because it was close to the colour of the marker pen they sent me

Next I added another green, and tiny spots in bright pink...

...and chevrons in orange....

I cut out the silhouette of a man with four arms and used it as a mask, over spraying with white paint.  And then I also airbrushed around the mask a little with dark purple ink.

The word "forewarned" was but out freehand with a craft knife and sprayed on with blue paint

....and then I used the free marker to write a few words around the image - "if tomorrow came yesterday, the mystery project...."








Here are the finished stickers ready to go:


Only three of them because I kept the fourth, which now lives on my bookcase:














And here are the three of them out in the wild, in various spots around central Swindon (along with my street art accomplice, who thoroughly enjoyed the whole adventure :)  )


Please don't worry, any of you, about us having permanently defaced any public property.  The stickers didn't have much in the way of stick....they peel off incredibly easily, and I very much doubt they will survive the first rainfall....

But it'll be fun while they last....

12 comments:

ally said...

Wow so you can now add the tag is street artist to your skill set

Luna Art said...

Fantastic! Love the look on your sons face he looks like he enjoyed the covert street art operation!!!! The art is great, you will have people of Swindon wondering what's coming that they have been warned about!!

Carmen said...

I love it - I agree with Sam, I would wonder what we were being forewarned about! Ooer! Love that you are a street artist, OFFICIAL!

Do you email these pics to the project?

Sabrina said...

How fun! Do you feel like an edgy avant garde artist? I think it's awesome!

Virginia said...

Fabulous - love what you've done!

Shirley said...

Great project.
Brilliant interpretation and definitely a BIG step into the official world of street art.

Karen Isaacson said...

you totally rocked this. If I stumbled upon this on the street I would be surreptitiously trying to peel it off and take it home without anyone watching. LOVE IT. (still haven't gotten past the idea stage of my robots. good thing it's a 3-day weekend here in the states.

P.J. said...

That is so very cool. I would love to find a way to get involved with some of these projects as it seems like it really tests creativity. Way cool.

Yabut said...

I love your solution to this problem. My Myster Project was The Future of the Year, and I also did a blog post about it. If you are interested, you can find it here: http://www.otherrambles.blogspot.ca/2012/05/i-seem-to-be-bit-more-serious-about-my.html

Joanna said...

What a different take on that theme - I had that theme too - you can see mine here http://fiddlesnips.blogspot.co.uk/2012/05/mystery-project.html

This was such a fun project wasn't it? I love the airbrushing on your artwork, it looks fab.

A man with 4 arms? We all know they can't multitask so I don't know what they'd do with them all!!!

x

Unknown said...

This is so awesome! Even if the stickers don't come off, I think they're a positive edition to your neighborhood!

uncustomary said...

These are wonderful! I'm going to go check out the Art House Co-op right now!