Last but not least, a little noise was introduced as well as some hand painted textures overlayed to give the image a time weathered look. All very Mr Magoo if I say so myself!

 

After the runaway success of ‘Da Playaz Ball’, Big Score Productions and dreemstyletransit are returning to Planet Rock for a top night of funk soaked breaks, ‘from the future’ electro and bboy shenanigans down at The Sugar Lounge in Newquay on Fri 17th Dec.

Expect styles for miles, some hot local talent on the decks and mic and old school maneuvers on the dancefloor. Below is the retro themed flyer & poster design……

Click on the thumbnails for full flyer and crew T-shirt designs.

 

]]> http://www.dreemstyletransit.com/2010/12/07/the-hustlers-convention-newquay-2010/feed/ 0 http://www.dreemstyletransit.com/2010/11/18/the-smell-of-urethane-in-the-summer/ http://www.dreemstyletransit.com/2010/11/18/the-smell-of-urethane-in-the-summer/#comments Thu, 18 Nov 2010 17:54:07 +0000 STEPH MACLAREN http://www.dreemstyletransit.com/?p=1026

I can usually be found in the summer months hitting up hills and runs in and around Newquay on my Longboard. A few like minded friends a car, camera and some attitude are all that is needed for the perfect day.

No tricks..no ramps, just the buzz of freeriding downhill at scary speeds and putting in a stylish carve. Surfing on concrete if you will with the soul of a longboarder on ocean waves.

Now the winter months are in I look back at some of my favorite images of this summer and relish the thought of another onslaught of 4 wheel heaven on my Lush Samba.

Bring it on!!

 

Click on the thumbnails for full images.

Myself and Wax at the top of the St Columb Minor run in Cornwall.

Bottom: Wax in jester mode. Little Fistral. Newquay.

On the 23rd of Oct myself and a couple of friends organised a night of pimped up madness at The Shack in Newquay to celebrate the 30th birthday of a dear friend. Players pimps and ho’s were in attendance to the tune of 120 people. The music a mix of funk and hip hop classics provided plenty of B-BOY action on the dancefloor while the poker and dice (”throw some bones”) corner kept the players entertained. Below is a link to some great photos of the night taken by Mike Searle. I have also included the original Blaxploitation-esque ticket designs and envelope invitation stickers I created for the night. A big thank you goes out to all the guys and girls who made it an exceptional night.

Watch out for a Hustlers Convention coming soon……..

Photo Link: http://www.facebook.com/mike.searle2?ref=ts#!/photo.php?fbid=444874757749&set=a.444871572749.245698.516377749

Click on thumbnails for full images of the invite artwork.

 

The first of a new slew of work to go in ‘The Lab’ section of galleries. This one was done a few months ago and incorporates a hand drawn character in pencil with black ink outline pattern work for the wave ornamentation and background.

 

I suppose it was only a matter of time before the seagull made an appearance in some artwork. You see the humble ’skyrat’ is quite literally everywhere (as well as the obligatory surfboards) down here in Newquay. If they are not fighting on the roof of my house, then they are busy bothering poor souls in town for their pasties and chips. When I first moved down here I was forever wondering what the little bundles covered with material were that sit outside peoples houses. Bin bags was the answer. If it is not covered it is gone!!

Working from a painting of a seagull I did a few years back (I was never quite happy with the composition of the painting, but liked the seagull,) here is my tribute to the bane of the coast.

Click on thumbnails for full images.

This first post represents the first of many that will feature images and text that will eventually end up in a hardback book to be printed. I felt that some of my experiences were worth sharing outside of the small core of people I spent time with in Morocco, and so I present here the text and images that accompany a small feature in the book. This story concerns my fascination with these pencil drawings that covered a lot of wall space in the small fishing village of Taghazout in Morocco. Taghazout is primarily known as a surf destination, due to its world class point breaks. It was also a favorite on the hippie circuit  back in the 60’s thanks to its laid back attitude. I even read somewhere that Bob Marley tried to buy land there sometime way back! Anyways this is where the story starts….

Intrigue and mystery are words freely bandied around when Morocco is talked about. Little was I to know that our own little trip was to provide me with a little mystique and a fair amount of time traipsing around the back alleys of Taghazout chasing an enigmatic figure who goes by the name of Brian.

 

Click thumbnails for full images.

Halfway through our trip I was increasingly aware of these unassuming pencil drawn designs that literally riddle the walls and alleys of Taghazout. Always rectangular in shape with almost architectural elements and decorative devices inside the frame, they range from the very loosely scrawled to highly detailed motifs. With lots of high numbers, either inside or outside the design (I usually took this to be a numbering system for the amounts drawn.) They either sit alone or are stacked on top of each other in two’s and three’s, and usually in their favored spot next to the utility boxes that adorn the outside of the village dwellings. The occasional beginnings of a design can also be found carved into walls and ledges, putting you in mind of prehistoric cave etchings.

My curiosity was immediately piqued by this rampant army of hand drawn designs. Early comparisons with the urban tagger of western cities was easy, this guy or girl was UP!!

One afternoon while sat outside a cafe drinking coffee an old guy dressed in a traditional djellaba and woolen beenie sat some ways from me on stone steps. He proceeded to draw on some cardboard he had been carrying.  I meanwhile paid him scant attention and got on with whatever had been amusing me before he arrived. After about 10 mins I noticed him putting his pencil away and walk off, duly leaving behind the doodled scrap. On paying up I walked over to where he had been sat and took a look at his handiwork…Boom…right before my eyes was a half finished version of what I had seen countless times on the walls of Taghazout. I am not exaggerating when I say I was surprised that some old guy with a Father Christmas beard and traditional garb had been hitting up walls with a pencil.

For days I went around documenting examples of the drawings and pondering on the meaning of them. There had to be some kind of story behind it all. Why the repetition in design? Surely some old guy was not in it for the fame game.

 

Click thumbnail for full image.

One detail about the drawings that was a constant was the presence of an outlined head and torso topped off with what seemed to my eyes to be a western style tie….

For some time I entertained the notion that maybe he was some leftover from the 60’s when Taghazout was popular on the hippie trail. A westerner gone native no less, and his scrawls a coded nod to a materialistic past. My next encounter with Brian (as we later found out was his name) was completely unexpected. I had spent the best part of a morning getting some footage together as reference for my own artwork when who should come shuffling past and start badgering me for a cigarette but the Sultan of Staedtler pencils himself.

I tried to engage in some small talk (albeit small due to me not speaking arabic) but Brian was having none of it. On first impressions he is either barking mad or an eccentric of the highest order. I like to think the latter. Anyways, after a few fruitless mimes of someone drawing on a wall (performed by myself) he was on his merry way again. But not before gifting me with some great shots of him doing his ‘tag’ on a wall, and then seemingly to think ‘to hell with it’, he sprawled out for an afternoon nap by the roadside…legend.

 

Click on thumbnail for full image.

It was only a day or two before leaving for home that I finally pieced together the rest of the puzzle….

Myself and my brothers Andy and Scott were admiring a few choice ‘Brians’, when suddenly Scott realised the designs were an abstract of sorts, the Moroccan Dirham no less. I hastily pulled one from my wallet. Yes there it was, on the right, the king resplendent in suit and tie. The mysterious numbers accompanying the drawings obviously represented the various denominations of the Dirham..1000,2000 and so on.

Why draw depictions of Dirham notes everywhere? I started to ask myself. It did not take long before that question was answered. A local guy who had noticed our group studying Brians handiwork promptly came over and told us in broken english that the artist was called Brian, and that he had once been very wealthy in the past, and then he had lost it all. We were unable to ascertain the exact details behind Brian losing his riches due to the language barrier.

I was asked while recounting this story to a guy I met while still in Morocco, wether finding out the story behind the scrawls lived up to my expectations. My answer, yes…and then some. There is something romantic and altogether sad about the old guy who spends his days armed always with a sharpened pencil and scraps of cardboard. And for reasons known only to himself, decides to decorate his village with hand drawn currency. A lot of questions still remain as to why he does it. I myself prefer to leave the answer open ended, on the walls and in my imagination.

 

Click on thumbnail for full image.

All images and text in this feature strictly remain the property and copyright of dreemstyletransit. 2010

Contact if you wish to publish.Thanks.

Apparently premiering at the Sundance Film Festival this weekend..looks brilliant!

One vintage ‘Double Diamond’ beer bottle and an access all areas stage pass for the Wisbech Rock festival.

Both set props from the 1998 British Comedy ‘Still Crazy’ starring Bill Nighy, Timothy Spall, Jimmy Nail and Billy Connolly.

The comedy charts the re-union of a fictional ’70s band called ‘Strange Fruit’ whose career came to an abrupt end at the Wisbech Rock Festival in 1977 when they were struck by lightning while on stage.

Anyways I was approached in Camden London sometime early 1998 by some people recruiting film extras, I guess the long hair,denim and retro T-shirt combo swung it. After attending an ‘interview’ I spent a week somewhere in Chelsea (London) on deserted warehouse grounds shooting different scenes that involved the band at gigs and venues. Favorite memories include a scene in a Nederland nightclub (The Rat Cage) where the band play there first comeback gig. We were directed to make out like we were getting into the band, after a minute of dancing aimlessly around the director cut the festivities saying he needed us to show a bit more passion. Myself and a handful of others duly started a full on mosh pit down the front much to the enjoyment of the film crew and the disdain of the director. 

The afternoon cosied up between two swedish lovely’s filming the backstage scene at the Wisbech Festival where the band split up in 1977 (this was were I ‘acquired’ the props from. I must have spent the best part of 3 hours pretending to drink from that empty bottle and make small talk with the girls.) Oh and the daily Coffee with Baileys sessions on the shelled out bus with the other extras were a hoot too!

Trailer for Still Crazy…Love the ‘Hello Wembley!’ line…………

These Star Wars inspired hoodies and jackets by Ecko Unlimited feature a Boba Fett “Fett for Real” hoodie, Storm Trooper Jacket and an X Wing pilot hoodie among many others. The streets are never going to be the same. Can you just picture rival inner city gangs in this get up, Boba Fett holding court on the corner while a platoon of stormtroopers shoot the shit in Macdonalds. I am guessing a pitched battle between the stormtroopers and X wing fighters would be an awesome spectacle. All we need now is someone to come up with custom AT-AT &  X Wing fighter inspired bicycle frame bodies in fibre glass for the complete look…..