Week full o' ideas!

This time, I just want to give a quick update on what has happened over the past week, what new works I have made and the new Web features I have added to my Net-Persona a.k.a. Mr. [BLI:P].

First – I have opened a Flickr page. From now on, there’s going to be a new package of photos every week. I’ll try to include a new studio work and a new artwork on the street + an action shot of me pasting it. So, if you want to get that almost every 7 days, you should follow me on twitter right here. It is the fastest way to receive quick updates from me.

Second – there’s a new stencil on my Flickr page. If you haven’t seen it yet, feel free to do that here. It’s one of my “old” stencils, that has been renovated in a different design.  If you ask me about the meaning of these 4 lines, I have to quote the first artist, that saw it as a sketch - “These days art is all about counting pixels? Is that what you’re saying?” But feel completely free to judge the meaning yourself.

Third -  There’s a new idea coming tomorrow or the day after tomorrow. It’s a simple message using opposites. This time, closer than ever.

The idea consists of two stencils.

The first one can be seen at the upper left corner of this main page. The second part – Boring’s the new interesting.

They’re going to be sprayed in the city during this or the following week, so stay tuned.

And finally, Fourth – I have decided to design Tees. It’s just an idea right now, there’s still a lot of thinking, buying, testing, painting and sketching to do, but I promise, that there are going to be three new designs posted here, by the end of November.

I haven’t decided exactly what I’m pasting on the Tees... It might be an old stencil idea, it might be a completely new one or even a picture of some sort.

All of the funny, catchy and interesting ideas, that’ll burst into my mind for the next week are going to be pasted here, allowing You to see the action extra close.

The three best ones are going on my shirts. I’ll wear them for a week, deciding which is the most comfortable. ;)
I’m really eager to see, how this turns out.

So that’s it for this time, hope you enjoyed the latest reviews from [Bli:p]...

Cheers.

Eureka of Creativity

Every now and then, every artist or somebody who has a profession of somehow being creative, stumbles over this one problem.

The creation of ideas.

Of course, I, as a stand-up graffiti artist, get affected by this problem all the time. As I haven’t found the grip for my works, I can’t base my ideas ib one direction. Every time I generate ideas, I have to find something completely new, that satisfies myself and might somehow relate to everybody.

Lucky for me, one late September night, I managed to find the key of Creativity and the key for completely  astonishing ideas every time.

And lucky for you, I’m here to share it with you.

 So, you start off by learning this. Every single thing, that’s somehow catchy or original comes from being an opposite. It’s something, that’s not usual, something that you don’t get exposed to every day, or something that is completely impossible.
 And here is what you have to do, to achieve astonishing ideas.

 Pick something that’s completely random. A tree, a chair, a cup, a paper sheet, anything will do.

Then, you have to relate it with the action or thing that you usually see it with. Like, a person sitting on a chair, a cup with tea, person writing on a paper sheet, etc.

So, once you’ve got that, opposite it. For instance, replace the person with a monkey, or  fill the cup with acid. (It’s completely abstract, please don’t fill your cups with acid.) That’s the base you’ll be changing and re-arranging for quite some time.

Now, you have to change the whole idea, so it could be attractive to people. (Change the action or the thing that you opposite-ed)

You don’t wan’t it to be usual, so don’t make it really close a normal action or thing, but don’t go too far, or it’ll just look silly. Try to find the right thing, that might somehow attract everybody, or just a certain group of people.

If you stumble at this part, let me suggest a few things.

If it’s a urban, usual society, try such wide themes as Life, Art, Death, something Global, like Homelessness or global warming etc. etc. Try to talk in general terms. Don’t go too detailed, or it’ll be too hard to understand.

If it’s a general group of people, go exactly the same, just try to use something, that’s close to them. For example, if it’s a group of musicians, just try to do something, that’s related with musical instruments and so on. It’ll make them feel special, while still being interested in the whole thing.

And that’s it! By now, you should be finished with a good idea, just go out there and complete it visually.

Hope this helps!

Cheers, [Bli:p]

False Pursuit

Last night, I went out with a few of my mates to paint some suburbian bus stops.

 It was about ten o’clock, when we finally got out of the house. Pretty early for a casual painting trip, but the location seemed to be harmless, so we had no fear of some local citizens or other casualties. This time, I picked my “Attentional” stencil, as I like to call it.

Check out the pictures of the final piece and the Studio work in the links below.

As almost always, Word based, and as almost always, a message using the opposites. (I think I’ll be posting a topic about this eureka of mine.)

So, when we got in the first stop it was about thirty to 11 .

It was based near a small forest and a 3 line  “highway”. I started to paste, my mates looking for any buses or cops showing up.

Went completely fine, although some guys walked by us when i started to paste, but they didn’t seem to care.

So, next stop was pretty near by, just a hundred meters on the other side of the road. Great spot, there were always tourists trying to hitchike cars.

I started pasting, my idea was to paint the 4 base stencils first, then adding the smaller tags. I finished the 4th base, when a bus appeared. We all ran into the forest and waited for a few seconds ‘til the bus would leave.

It left and I busted out my Tag, so it could be finished.

It was the 3rd tag, when one of my mates shouted: “Police”!

And really, there it was. Just on the opposite lane, stopped at a junction, trying to turn around.

In my mind I took my chances. I finished the 4th tag and ran.

My mates were already lost in the dark, I ran right by the road for a hundred meters, then got, that I could easily hide in the forest.

I took a hard right and ran over a hill. Then, ducked and listened.

The Police car had dissapeared. I had no idea why, maybe they didn’t spot us, maybe they just understood, that there’s no way of catching us. (Luckily for us, the street lights had been turned off for the next kilometer, just leaving the junctions and the bus stops lighted.)

So I crawled out and ran by the road, just until I reunited with my mates and then split up again. To go home.

It was a bit too dangereous to appear in the same area again, those cops could be anywhere by now, even if we just tried to get on a bus and reach our next spot.

 For the review, I can say, that that was one of the fun trips I have ever had.

Taking place in an imaginary pursuit, can give you as much as adrenaline and fun as you wan’t.

If you want to check out the artwork in the Real World, here’s the exact location.

1st work –

Bauskas Highway, the stop is called Baložu Pagrieziens and is on the route of 23rd bus Abrenes iela-Baloži.

Latvia, Riga, of course.

2nd work.

Bauskas Highway, the stop is called Baložu Pagrieziens, but it’s on the route of 26th bus Abrenes iela – Ķekava.

Latvia, Riga, of course.

For other news, I have finally opened my twitter page – www.Twitter.com/MyNameIsBleep . Follow me, for some quick news and things I have found on the web.

Also, you should check out this site – www.stencilrevolution.com . It’s a great place, a lot of creative people showing their work and exchanging reviews and artworks.

Im there too, (I’m BLEEP)...

 http://yfrog.com/4xpictures003zj

http://yfrog.com/jbpictures004j 

P.S. This artwork is going to be reproducced into a completely new idea really soon. Stay tuned! ;)

Just for Starters

The very first blog of the series, introducing the yet-to-be-known street artist [Bli:p].
 I live in Riga, Latvia. It’s a small, beautiful place to live and stencil in – there aren’t many stencil artists here, but I believe there is a lot of hidden talent within many people here. The one thing I love the most in this city are the hot, dry summers and the really great people – nobody seems to give a fuck about you stencilling. I’ve pasted few stencils in broad daylight in parks and fountains and people never seemed to care or even notice me. I thank you for that, my fellow citizens.

 I believe the thing that dragged me into stencilling was one of my friends. It was back at fifth grade. We used to buy these permanent ink markers and fill our school notebooks with silly little tags, that were really just shortened names. My friends used to call himself Maro, my name was Patr. That was the moment [Bli:p] was born.

 As time passed, I found myself more and more interested into tagging, I loved the idea of throw-ups,  although back then I didn’t really know what a throw-up was. I couldn’t really draw and I had no idea of the techniques of spray painting, my first can was spent on the back of my parents garage, dripping it all, leaving my hands and clothes pitch black. It was a tough, but a very interesting start for me, it was something new and never-before experienced. Then came the two things that changed the way i looked at graffiti. The first one was a computer game of graffiti. That was the way I learned the many, many ways of street art. At the time, I didn’t see stencils would change my life forever.

 Few months later, my mother, who had grew more and more suspicious over me spraying my hands black all the time, bought me my first graffiti book. It was about the stencil artist Banksy. Back then he was not so well-known as now, but the works were as simply brilliant as nowadays I believe that made me do stencils, I really loved the idea of saying funny things, while still pointing out something that really mattered in this very simple, but beautiful way. A few weeks after that I changed my name for the second time. I became Splat, a bit more experienced artist.

 Splat was a long-lasting name for me, as I lost interest in urban art for a few years. Maro had stopped doing graffiti way back for good. I had nobody to talk about it, I had no new ideas to work on. The life of Splat ended as fast as it started – there were a few ironical stencils and tags, until it finally died a very sad, temporary death.

 Splat reincarnated with the appearance of the newborn street artist I got to know few years back. We became really close friends as the interest of street art was something very unusual in the city we lived (still live) in. Sure, we had many graffiti legends, but there were no stencil pieces, no wheat pasted stuff, all we had were throw-ups done in the best way possible. He was stencilling too, by the way. I believe that pushed me to start it all over again. I had somebody to share my ideas with and many new, interesting thoughts.

 That winter I started making small, one coloured animal stencils. I still have them somewhere, I had made a whole bunch of them - two swallows, a small deer antler, a rabbit, lady GaGa etc. I had produced almost every available CD artwork of my computer into a stencil. That was the training track for me. My skills grew with each artwork I did, they became more and more complicated, when one day I got the idea of the clapperboard piece, something I’m still proud of. It took me almost a week to produce, I couldn’t really see how to make it or what thoughts I was putting in it. Once finished, I used to lie in bed at night, thinking of the work, not understanding shit of what it says, but deep inside feeling it was something good. The moment the stencil had been sprayed onto an OSB in the garden, was when [Bli:p] appeared. The name was a very tough one for me. It took me a while to actually find the right thing for me, as everything I could rely on was my inner sixth sense. I have three completely filled notebooks with names such as Teeth, Twat and many others. It was a late night epiphany, I was deadly tired, lying on the bed, twisting my mind around the many silly possibilities, when it finally came to me. Bleep back then. It was a great relief - back then I didn’t knew of the pain the visualisation of this name would cause. After three days work I decided to pronounce myself as [Bli:p], using a very simple and easy way to do it. I certainly didn’t know of the whole picture my later work would cause, when connected to the name I was making myself.

 I believe [Bli:p] is something very rebellious in it’s own right. I don’t know if it was meant like that, or was it just a subconscious trick, but the straight forward lines and the name made me a very different street artist from most of the painters in Riga. I both intentionally and unintentionally became a minimalist, pointing out problems in peoples’ lives and the society in a very clear and understandable way. After making my first stencil of the “dangers of stencilling” called “Hitler - a graffiti artist?”, I remember thinking “Damn, this got together well”. The way I wrote [Bli:p] connected with the read-only lines as well as with the messages I tried spread. It was a way of saying “I’m saying all I want to say, no government or public media can censor me”. From that moment it progressed instantly. So, many ideas I had, so many ways of expressing yourself, it actually got me really confused for a moment or two. But that passed with a new idea I had to write down, with every single spray I made. That was, that is, and that, for sure, will be fantastic. 

- [Bli:p]