Part of my Camden Text series. Hand-painted flags on A4 size paper with hand-written text glued on. These are all individually hand painted, there's no printing involved. The text is initially written in Sharpie permanent marker, then gone over in Posca pen. This is because none of the Posa nib sizes suit the work. The big Sharpie W10 is the perfect nib size, but the Posca's have the bold dense colour, so I use one on top of the other.
The above four are the first four, and only ones I've finished. They don't include the Portugal flag as it only occured to me later to do one for Portugal. Zombie, who sits opposite my display speaks Portugese as he's Brazilian. I think all the other South American countries speak Spanish, but for some reason Brazilians speak Portugese. I also get quite a lot of Portugese tourists. There's a mistake in the French one, as I missed out two crucial words, meaning it makes no mention of the interview. I've corrected this on the other French ones.
The paper's 160gsm acid free. The paint's cheap acrylic layered on two or three times. I prefer multiple layers of thin paint for these, rather than using the expensive Lascaux's, as the cheap paint never goes on evenly, so you get pretty good density without it being totally flat colour, which often ends up almost indistinguishable from a print. These look like solid colour at first glance or from a distance, but you can tell are real paintings when you get up close. The same goes for the double written text.
The white on the painting above is PVA glue. It dries transparent, protects the work and gives it a gloss finish. I think it's recommended to dilute 50% with water to stop it yellowing so much over time, but I don't. I like the yellowing old artworks get. The sooner the better.
The idea for the flag series was initially so people who see my Camden Market Free Art Man display can understand what's going on, even if they can't speak English. Alan, the town crier who helps attract the market crowds to my artwork by ringing his bell and ordering them to take it, suggested this months ago. It was also Alan who suggested I wrap my display around both sides of the bridge and use the nearby wall to put my posters on. I'm glad he likes the poster as he always seems to know what works and what doesn't. Here it is:
I'll put the flags on the bridge where I have my free art display. They'll also be available to take as artworks. The first batch has about 20 flags so far. The countries are France, Germany, Spain, Portugal and Italy. I'll probably add more countries in the next batch.
The signage I take to Camden is as, if not more, popular than the figurative paintings of similar size. Maybe because they're on stretched canvas and the figurative's are on cardboard, but I don't think entirely. As artworks, I don't like them any less than my figurative paintings. Since doing The Camden Market Free Art Man I've been getting more and more into super simple pop art, and less interested in making my usual figurative expressionist type paintings.
