Organised by Portsmouth Climate Action Network in partnership with Portsmouth City Council the 6th annual Portsmouth Summer Fair and Picnic promises to be as popular as always with plenty of free fun for all the family. For all the information about the Portsmouth Summer Fair and Picnic please visit www.portsmouthcan.co.uk.
Photos: Sue James
Portsmouth based David and Chris from Five Star Apps UK have been in contact to tell us about their latest iPhone App called ‘Party App‘.
Party App, is the new revolution in party planning. It’s one of the only party planning apps that actually gives a large collection of unique and creative ideas for parties, appealing to many different types of people. Along with that is a fully functional Planner feature, where you can create shopping/guest lists, add info about the party and create a countdown to the day of the celebration.
In the future update, they are woking on making the app integrated with facebook, and with the contact list on the user’s phone, making it easier to invite guests to the party. Also we’ll be adding more unique party ideas to the list of 20+ ideas in the app already.
You can purchase the app for 69p on iTunes here.
We’ve been through all the answers submitted for the competition to win a hand screenprinted Jon Spencer Blues Explosion tour poster and sadly nobody guessed it right. We’re going to give it to the end of the week AND tell you the incorrect submitted answers so you can narrow it down. It isn’t Orange, Acme or Extra Width (Orange was the most popular guess).
Get your answer in quick and feel free to enter more than once if you like. Find out more about the competition HERE.
A quick reminder of the question:
Petting Zoo’s fave Blues Explosion is “Now I Got Worry” as a number of Pompey friends would know – but what is the 2nd fave?
Winner will be chosen at random from all of the right answers and will be contacted at the end of the week.
Jade Alexandra Spranklen has recently graduated Portsmouth University, she specialises in mixed media visuals and character design using 3D Illustration, collage, pen/ink, print manipulation and photographic pieces inspired by sinister, adverse and melancholic atmospheres.
Many of you will have seen Jade’s mural on the wall of Little Johnny Russell’s. She is currently working on a set of pictures highlighting the history of the London tube stations through characterisation. Below you can see Jade’s take on Shepherds Bush, Queensway and Marleybone. Once the set has been completed, she will publish them on postcards to be sold as limited edition sets.
You can see more of Jade’s work on her website spranklen.com or by following her on Tumblr, Twitter.
Portsmouth’s street art scene differs from many towns and cities. There are very few sticker slappers or taggers, even less wanna-be Banksy stencils and only a handful of Graff writers yet there seems to be an ever growing group of artists taking a less intrusive step into the street art world by putting their work into the environment as art to be found and taken home. One of the pioneers of Portsmouth’s free art movement is Los Dave who’s work I first stumbled across 5 or 6 years ago now. Whether is be sculpture or drawing, landscape or character, Dave seems to put his hand own stamp on things and use his eye and hand to turn the unseen flotsam and jetsam of the shoreline and streets into beautiful acts of street kindness. A stunning example of this is his recent birds created from abandon BBQ grills left on the beach. If you’re not lucky enough to stumble across a piece of his and fancy owning something a little bit special he has a number of pieces exhibited at the Third Floor art Space in the City Library at the moment and a few exhibitions lined up too. He is also available for commissions.
Maybe because Bonzo has quickly become such an established part of both Albert Road and the creative scene of Portsmouth and Southsea that it’s hard to believe that they will be celebrating their first birthday on Friday 4th. To celebrate their first birthday they will be opening the studio late and putting on a bunch of artistic activities plus some food and drink.
All of us at Strong Island want to wish Karl and the crew at Bonzo a very happy birthday and an even more successful second year ahead!
P.S. If you have a moment Bonzo are asking people to quickly fill out a short survey that can help then improve what they offer, click HERE to fill it out.
Kolumboo is a real gem of a site run by artist Markus Lloyd, packed full of art, writing and intrigue. I was so stoked to see the recent entry ‘Bearded Men’ and you know I appreciate a good beard. Go check it out and spend sometime drifting through the kolumboo universe.
Local designer and textile artist Rebecca Peach has an exhibition this Thursday 3rd May from 6-8pm at the Mint Tea Rooms on Castle Road. Below is a photo of Rebecca’s art and vintage clutch bags at a recent show.
For more info and pictures of her work visit: rebeccapeach.com
We have extended the competition to win a hand screenprinted Jon Spencer Blues Explosion tour poster until the end of this week. Get your answer in quick and feel free to enter more than once if you like. To be honest, few people have guessed the right answer yet so there is a great chance to win. Find out more about the competition HERE.
A quick reminder of the question:
Petting Zoo’s fave Blues Explosion is “Now I Got Worry” as a number of Pompey friends would know – but what is the 2nd fave?
If you know Spence you’ve probably got a good idea, if not, it’s a good excuse to dig out the albums and have a listen and a guess.
Winner will be chosen at random from all of the right answers and will be contacted at the end of the week.
One of Portsmouth’s most distinctive painters and artists Simon Whitcomb has a new website which features a huge amount of his work. Be sure to set aside some time to go through all the work and the different projects:
As you may know each year we run a home brew competition in February where the winning brew has the opportunity to be brewed by Irving & Co Brewing Co. and sold around the city in the summer. Last year’s brew, the Strong Island Hopper Ale, was hugely successful being one of Inving’s best selling ales and selling out so quickly it went through a second brew run. This year’s winning ale is Dry Dock No. 1, originally brewed by Lee Immins, went on sale in some of Portsmouth and Southsea’s pubs over the weekend.
We spoke to The Hole in The Wall in Southsea who said the new ale went down a storm with it being their best seller on Sunday and with almost two barrels empty by the end of the Bank Holiday weekend. Those guys at the Hole in The Wall and their regular ale drinkers know their stuff so for us this was amazing early news with the ale.
To officially launch Dry Dock No. 1 we are having a launch party with the lovely souls at The Belle Isle on Thursday evening. The ale will be on full flow, come down and try a pint or two. As well as being on sale all around the city the ale will also be available in Chichester’s Belle Isle too, so you can drink it away from home for the first time too.
Just over a year ago, a group of Strong Islanders were sat on the Isle of Wight ferry on our way to the yearly Randonnee cycling event; 60 miles around the island spread across 5 checkpoints. Whilst on the crossing we couldn’t help but admire various enthusiasts and their custom team jerseys. Fast forward a year and it is my great pleasure to unveil the Strong Island cycling jersey. Made as a one off for the event, the jersey is our way of representing this city and all the values that come with it. Thanks to the combined designing efforts of Chris Ballingall and Tristan Savage, we were able to produce this clean, retro looking jersey that 11 of Southsea’s finest could wear to conquer the island’s endless hills. Well done chaps.
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