Jest Soubirquet, Frome Side, Bristol, January 2025
When I see pieces like this one from Jest Soubriquet (@likes12_art), I wonder how incredible our brains are at normalising and making sense of a patchwork of colour (all the wrong colours) to build an image of a tiger. Our capacity to ‘fill in the blanks’ is awesome.
Jest Soubirquet, Frome Side, Bristol, January 2025
Equally awesome is Jest Soubriquet’s ability to paint a tiger portrait in a multitude of colours, and he has done a superb job in this challenging spot underneath the M32. I always find it interesting that artists come here to paint, because footfall is practically zero, and these pieces won’t be seen by many people. Perhaps this simply emphasises the point that many street artists paint for the pure joy of it.
January is usually quite a quiet month for street/graffiti art, with activity building into the spring and summer months. However, this year it was an incredibly busy month, and I still haven’t posted more than half of the pictures I took – unfortunately they will likely not see the light of day, unless get more capacity to post in years to come (a retirement project?).
Hire, Cumberland Basin, Bristol, January 2024
This rich piece of writing is by Hire, one of my favourite graffiti writers in Bristol, and spells out BF, although I am not entirely what it stands for. Set on a dark background, the letters are painted in black (blue-black?), with fine midlines in red. The sumptuous red border and drop shadow (in a slightly different tone of red) round off this very attractive work.
Neddy Ned Neddy, M32 Cycle path, Bristol, January 2025
This outstanding, colourful piece by Neddy Ned Ned was painted as part of a paint session celebrating Jaksta’s birthday. Although I was present to watch him paint some of this piece, he was a little bit too preoccupied to stop for a chat, and having never met him before, I didn’t want to interrupt him.
Neddy Ned Neddy, M32 Cycle path, Bristol, January 2025
This really is a top-drawer piece of wildstyle graffiti writing. The letters spell out Wiska and are filled with a quite superb blended yellow, orange and red colour combination which has a marble effect, really clever. The contrasting blue and black drop shadow has a vanishing point in the centre of the piece. The letters burst out of the wall and bedazzle.
This is yet another piece from the very well-attended birthday RBF paint jam in honour of Desi and Even back in January. It is a fabulous portrait piece by the lovely Pekoe. It has been a relatively quiet winter for Pekoe, but I am pleased to report she has definitely become more active this side of Christmas.
Pekoe, Sparke Evans Park, Bristol, January 2025
This portrait is beautifully finished, with superb tight lines, fills and borders. I am particularly struck by the white highlights that complete the piece superbly, on the lips, the eyes and most significantly adding a shine to the hair. The theme for the paint jam was Studio Ghibli, a Japanese animation outfit, and I don’t know if the spiders have anything to do with that or whether they are simply random additions. The other character to the left is part of Bbygwya’s adjacent combination piece.
Zed in the Clouds, St Werburghs, Bristol, January 2025
Only a few days ago I posted a piece by Zed in the Clouds and said at the time that he was hugely underrepresented on this blog, so as part of remedying that gap, here is a recent piece by the artist in St Werburghs tunnel, which is rather larger than his usual offering.
Zed in the Clouds, St Werburghs, Bristol, January 2025
This combination piece features his familiar character donning a red bucket hat and the letters ZED. Both parts of the combination are filled with a cream tone that is draped in a mass of colour streaks that look like scribbles from a child’s drawing pad. All of the lines run vertically and are augmented with some star decorations. To round off the piece, Zed has included some blood-red drips throughout that bled from the border. Overall, a very nice piece.
Doors 295 – Doors of Peterborough (Part III), April 2024
This is my second attempt at writing this post – I deleted the first by mistake…very irritating.
Regular readers of Natural Adventures will know the drill by now. When I visit towns and cities in the UK and beyond, I tend to take large numbers of door pictures for Thursday Doors posts, and indeed I have a very healthy archive of ‘pending’ doors waiting to be shared. This has both good and bad aspects. It means that I always have a steady stream of doors to post, but run the risk of being a little monotonous, presenting doors from the same place for weeks on end.
This is the third selection of doors from Peterborough, Cambridgeshire, in a series of five posts (I think), and these were all photographed in the cathedral area of the city in April last year. As ever, I hope you enjoy them:
Front elevation and entrance to Peterborough Cathedral, Peterborough, Cambridgeshire, April 2024
Wrought iron gate and glass doorway with large vaulted archways to Peterborough Cathedral, Peterborough, Cambridgeshire, April 2024
Large side door on Peterborough Cathedral, Peterborough, Cambridgeshire, April 2024210_edited
Black door, window and downpipe, Peterborough, Cambridgeshire, April 2024
Simple green arched door and stone work, Peterborough, Cambridgeshire, April 2024
Black door at number 24 and be careful those flagstones can be slippery when wet, Peterborough, Cambridgeshire, April 2024
Ghost door or gateway, now with nicely framed window, Peterborough, Cambridgeshire, April 2024
Superb ghost door and tower, Peterborough, Cambridgeshire, April 2024
Some of the old buildings in the Cathedral area of Peterborough speak of its ancient history and wealth, it feels rather at odds these days with some of the more deprived areas of the city.
That’s it for another week, with more to come next time. Until then, au revoir.
If you have made it this far, you probably like doors, and you really ought to take a look at the No Facilities blog by Dan Anton who has taken over the hosting of Thursday Doors from Norm 2.0 blog. Links to more doorscursions can be found in the comments section of Dan Anton’s Thursday Doors post.
I never hide the fact that I am a huge admirer of Bloem’s work, whether it is her character pieces, scenes or graffiti writing. Bloem has transitioned seamlessly between her themes, and although she has only painted a few pieces of writing, her obvious talent and technique would make you think she had been a graffiti writer for some years.
Bloem, Frome Side, Bristol, January 2025
The letters spelling BLOEM are imaginatively filled and well where the solids are blended perfectly, and the patterns are delightful. The ‘O’ is a character with horns, which adds a little spice to the piece. Stepping back, the piece appears to be bursting through a wire mesh fence, which is a creative take on smashing through a wall, which is a common idea in graffiti writing. Very nice work indeed.
Creamylines, M32 Cycle path, Bristol, January 2025
One of the most elusive artists in Bristol is Creamylines, probably due to the infrequency of his work. I haven’t yet met him, the chances of bumping in to him while he is painting is minimal, and that is a pity, because I’d love to tell him how much I admire his work.
Creamylines, M32 Cycle path, Bristol, January 2025
There is always a sense of joy and optimism in Creamylines’ creations that momentarily transports one away from the troubles of daily life. His pieces resemble stained-glass windows in the way that they are segmented, with black lines separating each of the small ‘panels’ of artwork. The landscape scene takes us from the sea through hills and mountains ending with a bright sun and birds in the sky. It is almost heavenly. People and eyes are scattered throughout the piece, perhaps demonstrating our interdependence with our surroundings. How much I would love to see more of Creamylines’ uplifting work.
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