The turnover in St Werburghs tunnel is always high in Winter, but this winter it has gone off the scale. New pieces emerge daily, and there have been a plethora of paint jams involving several artists painting together. I hope to get down there today, having been away for a week, and expect to find quite a lot of new work.
3F fino, St Werburghs, Bristol, January 2023
This lovely piece by 3f Fino is slightly haunting, with a yellow-coated character hanging, phantom-like, over the green and purple FINO letters. The folds in the clothing have been worked really well, with some great shading and highlight work. Overall something a little bit different and also rather good from the LRS artist.
Trainers are quite a common motif in street art, and this is a fine example from 3f Fino in the tunnel, painted during a recent paint jam with LRS crew friends. The brown shoe, nicely designed in a cartoon style, is stuck to the floor with some sticky green goo (chewing gum?), where we find the letters FINO. 3f Fino also recognises his crew with the letters LRS making it into the soul of the shoe.
3f Fino, St Werburghs, Bristol, January 2023
Set on a red background, there is a lot to like about this piece, as it is different from the regular stuff you see on the street. 3f Fino is not short of a creative idea or two, and it is probably high time I published a gallery of his work.
As you read this post, I should be some 30,000 feet in the air, on my way to France. Timings of posts over the next week might vary, but I intend to continue posting while I am away.
It is getting very difficult to keep on top of the street art scene in Bristol at the moment. The sheer number of artists and the frequency with which they are painting, means that many pieces never see the light of day on the pages of Natural Adventures. An artist who doesn’t appear as much as he should is 3F Fino, and I have a great many of his pieces lurking in my archive.
3F Fino, Greenbank, Bristol, October 2022
I have managed to include this recent one from Greenbank, painted alongside LRS crew friends. The letters FINO are half decorated in a bubble style, that 3F Fino has used before at L Dub, if my memory serves me right. The design as very effective and unusual. Alongside the letters, the artist has painted a masked character jumping out of the side of a spray can with a brick wall motif, used a lot by street artists. All good work from 3F Fino.
Chatterton Square is a stone’s throw away from Bristol Temple Meads station and boasts two stretches of wall that tend to be relatively untouched by tagging, and it is a great place for artists to go to town with ‘special’ pieces. This is a rather nice collaboration between two LRS artists, Werm and 3F Fino.
Werm and 3F Fino, Chatterton Square, Bristol
The writing is by Werm and spells WE-RM. It is technically very well done, with a great colour transition in the fills and a deep drop-shadow that has a central vanishing point. The rather intimidating character, perhaps loosely based on the ‘Texas Chainsaw Massacre’, is by 3F Fino. Although the proportions of the character are a little inconsistent, it is well painted and certainly conveys an element of fear.
You might have noticed that in recent weeks I have started to write three posts a day when I can, and have been posting collaborations and sometimes multiple pieces by the same artist. This is due to the very real situation that there is simply too much art being produced in Bristol at the moment, that I can’t get even close to keeping up with it all. This is a good problem to have, rather like a football manager with team selection dilemmas, but it also means that so much great art may sit in the archives, possibly forever.
Full Time Ghoul and 3F fino, Dean Lane, Bristol, May 2022
Although this post features three artists, the paintwork suggests that one is a stand-alone piece and thee others two were painted as a collaboration. The stand-alone piece is by FTG (Full Time Ghoul) on the left, is one of many of these fantastic ‘knot’ heads that are scattered all over Bristol and horribly under-represented in Natural Adventures. I may sort out a collection of his work from multiple sites. On the right is the left-hand side of a collaborative paint by 3F fino, the other side being by Werm.
3F fino is an incredibly productive member of the LRS crew, many of whom, to be fair, seem to paint their socks off. I don’t know how they all afford the paint. In this piece, 3F fino continues the theme of a character with a head scarf, with some nice folds in the material.
Werm, Dean Lane, Bristol, May 2022
To the right-hand side is some graffiti writing from Werm (formerly Eman for those who remember). Werm has been concentrating on his writing over the last few months and has been working on two or three concepts that he practices again and again, striving for perfection. If I am honest, I miss his characters, and hope he makes time to treat us to one or two before too long.
I do love my walks to the L Dub spot and although it only happens occasionally, both my dog and I love the remoteness of this curious brownfield site, brimming with wildlife, that runs alongside the M5 motorway. These occasional visits are always worthwhile because at the end of the walk is a water treatment pumping station and a pedestrian underpass with plenty of wall space for graffiti/street artists to play with. On my last trip a week or so ago, it would appear that some members of the LRS crew had been having fun.
3F fino, L Dub, Bristol, April 2022
This piece is by 3F fino and creates a scene from Fineas and Ferb, a cartoon TV series that my children used to love, and which features Dr. Heinz Doofenshmirt, the villain of the piece. The bubble fill for the lettering is absolutely outstanding and has a sense of evil chemistry about it, and the character has been faithfully recreated. All in all a fabulous piece from 3F fino, one of his best in my opinion, and worth the long walk alone.
This rather nice bubble writing and character combination was painted by 3F fino during an LRS paint jam on the M32 cycle path a few weeks ago. It has to be said that the LRS crew have been knocking it out of the park recently and are becoming a dominant movement in the Bristol street art sub-culture.
3F fino, M32 Cycle path, Bristol, February 2022
The light backdrop is helpful with helping the piece to stand out, and there is a fun interaction between the letters and the character which is taking a bite out of the ‘N’ of FINO. This is a clean and tidy piece which plays to the strength of 3F fino’s cartoon style. Gotta love the monster’s shadow.
3F fino has been smashing it lately, along with his LRS friends, and barely a spot in Bristol is without one of his pieces decorating it. This particular figure is on a column under the M32. Round column pieces are quite tricky to paint, I am told, but this one is on a square column, and apart from the limited width, is nicely done, albeit probably a quick one.
3F fino, M32 Spot, Bristol, January 2022
In this piece, 3F fino has created one of his masked characters, wearing a hat with the word Fino emblazoned on it. The character’s body contains the letters LRS, a nod to the crew that is quite large and growing in Bristol.
It is fair to say that some members of the LRS crew have been extremely busy of late, in particular Werm and 3F fino who collaborated on this fine wall in Devon Road. The entire garage wall is taken up with their work, and it all holds together rather nicely.
3F fino and Werm, Devon Road, Bristol, January 2022
3F fino’s character looks like he has climbed the wall and is busy spraying it, a fun theme used by a lot of street artists. His characters tend to have quite a cartoony style about them and this one looks like he might have jumped off the pages of The Beano or Dandy. The block writing from Werm is beautifully designed and executed, and he seems to have settled down with this style for a little while now. I wonder how long it will be before he switches things up again. This is a nicely worked wall, and what better way to decorate a back alley canvass?
The LRS crew have really increased their profile in Bristol over the last year or two with Decay, Werm, 3F fino, and Sitka leading the way, and this is a wonderful recent collaboration for 3F fino and Stika (Apex_alloy) on the M32 cycle path.
3F fino, M32 Cycle path, Bristol, January 2022
Although this was a collaborative wall, the two elements are discrete and stand-alone. To the left is an interesting piece from 3F fino, with a pair of embracing characters, keeping their identities hidden with head/face scarves, which is a theme to be found in many of the artist’s pieces.
Stika, M32 Cycle path, Bristol, January 2022
The other half of this wall is a fabulous Calvin and Hobbes piece by Stika, and what a brilliant piece it is, really showcasing Stika’s versatility. There is something really touching.no and heartwarming about this cartoon duo and Stika has captured that warmth perfectly in this piece. An absolutely cracking collaborative wall with two fine pieces.
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