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Tuesday 25 June 2013

Our Neighbourhood

Alternative London is proud to announce its involvement in this years' 'Our Neighbourhood' project.

We'll be teaming up with the Red Gallery to offer free workshops to the pupils of local school, St. Monica's. All of the kids will have the opportunity to create a piece of stencil and spray-paint art.

Each stencil will be used to create a large scale mural at the school's summer fete. After the event, the piece will be displayed alongside a busy East London street - outside the Red Gallery and Alternative London H.Q - amongst some of the world's finest street art.


The project creates an important link between East London's creative businesses and local children.

We'll update more info in due course.


Monday 24 June 2013

Alternative London Bus Gets A Summer Makeover

To mark the summer opening of the Red Market - where our converted double decker is based - we decided to give our H.Q a splash of seasonal paint. 

The first task was to clean the windows after the bus was previously used as part of Jo Peel's Pipe Dreams animation.  


Next step was a couple of coats of white paint. 


Then the fun began with some acrylic paint bombs...


and continued with the super-soaker. 


Next up we pierced a few spray-cans to get some big splashes of colour. 


Then the task of tying it all in and blending the colours together. 


The final piece. 


Job done. It probably won't win any beauty contests - but it was bloody good fun! 

Monday 17 June 2013

Certificate of Excellence 2013

We're proud to announce that Alternative London has received the Trip Advisor Certificate of Excellence for the second year running!


This prestigious award is in recognition of Trip Advisor's top ten percent rated businesses in the world. We'd like to say a huge thank you to everyone that has taken one of our tours or workshops over the last year - especially those who have taken the time to give us such positive feedback afterwards. 

Our guides and staff have worked incredibly hard to make sure that their tours and workshops are the best they can be and it's fantastic to be recognised for this. Here's to another great year and with more hard work and a bit of luck, who knows - maybe three years in a row... 

Big thanks from the team at Alt Ldn. 

 

Thursday 13 June 2013

New Phlegm Book

This week we received the much anticipated new book from one of our all-time favourite artists, Phlegm. The book is a collection of pen and ink drawings with each cover hand printed and embossed by the artist himself. You might recognise a lot of the pictures from walls that the Sheffield based illustrator has painted over the past few years.

At just £25 we feel the book is an absolute bargain. Due to his increasing popularity, Phlegm's prints and comics sell out extremely quickly these days, so he decided to print an extra large edition of this book and keep it affordable to make sure his fans could get a copy.

Despite this - and due to a technical issue which has halted sales for several weeks - we noticed some copies going up on eBay for around £180. Please don't get sucked in and give these greedy people your hard earned cash. Wait a few weeks and make sure the money goes to the right person - the artist.

All in all, this is a real treasure and one of the best things we've purchased in a very long time.



Friday 7 June 2013

D*FACE - New World Disorder

Last night we popped down to the opening of D*Face's amazing new show - New World Disorder - the last  to be held at his Stolen Space gallery before they move premises. Not only is the sheer volume and variety of work on offer breathtaking, it also offers a once in a lifetime chance to have a peek into the artists studio.

As huge D*Face fans we were pleasantly surprised to be given a free print and coin - a testament not only to his generosity but to the spirit of freely giving his art to the people. Amazing.

Here's a few shots, but we strongly advise checking it out for yourselves.

The Studio

The Coin

One of The Pieces

D*Face Baloons 

D*Face Etched Paving Slab


 

New Ben Slow Wall

It's been a busy few weeks for Alternative London guides, Ben Slow and Doug Gillen. When they weren't blowing people away with their amazing tours, Ben teamed up with Jim McElveney to paint a huge wall. This was part of a project by Fifth Wall - a video company run by Doug. You can find out more on Doug's blog: http://www.tumblr.com/tagged/doug%20gillen

Here's some pics:




Thursday 6 June 2013

Broken Fingaz Paint Bacon Street

Yesterday afternoon our friend Hin popped by with Unga from the amazing Broken Fingaz - currently over from Israel and looking for a wall to paint. We had a wall in mind on Brick Lane that hadn't seen anything new for a couple of years and as we know the owners we thought it would be perfect for the dimensions they wanted to paint.

We caught up with the guys as they got going on the piece.


With so many artists these days trying to please everyone and concentrating so much on 'hits & likes' it was really refreshing to see someone painting with no regard for consequence or praise for the piece. It is what it is, like it or not - it's what he felt like painting at the time and we have maximum respect for that. 


In progress, scenes are taken from their Supersex zines. The final piece is sure to raise a few eyebrows. Who knows how long it will last, but isn't that the whole point?


Hi

Hi, thanks for dropping by! With so much interesting and exciting stuff going on around the Alternative London H.Q at the moment, we decided it's about time to start documenting some of it and sharing it with you.