A quick one today as I need to get myself sorted for a day of fishing. This is a magnificent pair of characters from Mr Crawls and Mote… the gift that keeps on giving. The piece can be found on the hoardings opposite Temple Meads station.
The trademark chrome background helps to lift the characters and give them prominence. A bird with a hat from Mr Crawls, and a lovesick monster from Mote. What’s not to like about these characters?
The curved wall in Dean Lane skate park is one of the most iconic and popular in Bristol as evidenced by the thick layers of paint that periodically peel off, often more than a centimetre thick. You can get a feel for the popularity of the wall from my updated ‘one wall many faces’ gallery of this wall
Mr Crawls has done us proud with one of his bird characters that have become so familiar around the city. One of the things that I love about his work is that he is constantly evolving and that even though he may return to former themes and subjects he always incorporates new elements that he has picked up along the way. This is a particularly attractive bird.
This is a wonderful one-off piece that simply appeared in Exeter Road recently, and is something of an enigma. It is by an artist, Greg Stobbs, who from what I can make out is an illustrator. It turns out on digging a bit deeper that Greg Stobbs is Squirl of Squirl Art, who has appeared on these pages in the context of his Upfest pieces.
I am guessing that the piece is a commission, perhaps brokered by the Upfest team. However it came to be painted, it is absolutely wonderful and straight out of the children’s picture book style of street art. The branch and bird look very much at home on this rather tatty wall, and I very much hope that we see more of Greg Stobbs’ illustrative work in Bristol before too long.
When I first encountered Mr Crawls, it was his pieces of birds that first caught my eye, and although he has come on quite a way from his early Bristol pieces, with the encouragement of his painting partner Mote, this particular piece up at Purdown is a bit of a throwback.
The particular type of bird is a little difficult to nail down. The colour of the beak and head would suggest a gull, but the shape of the beak is far more raptor-like. I guess it doesn’t actually matter, because the joy of creative art is that you can conjure up imaginary things and situations. This is a fun piece from the productive Mr Crawls.
Good morning and welcome to another brand-new week. What better way to kick off than with the third trio of pieces photographed at this year’s Cheltenham Paint Festival? One of the notable things about the festival, which I am sure I will return to at some point, is that Andy ‘Dice’ Davies and his organising team are constantly finding new walls to decorate, meaning that existing murals get to stay where they are, constantly growing the outdoor gallery, which becomes an increasing draw for visitors and inward investment. If only the festival was able to gain more confidence from funders, which I know was a real struggle this year.
Fresh from his appearance at Upfest in Bristol, Epod, who is firmly on the festival circuit, produced this beauty on the side of the Holiday Inn Express, enhancing the visual value of the building tenfold at least. A stunning portrait of a beautiful woman with a sound system in her hair… and why not?
Next up is this very neat and tidy piece from Fark, who has become a CPF favourite and who managed to wheatpaste up his name pretty much everywhere I went in the town. A view, a rainbow and a bird – you cannot go wrong.
Finally, another favourite at the CPF is Wolfskulljack whose Gothic-style Posca pen sketches are utterly captivating and technically brilliant. Her study of animals and their form is a joy to behold, and there is always a sense of menace or threat about her work.
I’ll be posting more from Cheltenham in due course.
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Heart of the city
the Avon, a sandpiper
heard though not quite seen
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by Scooj
I had a lovely evening a couple of weeks ago, visiting the opening of Merny’s art exhibition in Midland Street. Parking in the area was a little troublesome, so I parked a bit of a distance away, but used the opportunity to visit a little graffiti hotspot that I don’t go to all that often. I was rewarded with finding this Mote/Mr Crawls collaboration tucked away on a wall in Jubilee street.
I think that this piece might be a few months old, because I haven’t seen Mr Crawls’ skeleton-neck bird for some time, although the paintwork does look pretty fresh. This pairing has endured really well and brought the best out of both artists, which is great to see. They also tend to visit pretty much every available spot in the city, unlike some artists who may not stray too far from their favoured spots, which adds to their appeal… you just never know when you might stumble across their work.
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Peerless aeronauts
I feared they would not return
sky-high joyful flight
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by Scooj
Some more jolly capers from Mr Crawls and Mote, who have been smashing it for months now, and continue to turn out some great and fun character pieces dotted all over the place. This pair of characters were painted on the warehouse wall in Cumberland Basin, and command a majestic view over the river.
To the left is a friendly, toothy monster by Mote whose eyes (in common with the adjacent Mr Crawls character) are simply holes in the head, creating a mask-like effect. There are some nice squiggles and doodles in the fill, something of a trademark of Mote’s work. On the right Mr Crawls has recreated one of his hatted birds, although in a stylised cartoon form that is more angular than some of his earlier work. The pair look magnificent on the white background, and are unusually large, due to the big wall they have chosen to paint.
With the sheer number and quality of large murals at this year’s Upfest, it was easy to become complacent, and I nearly missed this wonderful piece, by Angie Jerez, above Kask, which when you stroll on the ‘wrong’ side of the road in North Street, is quite easy to do, which I why I always walk up one side and back the other side.
This mural, featuring two birds and plant seed heads, way above the clouds has been beautifully designed around the stacked windows above the wine bar. The limited number of colours draws attention to the fine detail of the design itself, and the stylised birds are glorious. I don’t know anything about Angie Jerez other than what appears in her Upfest Biography, and that she is originally from Bogotá in Colombia, but now lives in Atlanta. What a brilliant thing that she came to Bristol to paint at Upfest.
Natural adventures 