This is Now is a unique European collaborative art project, in which the public are invited to co-create an unparalleled collection of images that capture the essence of ‘now’. Those images can cover various subjects from design, fashion, architecture to street art/ graffiti, etc.

The whole project is tied together with a blog – http://www.thisisnow.eu/ - where Kai, an English blogger and passionate photograph highlights contributions from the public and providing further context on the project as it evolves.

But Kai is not the only blogger on This is Now: we’re also offering selected bloggers, and artists the chance to guest-edit the blog. For example, some of the up and coming artists who took part in the campaign This is Now have started guest blogging. David Wilson was the first artist to share his vision of ‘now’ with the readers of This is Now (http://www.thisisnow.eu/2008/11/i-know-what-youre-thinking/) ; artist Alex Turvey will follow this week while some amateur photographers and artists from all over Europe will also have a chance to share their own vision, like British-based Chris Osburn (http://www.thisisnow.eu/2008/11/hi/) and Spanish photographer Joan Mercadal (http://www.thisisnow.eu/2008/11/meeting-point/) did.

The best part of all is that they are looking for active bloggers or flickr users to get in touch with them and you guys have the opportunity to become a guest blogger on this exciting new project.

We featured MeLoDiC* on Concrete Canvas a few months back but his recent explosion of work on flickr has made me sit up and take notice. MeLoDiC is an artist with no boundaries, he works on a variety of different mediums which is refreshing and it’s nice to see an artists experimenting with different styles and tools.

I urge you guys to take a second and explore this talent artists flickr.

Links:
MeLoDic*s flickr

Sorry for the downtime earlier but we are back up now raring to provide you with the latest street art news, competitions and interviews. Thanks a lot for your patience.

Just a quick reminder to jump on and sign up in our quickly growing forum sporting several new competitions such as Character and On the street battles.

I received an email yesterday from a Norwegian fellow called Morten yesterday. He was explaining to me a new street art auction that is taking place in Norway, fortunately for most of us, the auction will be taking place on the internet and over the phone at the same time as I’m sure most of us aren’t prepared to make our way to Norway despite our love for great art. The best way I think to explain the project is to tell you what Morten said:

I work for a street paper in Norway, called Megafon. We help homeless people by giving them a job selling papers, and they keep half the coverprice, like “The Big issue” which you may know already.

We have contacted street artists around the world to gather some of their works, and will now have an auction of all these artworks in Bergen, Norway. However, we will make sure it will be possible to participate in the auction, both by phone, and by internet. For those who are interested in this, they can contact me on morten@megafon.no.

We have been promised artworks from the following artists:
Dolk, Pøbel, Rene Gagnon, Terp, Mogul, 108, Zef, El Celso, Akay, Orticanoodles, Elyasaf Kowner, Ignorancia, Dr. D, Bandit, Bonk, Nomad, Klone, Funk 25, Difusor, Jef Aerosol, Dan23, Ripo, F-codes, Mr. Mucho, Vihls, Ocosio, El Cartel, Ikkeno, Chris Stain, Know Hope, Snub, Ame 27, Beth Granter, Arofish, John Grider, Is This You?, Luke Da Duke, The lover, Rugman, Santy, Tek 13, Kinsey, Fremantle, Zevs, Kama, Goro, Specio, Dave Warnke, Mon53, Zonenkinder, Senso, Strøk, John Fekner, Royce Bannon, Sztuka Fabryka, Lunar, Veng (RWK), 3+1=4, Gaetanosk, The 5683, M-City, and SixTen.

The auction of the art is Nov. 16th, at 19:00 local time. We will make the auction available for everyone, so if someone wants info on how they can partake in the bidding, through internet or by phone, they can contact me on phone +47 90773295, or mail: morten@megafon.no and I will send them a brochure with pictures, info on the paintings, bio of the artists, and opening bid.

Some great artists have already signed up so I’m looking forward to seeing whats in the auction.

It’s a pleasure to have seen VNA magazine move from small time project to pro magazine. Although not the typical ‘glossy’, I find VNA to be inviting and a source of great inspiration. I’ve witnessed VNA move from black and white to colour and more recently, saddleback to perfect bound spine. VNA Issue 7 is a step above the rest. I sang VNA 6’s praises and yet Issue 7 has surprised me somewhat again.

Very Nearly Almost Magazine Issue 7 had a fair amount of hype surrounding it. Concrete Hermit even hosted a launch party, deservedly so. Issue 7 has moved outward and away from London. London’s street art scene is still well documented but VNA looks to capture a global audience as it crosses the pond to New York City.

The new issue is better organised than the previous outings. We find dedicated separate sections for each form of street art: graffiti, stickers, tags, stencils. Even the addition of a contents page is welcomed to helpfully navigate the growing number of pages, issue 7 contains a total of 82 pages (over double that of issue 6).

Issue 6 covered the original Cans festival and Issue 7 looks at Cans Festival Part 2. My previous comments in the Issue 6 review, criticising the vast documentation of the mainstream pieces at Cans, have to be taken back at this point (as well as a little bit of my pride) because what VNA have provided for both these events is an awesome, handy reminder of the great pieces which blessed Leake Street. However, I won’t take back that I’d like to see more of the smaller pieces :P.

Interviews with Cept, C215 and the One Trick Pony collective all come together to improve the quality of content in VNA. Artist C215 has probably had the most recognition recently of all three interviewees, and so it’s great to have his opinion and thoughts available to those who are interested (we’d love to get an interview with him in the future on Concrete Canvas). I personally love finding new artists ready and raring to express their artistic thoughts and opinions and the interview with OTP Collective gave this to me. Along with the interviews, VNA provides extensive examples of the artists’ work and style.

This A5 little wonder has developed into an essential piece of any street art lovers kit. I can only imagine how Issue 8 will turn out. Should the VNA boys decide to keep the setup of this issue for future issues, they’ll be onto a definite winner.

Links:
www.verynearlyalmost.com

Our sticker competition has now drawn to a close and our winner has been decided by the forum residents.

We are pleased to announce that we will be getting Matt Robinson’s design produced. He has won 1000 of his design too.

However, as the competition was drawn into a second round of voting due to an initial tie, we will also be getting Cleandemon’s (who came second) design produced. He will be receiving 500 of his design:

Thanks to all those that entered. Keep checking back on Concrete Canvas for more competitions.

This weeks FOTW winner has some very weird characters which look awesome on the street. Rallito X seems to reside in Spain and has work up in Barcelona. A lot of his work is quite crude and consists of a lot of fallic images (god knows what goes on in his head, then again, maybe he’s not a guy).

Anyway, he deserves flickr of the week, if you check his flickr out you’ll see what I mean. Rallito’s work seems to consist mainly of wheatpastes which looks great for his creepy, fallic monsters.

Links:

Rallito’s Flickr

As a previous FOTW winner, Farm has already been recognised on Concrete Canvas as a very talented street artist. He’s recently been busy on a new piece which we also feels recognition.

The piece above has a clean colourscheme of greens, blacks and whites and is upto Farm’s usual standard of clean lines. Farm’s unique character also makes an appearance.

We have a brand new item exclusive to the Concrete Canvas online shop.

Titled ‘Elder’ this black and white screen print by Lints looks awesome on any wall.The design is printed onto 300gsm acrylics paper and is a tidy 20″x16″.

This is limited to only 60 pieces, all Signed and numbered. At all £25 this is a steal. Shipping is free.

Click here for the screenprint.

If you haven’t already, don’t forget to buy one of our charity t-shirts we are selling for Cancer Research. Two awesome design on quality t-shirts. If you got the cash, buy both :P.

Little is known of Disaster Strikes except their work is extremely detailed and fantastic to see - even if it is through a computer screen I can only imagine what it must look like in person.

Disaster Strikes has some new halloween inspired pieces fresh up today:

Working with a variety of mediums, Disaster’s forte seems to lie with wheatpastes.