Jim's travels

Into Laos

Oct 9, 2019Oct 9, 2019 by theholmesteader, posted in International, Laos, Travel

I’ve had a great few days here in Laos, it really is a beautiful country and the people are so friendly. Since leaving Chiang Mai, I have visited the strange but beautiful white temple, crossed the border into Laos, taken a 2-day slow boat voyage down the Mekong River, visited and stayed in Ban Thanoune, a traditional Lao village, we were greeted by the village elders, who performed a welcoming ceremony with chants and songs, all of the elders then tied a cotton cord around our wrists and gave us gifts and a couple of shots of their homemade spirit, typical firewater to say the least! We then spent the night sleeping in a villagers rather spartan home, which was very interesting and something to remember.

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We then continued South to Luang Prabang where we stayed for 2 days, which gave me the chance to visit an organic farm where they taught us how to cultivate and use traditional ‘sticky rice’, it was great fun messing around in the paddy fields. We then visited the spectacular Kuang Si waterfall to have a swim in the beautiful blue lakes and to visit the bear rescue sanctuary in the park.

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I am currently in Vang Vieng, supposedly the Lao party town, I’m using my time here to rest a bit and recharge my batteries for the next stage of the trip.

Chiang Mai

Oct 4, 2019 by theholmesteader, posted in International, Thailand, Travel

Chiang Mai was a great place to visit, and I did loads during the time we were there. We ate some great food, went to a Thai boxing contest, saw a Lady Boy cabaret show and had a day in an elephant sanctuary, where we fed, bathed and washed the elephants and rolled around in the mud with them. There was also some good street art on display in the city.

Bangkok to Chiang Mai

Oct 2, 2019 by theholmesteader, posted in International, Street Art, Thailand, Travel

I have now left Bangkok on the next stage off my trip. I met up with the rest of our small group, and last night we took the night train to Chiang Mai in the North of Thailand. The journey was interesting to say the least.

The train was very clean and efficiently run and shortly after we left Bangkok an attendant changed or seats into reasonably comfortable beds, however I didn’t get much sleep during the night.

Now that we are out of Bangkok and are in the more rural north, I hope to see more of the true Thailand. I did discover that they quite like street art in Chiang Mai, but it was a bit unfortunate that I was too late to take a Bicycle Tour around it when we arrived, I did manage to find some during my walk around town though.

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Bangkok

Sep 29, 2019Sep 29, 2019 by theholmesteader, posted in International, Street Art, Thailand, Travel

At the start of this year’s big trip, I arrived in Bangkok an was picked up and taken to my hotel, which is near the middle of the tourist area of Khaosan road. As expected it is very warm and humid.I expect to take plenty of photographs while here and I will only post one or two on the blog, leaving the rest for a dedicated page on the site later.I did find a little piece of street art outside my hotel, it has quite a simple style.

Yardworks – The Arches

Sep 25, 2019 by theholmesteader, posted in Glasgow, Street Art

I recently took a trip down to see how the Arches Project at SWG3, was coming along, it was a really sunny day and it was good to meet up with Gaz, Dan, Barry, Smug, and the rest of guys working away. As usual, I took plenty of photographs, some from the narrow pavement beside the arches and some from across the Expressway.

Some pieces are completed, however many of the pieces are still to be finished and there are a couple of arches yet to be started. Most artists were assigned one arch, but Smug and the Cobolt Collective were each given 2, looking at what has been done to date on them they are making full use of the expanded space.

I was highly impressed with the work so far, but as I’m getting ready to disappear for a wee while, I’ll just have to wait to see the finished articles on my return.

Smug

Balstroem

Voyder

Sledone

Michael Corr

Conzo and GlobelC

Inkie

Box Vincent

Reaoner

Cobolt Collective

Mark Worst

Barry the Cat

Shona Hardie

Welinoo

Sapien

A day at the races

Sep 17, 2019 by theholmesteader, posted in Street Art

An interesting day on Sunday, I headed East to Knockhill Racing Circuit with my mate Jim to see the British Touring Car Championships, we were presented with a great days racing made all the better for the nice weather.

In addition to the three BTCC Car races, there was a superb support line-up featuring Renault Clio, Ginetta and British F4 Championship racing.

After the racing, we headed over to Cowdenbeath to see the new mural by Fife artist Kerry Wilson. The spectacular new mural of a local girl fills a gable end of a building in the centre of the town. Kerry’s work certainly adds colour to the town and adds to the similar-sized mural of a miner Boy I photographed earlier in the year.

I really enjoy visiting Cowdenbeath, in addition to the large scale murals she creates in the town, Kerry, assisted by the local school pupils, has also produced some striking pieces of shutter art which really brightens up the High Street after the shops close, I think I may have to create a new section of the site devoted to shutter art.

Arch Project

Sep 14, 2019Sep 14, 2019 by theholmesteader, posted in Glasgow, Street Art

I took a trip to SWG3 today to see how Yardwork’s Arch Project is progressing, it was really great to see a new piece by Inkie, the London based painter and street artist, originally from Bristol. much as I love Rogue-One’s masterpiece for this year’s Yardworks, I was a wee bit sad to see Inkie’s Glasgow Girls go, his piece on the Arch is almost a homage to the original. New works from OhPanda, Sledone, and Voyder have been added during the week and add to Mark Worst’s beautiful unfinished artwork I photographed last week.

On the way there I stopped off to see the Cobolt Collective’s 20-metre high piece for this Year’s Open Doors at Brown Street near the Broomielaw, This and the work completed last week at SWG3 with the Design Kids, a group of recently qualified design students, is up to the usual standard expected from the Cobolt crew, I really love their style.

Berlin updated

Sep 12, 2019Sep 12, 2019 by theholmesteader, posted in International, Street Art, Travel

I’ve eventually managed to upload most of the large number of photographs of the street art I captured while in Berlin, you can see them all here. There are images from all around the city, there are so many more I missed, so I guess I’ll have to go back at some point.

Back in Glasgow

Sep 8, 2019Sep 14, 2019 by theholmesteader, posted in Glasgow, Street Art

When I returned from Berlin I had to return to my old employer for a few days, so I was unable to get the blog and site updated. Whilst out and about on Saturday, I popped into SWG3 for a coffee and spotted the Cobolt Collective passing on their skills to a bunch of design kids fresh out of Uni and a couple of new pieces, one that stuck out was one by Mark Worst on the first of the Arches facing the expressway, I’m not sure if he has finished it yet, but it does look impressive and up to his usual standard. Whilst going into the city, I stopped on Cathcart Road to see a nice wee mural on the back wall of the Hampden Bowling Club pavilion commemorating a Scottish defeat of England at Hampden Park on March 11th 1882, Scotland won that match 5-1.

I have now updated the pages and they can be seen here, Travel Blog and Street Art I have yet to upload all of the images I took whilst I was away.

Berlin Day 5

Sep 3, 2019 by theholmesteader, posted in International, Street Art, Travel

A much quieter and relaxing day today, I discovered an app which showed a great number of Berlin’s mural and how to get to them, using the time left tome I went out into the suburbs at the Western Edge of the city to see and photograph the large scale murals at Tegel, 8 murals by artists such as Fintan Magee, PixelPancho, The London Police Borondo and Herakut. The works are on the ends of 4 high rise buildings situated near Lake Tegel and it was nice just sitting, soaking up some sunshine by the lake. Back in the city I caught some more photographs from my list before returning to the accommodation to have a rest and to pack my case for the morning.

I finished off the day by going up the TV Tower in Alexanderplatz, which was OK, but not the most impressive tower I’ve been to recently. A nice meal and a beer, in the Standige Vertretung Restaurant topped of a good day.