I’m currently taking a six month long course at Malmö Univerity called Experimental Mediaproduction. A week ago me and my group performed the outcome of two weeks hard work. This documentary about the project explains it way better than I do, and I’m sure watching beats reading in this case. I must add that this probably is my favourite project I’ve been involved in since starting my studies in Malmö. If you make it to the end – let me know!
I’ve spent the past three Saturdays with my sister tracing the stencils for our upcoming paint job in Oslo. As I mentioned in part one, printing these stencils would eat up our entire budget. So we projected them onto paper and traced the designs with permanent markers. We’ve never tried this technique before but we instantly fell in love with it. The upside of tracing stencils instead of printing them, is that can’t avoid mentally cutting, layering and painting them as you go. I guess you could say that this is the ultimate way of priming yourself for a big session when working with stencils.
We’ve known the wall-sizes for a couple of weeks, but it’s not until you actually see the size of the paper you’re tracing your image onto, that you realize how big these stencils actually are. We’ve never painted stencils this big and seeing the designs right in front of you is quite a breathtaking (and sinking) feeling, partly because you know in the back of your head that each layer must align with the other. It’s easy to get lost in the image because you’re up close a lot with the markers. The resolution wasn’t that great at times so some details got a bit blurry. Smartphone with the design equals handy helper.
One of our designs pictures three workers protesting in a bar. The thought is to convey ideas of unity between workers (and people), and that you can take pride in working hard (but being off having a beer is better). We wanted signs so that we could create actual signs out of cardboard and glue them to the wall. This to make the design pop a bit, and frankly, it’s always more fun to work with different materials and textures when creating art. We used three different fonts to sell the idea that the people in the design actually made their own signs. We had a fun time sinking into the minds of the different characters. The Nick Cave-looking drunk who just showed up for the beer, the woman who wasn’t to bothered with her A’s, and the proud butcher who took the time masking his frame the proper way, with tape, putting all his effort into writing the word NO.
“Damn it Martha! All they need to see is the word NO! That says it all! The rest is just jibber-jabber. I’m not a signmaker I’m a butcher! I always write my prices large when I advertise my meat. At least I used tape when masking out my frame, not like the other two amateurs next to me who just slapped some paint on around the edges.”
– The butcher to his wife (in our heads).
All our stencils are rolled up, the paint is on its way and we’re mentally prepared to work long hours, go nuts and just have fun. So far we’re confident it will all work out fine. Let’s hope we’re right. Otherwise we’ll ruin four walls in a bar in Oslo and come home broke.
Before life was as complex as it is right now my sister and I used to paint together under the name Brohemia. Things were going quite well towards the end but as you all know, things happen (good and bad) and we just didn’t have the same time and freedom as we used to. We still did some jobs here and there but not like before. The funny thing is, Brohemia is always there, lurking in the dark like an old friendly demon you catch up with now and then – or actually, it kind of catches you. This time completely off guard.
Our old friend Peter Brobäck who started up addmorecolors.com (and turned it into a goldmine) just appeared out of nowhere, as he always does, with a massive job in hand. And as always, it was too good to pass up. So me and my sister are once again getting the spray cans, razors and markers ready for what will be the biggest job we’ve landed so far. We’re painting four walls, in an old industrial building turned into a restaurant/bar. In Oslo, Norway.
“We decided to go with Brohemia. Vi like the style and the sense of humour in the images. I don’t want to put too many guidelines down, but if they could include some beer, industrial workers and humour into the designs I’d be very happy.” – The client
Our latest animated project is an adaptation of the classic fairytale Jack and the beanstalk. The film is a part of a larger projectionmapping project in school and for our final showing it will be projected onto a miniature set which I built in my studio. We won’t be releasing the film just yet since we want to see if we can get it selected for the 2018 Pixel filmfestival, but I’ll be posting a video of our set and some of the projections soon. Until then I wanted to share the poster which I created for our film. You can follow the entire process on our instagram sketchbook found here.
