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Blustery morning
not too warm and not too cold
dressed for heavy rain
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by Scooj
5510. M32 Cycle path (227)
Haka has had a very busy year with painting walls, although his work rate has dropped a little during late summer, so it was fabulous to find this new piece on the M32 Cycle path recently. This joyful piece combines writing with a children’s picture book character, and this time it is the turn of Mog, the forgetful cat, by Judith Kerr.
Although this reproduction of Mog is not as faithful as some of Haka’s other picture-book recreations, it is very much recognisable and worked into his own style. There is a lot of joy in the piece, which is brought about by great use of a colourful underlay. The letters are really tight – not always the case with Haka’s writing – and the whole thing is a rather charming (I don’t like using that work because it sounds patronising) work. Great to see.
5509. Cumberland Basin
I am sure that it can be a challenge getting out to paint sometimes for most artists, as real life can change the dynamics and available time and space… things like jobs, family, mental health, other commitments, friendships and so on can slow or even curtail activity. It is great to see that T-Rex and Ryder are still able to hit the occasional wall in spite of having started a family, and are managing to embrace all that they hold dear in balance. I guess that what I am saying is that there are great reasons why we don’t see T-Rex pieces all that often, but it is wonderful when we do.
This one in Cumberland Basin is a classic piece of T-Rexery, in which she spells out T-REX and adds the head of our friendly dinosaur character to the ‘X’. There is a lightness of touch about her work and her fills are simply superb. I know that T-Rex has done another piece recently, so watch this space, for more dinosaur writing fun.
5508. Brunel Way 230
I am in Cleethorpes. This is something I never imagined I would say. I am here for work, and of course using the opportunity to find some street art and photograph a door or two. Watch this space in a month or two. This wall that Mr Crawls has chosen was painted three times in the space of a week, having been unpainted for months before that.
I really like this one from Mr Crawls, a return to the gull character in parrot colours. It is really well finished with sharp lines. What is new is the signature, it is the first time I have seen one, and now he seems to be sticking with it. We have seen a gull, a goose and a parrot. Does Mr Crawls have some more birds in his closet?
5507. M32 Spot (171)
When I selected this Zake column piece to post I realised just how far behind I am with the blog these days, and that is entirely due to the huge volume of art dropping on the streets of Bristol. I venture out about four times a week, and each time probably photograph between six and ten new pieces on average, which equates to something like 24-40 new artworks each week every week. I usually post two pieces a day, sometimes three, so we are looking at about 20 posts maximum. You can see the deficit straight away, and this doesn’t include festivals such as Upfest or Cheltenham Paint Festival, where the pieces may reach 200 or so. This is a good problem to have, I guess, and maybe I have a project for my retirement, posting from the archives.
Zake will always be a column specialist, and many of his earliest pieces in Bristol were painted on columns only a hundred meters or so from here. In this one he has painted three faces stacked on top of one another, each with amazing depth and interesting expressions. Three for the price of one from Zake.
Cleethorpes
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In seaside Cleethorpes
by drizzle windswept beaches
clinking slot machines
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by Scooj
5506. L Dub (47)
If you want to see any work by DJ Perks, then a trip to L Dub is an absolute must. There must be at least half a dozen of his pieces up there at any one time, and some in the darker reaches of the tunnel have been there for a very considerable time. I met DJ Perks the day I took this photograph, and he had been having a birthday paint alongside his friend Donz. I was to go on and bump into DJ Perks for the next two days, which just doesn’t happen.
This as tidy a piece as you are likely to see anywhere. It pops out from the wall, thanks to some superb but subtle white highlights, and the blue shading around the letter ‘R’ is outstanding. The fills are beautifully painted and the whole thing is so tight it might burst. DJ Perks must be the most modest graffiti writer in Bristol, but he is fast becoming one of the best.
5505. Brunel Way (229)
I really enjoy the work of Solar, and his work feels all the more enigmatic because I have never met him and know practically nothing about him other than his artwork. His lettering verges on anti-style, without going the full hog, it touches on abstract, but not quite.
It is often the colour palette that first invites you to look closer at Solar’s pieces, and this scorching colour combination has an earthy, lava, fiery feel to it, tempered by the green fragments around the edges. The piece spells out Solar, and by chance the yellow patches reflect the sun splashed dapples of light to the bottom left of the wall. Great stuff from Solar.
5504. White Street (1)
I have been looking for this spot for a long time, my pride getting in the way of asking, but was assisted by Paul H when I asked him where the second Fink piece was. He told me it was just around the corner from Peel Street Green, and the rest as they say is history (sorry about the cliché). If only I had extended my walks by about 200 meters, I would have found the spot before.
Fink visited Bristol while he was over from Dubai painting at the Cheltenham Paint Festival, and left us with two superb portrait pieces in his stunning single continuous line style. This face is painted in beautiful blues, purples and pink, the colour combination of 2023, which work so well together. The central large face is accompanied by several smaller ones in the background fills. This is belter of a modern piece and would look good in any contemporary art gallery. What a treat his visit turned out to be.
5503. Cumberland Basin
This is a fun little extra piece painted by DFC1848 during Werm’s birthday paint jam, sprayed in addition to his rather splendid blue and pink wolf. DFC1848’s portfolio of characters has expanded massively over the last couple of years, and he has a confidence and ease in his work.
I stopped to talk with DFC1848 for a little while at the Cheltenham Paint Festival, and he was as affable as ever, and introduced me to a couple of other artists he was painting with at the time. He is an artist who fills me with inspiration, as he has worked hard at developing his style and technique from a fairly low base only 3 or 4 years ago, before that he was like me a street art photographer and archivist.
Natural adventures 