Case closed

The mystery paster has been found!!

Well... turns out it's two people; VoidOne is responsible for these:

And Nicola Rose is responsible for these:

Thanks to Slobs (art guru) for sharing the knowledge, I can now sleep at night.

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On to business; the streets have been decorated by Hijak85 from Rotten this week, saw him out pasting Green Street but didn't go and introduce myself; pasters are skittish creatures.

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C3 and the Rebel Gunslingers have been spreading the love for Valentines with glitter in their paste buckets and hearts all round:

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P.S PTP's back in town! Prepare for the ducky invasion!

Toasted

The biggest and best addition to the streets this week came from Insa who visited Brum and painted a massive mural at the Custard Factory:

Yayyyy!

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Another mystery paster has appeared, but they've found me! The Hores created this pastey goodness:

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Lisk was in the Birmingham Mail this week (31st Jan). Don't worry, he's not been arrested; a photo of his paste on Floodgate Street was the 'Reader's Picture':

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On Wednesday, I stood in the cold in Wolverhampton for 2 hours to get my hands on 1 of 20 Toaster popcorn boxes and then watch their film 'Everywhere', there was some tweeting (@gutter_floozy) during this:

The film itself was about half an hour of elegantly and artistically (but not pretentiously) showing the Toaster's different ways of getting up, literally everywhere. The film shows their journey from the beginning in Wolverhampton with hand-drawn stickers, to the banners at football matches, to painting a giant toaster on the road during the Tour de France and how they've constantly reinvented the Toaster image to keep it in people's heads. With fond and humorous interviews from the likes of D*face and Space3; the Toaster love was pretty evident on screen and in the room. The screening also meant an opportunity for some Brummy street artists to get drunk together; Lisk, Mew, Tempo33, C3, the Rebel Gunslingers and Vomit were all spotted being a bit rowdy (apologies to the pub and the train that got covered in stickers).

FAHQMT on the train, also spotted with Wah on Floodgate Street:

Detective progress

So last week was an unofficial, early Christmas holiday for the blog but this week we're back to normal!

...Well, I'm not actually in Birmingham at the moment because it was essential that I helped decorate Christmas cakes with my mother/mess about with icing:

So, street art... I have some development on the mystery paster from a few weeks ago:

Tempo33 has 10 videos on YouTube of Birmingham street art from 2008 and 2009 (as well as videos of him pasting in Amsterdam and whatnot), they're an interesting watch to see what was around in Birmingham 3 years ago, some work is still on the streets now but the main reason I'm plugging them is because the mystery paster appears in a couple of them:

Tempo has also said that he knows the mystery paster and he lives in Birmingham but he won't tell me his name. I've tried comparing the 'shouts' at the end of Tempo's videos with the mystery paster to see which of the names I don't recognise come up on them all and I think he could be 'Wanted' but I can't read all the 'shouts' because the fonts are pants and 'Wanted' is such a common word it's impossible to Google 'Wanted street artist' and find what I'm looking for.

So hopefully after whining about it on here; Tempo will bow to public pressure and I won't have to go out knocking on doors and putting up 'Are you the mystery paster?' signs.

An artist I do know is Vomit, who appears in one of Tempo's videos from 2008!

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I've decided to start doing proper interviews with local artists for the blog, probably while having tea and cake or maybe by email if I'm feeling lazy. The first interviewees will be The Rebel Gunslingers because they're my new favourite paster propagandists (and because they drew a hard-looking bear that loves me and pasted it up round the corner from my house):

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Finally a bit of street art hilarity from New Zealand; two taggers were caught vandalising a couple's fence and were forced to dance (while being filmed) until the police arrived. Of course it is now on YouTube for your viewing pleasure:

'When Brum goes calm, it means big things are soon to come'

A very quiet week, the Boards of Fame are crying out for some fresh paste activity; don't they look sad!

As Mr Tempo33 says though 'When Brum goes calm, it means big things are soon to come'. 

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There has been a little bit of activity from Philth, PTP and I've put a few stickers up (mostly 6TWO4's).

Philth (Custard Factory, Gibb Street, Digbeth)

PTP (outside Subside, City Centre, Birmingham

6TWO4 (High Street, Digbeth)

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Local mystery! Over the past few weeks, Chinese symbols have been appearing in Digbeth that appear to be painted with a brush not a can. Who is the Chinese tagger??

Zen Ice Cream Van, High Street, Digbeth

Alcester Street, Digbeth

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Sticky Missions is still going and the stakes have been repeatedly raised over the week. Here are my favourite missions of the week:

 Vole

14 - Make your character into your favourite super-hero or villain

 6TWO4

19 - Draw your character on a jigsaw

Case

25 - Get an old photo frame, draw your character in it and install it as high as you can 

Case

26 - Make a sticker using just glitter

 

Mosa

28 - Sticker at the beach

 

 6TWO4

33 - Remake a film poster/dvd cover with your character

Vomit

36 - Make a sticker of your favourite animal and put it up in a zoo

Vomit

42 - Make a fake food or drink label and replace labels of legitimate products in shops

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I've got myself up to 35 Sticky Missions points this week, here are my favourite efforts:

 3 - Do a 25 sticker combo

 8 - Make a home-made stamp and use it to create 25 stickers

(My stamp was pieces of wool glued to card in a crown shape, made a really nice textured stamp)

 9 - multi point task ---- stick 1 of your stickers on:
-- fire department property

 16 - Make a piece of clothing with your character on and take a picture of you wearing it out in public 

29 - Make a zine

38 - Make a potato stamp with your character or tag and use it on the street

I have plans in motion to have at least another 9 points by next post, the competition has been really good for giving me new ideas of how to rework my character and do slightly daring things and now I really want to win!

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If you fancy watching a few of the local vandals doing their thing in a legal setting come down to Subside from about 8ish on Wednesday 10th August. PTP will be relocating down south the weekend after so come say farewell to one of the most active artists in the area, I'll be in the corner with a pint quietly weeping for the loss of Malcom the dog, duckies in various costumes and mushrooms.

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Links

Tempo33 Flickr

Tempo33 Facebook

Philth Flickr

PTP Flickr

6TWO4 Flickr

6TWO4 Facebook

Vole Flickr

Case Flickr

Mosa Flickr

Vomit Flickr