Filming for Boikzmoind is still going strong, with the nicer weather making filming a lot easier! We’ve got a whole tonne of bike footage, the next step is going to be the interviews with the riders of the Bristol scene along with planning the intro! I really want the interviews to string together the film, to give it a narrative to speak to people watching and explain to them why we ride these silly bikes in a city with big hills!

The above is a still from a bit of filming this evening, an impromptu ride turned into a filming opportunity, with Sam playing about in the water feature. Filming on my new toy, the Canon 550D with a 50mm f1.8 lens, it’s making me even more excited to make the film!

Click to see it in higher resolution

The board I painted for the ‘Deckades’ exhibition is now up for auction! All the boards are on ebay, with all the proceeds going to a great charity, Unicef!

My poor board is only up to £11.50, so why not hop along to the auction page and have a bid, it’s all for a good cause and you could have your own old-school red board with a gold monster doing a gold poo, who wouldn’t want that!?

A big thanks to Tidy, Howies & Shiners for the opportunity to be a part of it all, the exhibition is looking fantastic and honoured to be in the same show as some of my heros! Be sure to pop along to Howies Bristol to check out the show, you won’t regret it!

STORE PROFILE
It’s time for another shop profile, this time we’re heading north to Newcastle to check out the eclectic Electrik Sheep store! This treasure trove of goods stocks the best of all things, from books to clothing, cameras to toys. With high end brands like 10Deep, The Hundreds and RVCA, you know they mean business!

So it’s with great pleasure to tell you that these fine fellows are the latest stockists of Droplets, which you grab in-store and online. They’re also fully internetted up too, so you can follow them on Twitter.

Big thanks to Danny and all involved at ES, be sure to pay them a visit - support independent stores!

www.electriksheep.co.uk

The howies x Shiners ‘DECKADES’ exhibition opens this coming Saturday 17th April!

It’s a showcase of rare old school board graphics from Shiners own collection, spanning the decades of skateboardings history, along with hand-painted boards from the likes of Jim Phillips, Pete Fowler, Mr Jago, China Mike, Richt, 45RPM and myself, to name but a few!

So, make sure you visit the howies Bristol store from Saturday and check out the exhibition in the upstairs gallery, you won’t want to miss it!

Check it out! Angus Sung sent me this photo that he took of a fixed head rocking my howies ‘Skids are for Kids’ t-shirt down in London!

Have a peep at it large, cheers Angus!

I’m doing a talk at the Howies store Bristol tonight, as part of the A Beautiful Machine events put on by McFaul.

Ill be there, talking about my Bristol fixed gear film ‘BOIKZMOIND’ - The hows, whys and where’s! There’ll also be talks from Road.cc, Cycling City and the Bristol Bike Project.

It costs just £5 on the door (all for charity - Save the Children) and the talks start at 7pm!

Hope to see you there…

In January this year I was fortunate enough to be given the opportunity to do a series of portrait photo’s of Aardman’s legendary Nick Park at his home here in Bristol.

It was an absolute honour to be able to shoot Nick, especially when I’m not a pro photographer by any means, I just love it the medium and it was that enthusiasm that afford me this fantastic opportunity!

It was a real low-key affair - Just me and my D40 and one studio light, simple as that. I didn’t want to borrow an all singing-all dancing set-up as I’d just panic about the equipment rather than taking the photo, as after all, swanky kit won’t make me a better photographer!

I can’t show the whole set of photo’s because of copyright but this one here is one of my favourites. It was the first time I show RAW with intent of a lot of post-processing and that was a great learning curve too.

Overall it was a really exciting opportunity and I enjoyed it a lot, there’s going to be another session happening later in the year with us doing some outdoor shots so I’m really looking forward to that!

A big thank you to Nick, Angie & Aardman for giving me such a fantastic opportunity. I love my job!

I’m very happy to say that I’ll be speaking this coming Friday the 2nd April at the Howies store here in Bristol as part of the ‘A Beautiful Machine’ series of events!

I’ll be joining Ben Hillsdon from Cycling City and Tony Farrelly & Dave Atkinson from Road.cc. I’m going to be talking about my fixed gear film in progress BOIKZMOIND - How it came about and the plans for the future release of the film itself.

Tickets are just £5.00 and they’re for a great cause (Save the Children). You can get your tickets online here or pay on the door at Howies on the night!

Oh yes, there’s also a whole heap of artwork in the gallery above Howies too, so be sure to come on down and check that out, it’s available to see on the night of the talks as well as any time the store is open.

So come on down! Check out abeautifulmachine.co.uk for more info!

I’m absolutely honoured to say that the kind folk over at Digital Artist magazine have given me a 6-page interview in their latest issue of the mag, issue #5!

I’m so over the moon by it all and pretty surprised too - The lovely Fran Pearce sorted it all out for me, I answered the questions and sent over lots of images - I had no idea that it’d end up spanning 6 pages, I’m very very grateful to take up so much print space!

Why not pick up a copy of the mag, there’s the rad cover illustration by Jared Nickerson plus lots of great content, it’s in all good magazine shops now!

A big thanks again to April, Fran and all at the mag!

It was my lovely lady’s 24th birthday so I got her the camera she’s been lusting after for a while, the beautiful Leica D-Lux 4, it’s an amazing piece of kit!

Happy birthday bubs!

You can see a few other photo’s I shot today on my flickr here, Happy Sunday all!

This is my design for a tote bag, which will be sold as part of The Renmen Project, which is using art to raise funds for UNICEF’s Haiti earthquake childrens appeal.

There’s lots of fantastic folk involved, from Pete Fowler to Sam Gilbey, so why not head on over to the website and check it out and get involved for a great cause!

I’ll blog again when my tote bag is up and available to purchase!

This is my piece for the McFaul x Howies ‘A Beautiful Machine’ event, which is a 2-week long set of talks, shows and rides all centred around the love that beautiful machine, the bicycle! This is just the first stage though, I’m getting a little ‘crafty’ with it so you’ll have to come to the show to see the finished thing!

“Beginning Friday March 26th McFaulStudio and howies have curated a two-week event of art, talk and ride based above the howies store in Bristol. We have reached out to those who ride, those who allow us to ride…and those who want us to ride, bringing us all together in a carnival of bicycle. Those who design and those who draw, those who paint or shoot or sew, those who talk or make, those who fix and those who nurture are all involved as they all share a love of A Beautiful Machine.

Over 50 artists from around the Globe. 15 incredible speakers. 1 Bicycle treasure hunt, 1 rather special Bicycle auction and 1 Critical Mass. Two weeks in Bristol. A lot of fun.”

I’m going to be doing a talk on BÖIKZMÖIND, on how it got to the point it is plus the future of the film, which is happening on Friday 2nd April! Keep your eyes peeled on the website for more details!