exitstencil

Well, after a month-long hiatus due to massive deadlines (September being the end-of-financial-year – although this September seems to be the end-of-finance, but enough about that) I had to start with this post.

Totally appealing to my sense of humour, Banksy quietly opened his Village Pet Store And Charcoal Grill at 89 7th Avenue between West 4th and Bleeker Street New York’s West Village.

It’s the first time that Banksy has made use of animatronics in his work and all the pieces have movement, whether it’s the swinging tail of the leopard in the window, the moving of the hot dogs in their heated vivariums, or (my personal favourite) the little chicken nuggets pecking food from their tub of barbeque sauce.

As Banksy himself says: “New Yorkers don’t care about art, they care about pets. So I’m exhibiting them instead. I wanted to make art that questioned our relationship with animals and the ethics and sustainability of factory farming, but it ended up as chicken nuggets singing. I took all the money I made exploiting an animal in my last show and used it to fund a new show about the exploitation of animals. If its art and you can see it from the street, I guess it could still be considered street art.”

It’s open now until Halloween. I really wish I could just hop on a plane and be there right now…

via the wonderful Wooster Collective

I was contacted on July 12th this year saying I was a daily prize winner in the Great Internet Balloon Race (see below), and after giving my details and sending a reminder email last week, I haven’t even received a reply, let alone a prize! And my name is even displayed on it’s page of Daily Winners! I just wonder if there are any other disappointed participants on that list.

After devoting so much time and promoting your product for so long, thanks for nothing Orange.

From the good people at Arbenting, the people who brought you 30 Tutorials That Will Teach You Illustrator and 30 Tutorials That Will Teach You Photoshop (and look out for future posts about learning Fireworks, InDesign, Flash and AfterEffects), comes an amazing post – Over 550 Photoshop Brush Packs Free For Commercial Use! As an avid collector of Photoshop brushes, I’m all over it, and so should you be! One of these days I’m going to get my brush collection organised, one of these days…

Have been busy with deadlines recently, but couldn’t help posting this!

Found on Monster Munch.

I thought I’d give a plug to the awesome Methane Studios‘ 10th Anniversary exhibition at the Alcove Gallery in Decatur, Georgia, even though there’s no chance that I’ll be there.

So why am I plugging it? Well, when I moved into a new flat in Lamma Island, Hong Kong a good few years back now, I got 6 original Methane prints ordered from the interweb and got them framed up. The bands featured were Mudhoney, Cibo Matto, Guided By Voices, Boss Hog, Superchunk and Jets To Brazil, and 2 flats on (and now living on Hong Kong Island) I still have them pride of place on my walls.

Love ‘em.

With the Beijing Olympics kicking off over here tomorrow, and Tropical Storm Kammuri finally clearing off in time for Hong Kong to host the equestrian events starting on Saturday, Addicott Web has posted an excellent list of participating countries’ web presences for the Games.

My personal favourites are both South American – for the colours of Brazil’s, and the minimalism of Argentina’s.

For the complete list, click here.

Young upstart Robert Bolesta has created a font from real minced beef, which he has hand-shaped, packaged and photographed for your delicatessan delectation.

I don’t really know how it would come in handy, but I must admit it’s offaly good… (oh, for god’s sake…)

The Hong Kong Lego User Group (HKLUG) has built an amazing Olympic City, complete with the National Stadium (”Bird’s Nest”), the National Aquatics Center (”Water Cube”), Olympic Village, and all the other associated venues. The model is made up of of more than 300,000 LEGO pieces and 4,500 figures (including a few Star Wars stormtroopers!) and really deserves a viewing.

There’s a Flickr group here with more than 50 photographs showing the real scale of it, and additional information and photos can be found at the HKLUG and also at The Brothers Brick.

It can be seen here in Hong Kong at:
Location: Grand Century Place
Date: Until 31 August 2008
Time: 10:00 – 22:00
Address: Grand Century Place, 193 Prince Edward Road West, Mongkok, Kowloon, Hong Kong, China
Email: admin@hklug.hk
Telephone Hotline: (852) 9654 1998

Oh yes, I feel your pain…

From Indian webcomic Fly, You Fools!

You can never have enough brushes or vectors, and Web Resources Depot have put together a huge list of human body parts, from silhouettes to retro to anatomy to a David Hasselhoff Vector Kit (??!!)

Grab them all here: Free Human Brush Sets And Human Vector Images