I-SAW ROCK LINCOLNSHIRE!

Friday 10th of August saw the well attended opening of "See It!", Lincolnshire's eclectic groupshow of designer/ makers. Surprising the locals with their edgier but well received contribution was I-Saw, showing one Menswear piece, two Womenswear pieces and a pair of "Engraviti" Dunks. Making an impression on the East Midlands until 23rd of September, at the Roof Gallery, The Hub:National Centre for Craft & Design, in Sleaford, Lincolnshire.

I-SAW'S CHUM101 IN "ANOTHER GROUPSHOW"

This Thursday, 16th of August, sees the launch night of "Another Groupshow", at the Old Shoreditch Station, East London. This is the latest "Dilly" Fanzine related show, curated by Dilly creator, PMH (check ledilly.com, for more on his topclass DIY publication). Seeing as the Iguapop gallery in Barcelona, flew him out there to do the last one, that should tell you to expect nothing less than a superb selection, of the best that the international Graffiti/ Street Art and related graphics/ ilustration scene has to offer. Not only that but I-Saw's own, Chum 101 has a piece included and as an added bonus will also be playing choice specimins from his curious recordbox of delights, on the opening night, between the hours of 9 and 10, so you know where to be, right!.

Hand Stitched Plush of Seemore, The Shopkeeper of The I-Saw Curiosity Shop

Used a different technique here than previous I-Saw plushes, rather than being a stuffed toy, or fabric skin sewn onto foam over a wireframe skeleton (like the DR & Quinch characters, which I produced for the "Zarjaz" 2000AD exhibition) instead I sculpted him straight out of a block of foam and then sewed fabrics on for his skin and clothes. Pulling tight stiches to define the form and surface detail means really the process is closer to upholstering than traditional stuffed toy construction.

Here's a shot of the 2000AD character plushes which I referred to.

Hand Drawn I-Saw Throw Ups Customisation on Nike Paper Jacket

Here's something we did a little while back, it's us customising nike again but the first time we've worked on something of their's other than footwear. We just found it again recently and got some better shots of it, it's left us wishing we'd sat on a stash of these, because the paper fabric works really well for straight hand drawn customisation. We've been planning something further on the theme of customised windbreakers, so watch this space.

FRESHNESS FOR THE FRESHEST KIDS!

Inspired again to create a wearable work of art for our little son, allbeit to grow into, we hand painted the back of this Levi denim jacket, in the Old School tradition. It says "Little Big Man", after one of our favourite movies and again we can undertake similar work on commission. Hope you like it!

BIG BIDNESS:THE DON OF THE WHOLE I-SAW FAMILIA

We just found this fella again, we did him a couple of years back and had him framed up in our booth/ installation space at a few tradeshows. We felt that, with the map charting plans for world domination, he'd be quite at home here at I-Saw The World.

CRIB KICKERS: BABY CUSTOM TRAINERS/ SNEAKERS

We've been meaning to test our footwear customisation skills on a pair of baby shoes for awhile now and when we got this pair of white canvas pumps for our little boy, it was on!! Keeping it nice and simple, clean and graphic, we stuck with adding black ink I-Saw Throw Up designs, in positive and negative repeat. Definately be dropping some more of these in the future, plus any parents with a taste for the original will be able to get a pair done for their little one.

THE BIRTH OF I-SAW ENGRAVITI

This is actually the very first pair of I-Saw customs that we did with the hand engraving techique, before we came up with the term "Engraviti", to describe the process, or "Sneakouture" as a name for all the trainer customisation. They date back to the very beginning of 2004 and people still haven't caught up, see how ahead of the game we are! We had first tried the technique on a few belts and handmade accessories, as far back as 2002 but didn't immediately make the connection to using it for footwear. We then started researching laser cutting, initially more as a technique for use on our clothing fabrics, when we got aproached by a major bootwear company for a collaboration, we thought to ourselves what if it could work on leathers but decided not to let the cat out of the bag, so to speak, until the project was confirmed. Unfortunately that project didn't make it past the first couple of planning meetings, so we still had our plan under wraps. But great minds think alike and great minds with limitless budgets always get there first, obviously, so we were a tad miffed when Nike beat us to the punch, about 6 months later (I guess it was about the end of 2003) when they bought out the first of their laser etched series. This prompted us to perfect our earlier hand done technique which is still to this day mistaken for the work of machines but is in fact all the work of our own fair hands. Incidentally this pair are also going up for sale on our website very shortly.

EDIBLE BREADABLE: ULTIMATE BAKES & TREATS

What ho folks! We've been up to our crazy kitchen antics again, this time getting busy with the bread dough. Why is it that bread and dough are euphamisms for money? wouldn't it be nice if we could all get our finances to expand in the oven, or I guess that's what they call cooking the books! LOL. Anyway, I digress, so we decided it was about time for some bread sculpture, the only type of edible art I had done before, years ago mind. I chose the I-Saw outline and I-Saw Bud outline that appear in our Vine print and which I thought would lend themselves particularly well to the medium. I was right and pretty chuffed with the results, although they probabaly looked better before baking, as I had the oven too hot and they got a bit overdone. Used a ready made breadmix, which was Parmesan & Sundried Tomato flavour and was reet tasty like! Serving sugestion, with a lovely homemade Pea, Lettuce and Mint Soup, as shown. Definately be coming back to the bread in the near future, it worked well with my letter style and next time I might try making the dough from scratch, so here's to making some dough sometime soon, in more ways than one!.

Currently listed on ebay, is this pair of I-Saw Engraviti Customised Premium Dunks, at a promotional starting price of £175 (these usually go for £300). Engraviti is an exclusive hand engraving technique, of our own invention and just one part of the I-Saw Sneakouture footwear customisation range, check out the latest press featured on www.sneakerfreaker.com.

BABY CUSTOMS

Nothing inspires us more than our little baby boy, so we've decided to create a few little exclusive one off, extra special custom items for him. Getting back to embroidered applique, which we haven't done for awhile, it all started with a baby "Cheech Wizard" hoody, which some of you may've seen already, on the Mark Bode feature which opened our Seemore Bemore blog. Then we've just finished a baby parka, featuring I-saw Throw Ups and one of his and our favourite characters, the cat in the hat. We're pretty pleased with the result and will be offering the customisation service on our website, so there will be plenty more where these came from!

THE LATEST THAT WE ATEST: TOP TO BOTTOM PIE-SAW

Here's a bit more Edible Graffiti, in the form of last nights dinner, before and after baking shots of the Top 2 Bottom Whole Pie!
It's my mum's Tuna Fish Pie recipe and it rocks!!

WOMENS SNEAKERS

I-SAW ENGRAVITI CUSTOM ADIDAS GAZELLE - THE VINE UP EDITION



The beautiful Premium Leather of the seamless one-piece Limited Edition Adidas Gazelle has been given the I-Saw Engraviti Makeover. Subtler in contrast to the Nike Engraviti Customs, this pair have been embellished with the hand engraved "I-Saw Vine" artwork. The tasteful refinement and smaller sizing of the shoe is aimed at giving the ladies a little slice of the "Engraviti" action.

We felt it was about time we went back to dropping some "Engraviti" skills on some Adidas, as we hadn't done since some of the first pairs and the majority of examples were on Nikes. For a while we've been wanting to introduce a little something for the ladies in the footwear department and seeing as Womens Sneaker/ Trainer Customisation is all too rare a thing: witness the first Engraviti Sneakouture for Women. Hand Engraved on the Adidas Originals Limited Edition Gazelle in seamless leather, that was out last year. The "Vine" pair are currently for sale on our webshop, one-offs in a UK 5.

BISCUITS, THROW UP COOKIES

Greetings and welcome to Instalment 2 of I-Saw's Incredible Edible Graffiti slot.

We got busy with some straight up Strictly Biscuits, Cookie Crew in effect. "It's all about making dough, Yo!"

Some half baked shit" - 'Unfinished Biscuits'

The final article complete with chocolate and hundreds and thousands fill in. "Biscuits never personal" I.S.A.W


Time for Chum to chow down!!

I-SAW LIMITED EDITIONS

Check EBAY for I-Saw Limited Editions. To link with the grand opening of the I-Saw Curiosity Shop we have a few promotional sales posted up on ebay. Archive pieces from the I-Saw collection which will include samples, one-offs and limited editions.

So if you want something original get on EBAY and not only grab yourself a bargain but an original art peice from the I-Saw Collections.

I-SAW CURIOSITY SHOP

This month sees the arrival of the I-Saw Curiosity Shop online store, for Fashion, Customisation, Sneakers, Art, Toys and the undefined curios. If you have not checked it out yet, its worth a look as you never know what you might find!

Heres just a few items to tempt your curiosity.
http://www.i-sawcuriosityshop.com

I-SAW EASTER EDIBLES

Paying homage to us starting our blog arising Easter time, we decided to do a little confectionary sculpture. Hope you enjoy our homemade I-Saw logo character, who's name is Seemore, and his missus who's name is Bemore, soon to start in their own blog. He is made of icing and she is white and dark chocolate truffle mixture. We also created an icing version of our I-Saw Throw Up lettering motif.

This is just the tip of the Iced Battendburg, so watch this space as we will being doing a regular "Edible Grafitti" slot.

NIKE FESTIVAL OF AIR

I-Saw were part of Nike's Festival of Air exhibition at Nike Town, London where they exhibited three pairs of specially prepared Air Max 1's, also performing a live 'Engraviti' customisation demonstration. Taking the original year of release, 1987, as the theme, the immortalisation of the three definative Hip Hop album releases of that year became the focus for the applications. Hence the creation of a "Eric B & Rakim- Paid In Full" pair, a "Boogie Down Productions- Criminal Minded" pair and a "Public Enemy- Yo! Bumrush The Show" pair. A much applauded contribution to the show, at the opening their praise was sung especially from Musos in attendance, such as Nelle Hooper, Dizzee Rascal and The Herbaliser's Ollie Teeba.
See http://www.i-sawcuriosityshop.com, for more on I-Saw "Sneakouture" and "Engraviti" trainer customisation.

SNEAKOUTURE

The original techniques and high end craft work of our footwear cutomisation has attracted a lot of attention, not least from a number of brands who have wanted to work with us. The 1st pair of trainers we did with our engraving technique which we first used on belts 2 years previous, were a pair of leather antique finish Adidas Stan Smiths, which we created for our "Alphabet Alchemy" installation at Dream Bags Jaguar Shoes in Shoreditch at the beginning of 2004. Hot on the heals of this we created the first custom with this technique in what would become a limited run of Nike Curry Dunk Hi Premiums which were swiftly snapped up by the Sneaker Pimps International travelling custom sneaker exhibition.

Much of the I-Saw Customisation is focused on what we have named "Sneakouture", high end hand crafted Sneaker/Trainer embellishment. Exclusive techniques such as "Engraviti" (hand engraved leather graffiti) have put I-Saw soaring head and shoulders above the competition. This has led to accolades in the worldwide press and commissions from RBK's flagship store in Beveryly Hills, A Life's Rivington Club Trainer Boutique in New York, The Timberland Boot Company's original store in London' East End and most recently as a major part of Nike's Festival of Air.

CUSTOMISATION

I-Saw grew out of creating customised one off peices and is still very much active in this area. As enthusiasts of recycling and all things enviro-friendly we love breathing new life into older items, or just creating with work of such time invested craftsmanship that the items demand to be loved and treasured for life. We aim for a timeless quality that is an antidote to the throwaway nature of most modern products. Aside from the "Sneakouture" element we also customise just about everything else that people request. Some quality leather items can also receive the "Engraviti' treatment, which can be seen on much of our trainer work but we also draw, paint, dye, embroider, applique, quilt and even bead on the right item, for the right price.