A gallery of wonderful paste-ups from Abbie Laura Smith, one of Bristol’s only wheatpasters. Thoughtful and full of emotion.
Instagram: @abbielaurasmith.art
All photographs by Scooj
Abbie Laura Smith
Month: October 2025
7223. M32 roundabout J3 (721)
One of the very best character portrait artists in Bristol, who doesn’t paint as often as I’d like is Shade One. Fortunately the draw of joining a Ulow birthday celebration was enough to bring him out to create this absolute beauty.
Shade One is a specialist at painting caricature portraits, where the subjects are completely on point, but don’t fall into the realm of photorealism. The girl, wearing a bucket hat, painted in greyscale, is absolutely beautiful. Her expression somewhat moody as she glances to her right. Shade One is surely an artist at the very top of his game.
7222. Lucky Lane (14)
The Lucky Lane Bristol Mural Collective paint jam last month, is a gift that keeps on giving. Although I missed the pieces being painted because I was out of the country, I have been able to enjoy them completely and utterly. This is a wonderful shutter piece by Yoliws.
I love Yoliws’ characters that have a sense of freedom and joy about them, and the colours she selects have an upbeat feel. Unfortunately, I think that the shutter is working against Yoliws in this instance, and perhaps some stronger colours might have brought out a bit more contrast. There is a lovely message here for all who care to look at it… ‘Feelin’ lucky to have met you’. Fabulous stuff.
Thursday doors – 16 October 2025 – Marrakesh doors
Doors 328 – Doors of Marrakesh, Morocco, January 2025 (Part VIII)
I have been a little all over the place lately, and just returned from a few days fishing in Cornwall. I also have to go in to the office tomorrow, something of a rarity, so I am getting ahead of myself by writing this post last night.
These are the last few doors in Marrakesh from an early morning doorscursion on my own, during a short period of light drizzle. These street doors here resemble many of the doors I have already featured, but include some open gateways as I approached the Souk area. Next week things get a little bit different, but in the meantime I hope you enjoy this selection:
I guess this is about the halfway stage of doors from Marrakesh, and so far all of the doors have been residences or shops. The next few selections will be from sites and places of interest that we visited during our stay, although the odd street door will be making appearances from time to time. May I wish you a fabulous weekend.
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 weekly Thursday Doors post.
7221. Frome Side (57)
I am thrilled to introduce you to an artist who is gently emerging from the bowels under the M32. I believe he signs his work ‘Sketch’ and although I have met him one time, holding a discussion over a fence, he said he didn’t really have a name as such as he was building up his profile and his work.
This is a really strong column piece that has overtones of the work of Picasso, and both the cubist and surrealist art movements. There is a portrait here with lots of eyes and a strong presence of colours beautifully worked together. There is a ‘black book’ quality to the work, like a sketch (for example the cross-hatches and white space), which I guess is how his name has come about. Lots more to come from this talented young artist.
7220. River Avon (96)
This door, at the back of a light industrial estate alongside the River Avon, has to be one of the most decorated in Bristol, although most of the time the quality of work is fairly poor. This superb cat by Daz Cat is an exception, and just shows what a good piece of artwork can do to a scruffy door.
Daz Cat has filled the space expertly with a blue faced cat wearing a white-collared orange top. Although the piece looks like it might have been painted quickly, the detail in the face of the cat is neat and tidy. There is lots of depth and contours on this three-quarter profile portrait… great work.
Remnants
.
Waking dreams shatter
any illusion of sleep
the tiredness remains
.
by Scooj
7219. Brunel Way (337)
The DoorDie club have painted a few collaborative walls this year of which, this might be the best. We are familiar with Kid Crayon and Tera’s work but perhaps less so with the remaining collaborating artists, Umbrelle, Emchoux and El Ruby Tatoo.
We start with an eye-catching black and white vampire portrait from Umbrelle, which includes a fine pair of bat wings. Alongside this character piece is a smaller vampire by Emchoux. Both artists are tattoo artists, which explains their work as resembling tattoo flash sheets.
Next up are two pieces of writing from Kid Crayon in a Gothic style, resonating with the vampire theme, which spell out ‘do’ and ‘die’, he didn’t have room to paint the ‘or’. It is unusual for Kid Crayon to write letters like this, but he has done a great job.
Taking up centre stage is a satanic piece by Tera. It is worth noting that Tera has only been spray painting for a few months, and is already turning out epic pieces like this one. There is a bit of glare in the photograph which is a little unfortunate.
The final piece in this collaboration is by El Ruby Tattoo, featuring a character who looks like a female fawn, complete with horns and pointy elf-like ears. A perfect end piece to this impressive collaboration.
7218. Lucky Lane (13)
This is another gorgeous piece from the Bristol Mural Collective paint jam in Lucky Lane. It is by Zubieta, who is no stranger to Natural Adventures. There is a door in this wall that gives a sense of scale to the piece, which is quite large really.
Zubieta has painted a Japanese lucky cat (maneki neko), one of two in the Lane, the other one was by Paper Walls. This particular cat is sending out love to some rats and a caterpillar, I’m not too sure why, but it makes for a nice scene. A night sky with stellar objects and a flower complete the composition. I love the door in this piece, and Thursday Door lovers will see this photograph again in due course.
7217. St Werburghs tunnel (528)
Fishing calls. Very quick one.
Mr Crawls and Mote have been at it again with these tunnel-end pieces on each side of the archway. The pigeon by Mr Crawls is his latest character favourite, and is getting better with each rendition.
On the other side, Mote has painted this unusual moustachioed character. I haven’t seen too many people portrait pieces by Mote, and it is interesting to see how his style comes through. Looking forward to seeing more of these sophisticated pieces from him.
Natural adventures 