A quick couple of posts today. I am recovering from shingles – a very nasty affair – and return to work this morning with a rather large backlog of emails and messages to action. This mortal coil!
I have always had a big soft spot for Butch’s work, and this combination piece on the roundabout is a real beauty. His overlapping full cap letters are somewhat eclipsed by a dog/rabbit(?) riding a bicycle at haste. It is a wonderful piece of cartoon illustration full of energy and humour. Love it.
Tera, like many other artists, has awoken from his winter ‘recess’ and is painting with energy and regularity this spring, which is so good to see. This is a wonderful piece painted alongside fellow tattoo artist Kid Crayon.
The combination piece has a demon as the focal point with lettering either side of it spelling TERA. The light conditions and the style of Tera’s painting makes it a little difficult to make out the demon clearly, so I have included a close up of the central part to show off his detailed artwork.
It is fairly clear and obvious that Tera is a Tattooist who has picked up street art and is upscaling his work, and his co-worker Kid Crayon is an artist/designer and street artist who has down scaled his work into the tattoo art form. The more, the merrier I say.
I took these photographs on one of those rare occasions that my wife joined me on a ‘street art’ dog walk. She doesn’t share my enthusiasm for paint chucked at walls, but to be fair, not many people do. On the upside I did manage to introduce my wife to a new route for her road runs, for which she was most grateful.
These letters from Seam spell out his name with a series of characters in monochrome colour. There is a lot to like about this line up of cartoon-style characters, which although quite crudely drawn, have something about them. I love this take on combination graffiti writing.
You have to look hard to find this piece by Weas painted on the swimming pool wall behind the now lush hedge. The passageway here is quite narrow, so the photographs are on full wide-angle mode to capture the whole thing.
I think that I prefer Weas’ full combination pieces over his mega-tags that litter the streets of Bristol… there is even one on a utility box in my street. These more extensive pieces show us what he can do when he spends a little more time painting. The letters WEASEL in black across the bottom are accompanied by four (three purple) ghost-like characters weaving their way about. It is versions of these characters that are a familiar sight in the City. A nicely executed piece, hidden from view.
Bean has been back in Bristol, but only for a break I fear, as I have only found one piece recently. I believe he is still studying at university somewhere in the north of England, and only gets the occasional chance to paint. I do hope that when he graduates he will have a little bit more time to paint in Bristol because I truly admire his work.
The character in this piece is particularly notable for the flowing rainbow hair, but I am drawn to the wonderful perspective and anatomy visible through the t-shirt and on the arm and hand. Quite why the protagonist is holding a fish in chopsticks, I don’t know, but sometimes these things are simply an artist’s whim. Hoping to see more in the summer from Bean.
It has taken me a long time to figure out the letters in this writing, and I am not too sure I would have done so without Paul H’s recent posting of a piece by the artist. The letters spell VERMO, but you have to study them pretty hard to figure it out, as they are deliberately deceptive. Once you know them you can see them, but it is that first time of working it out that takes the time.
I have a lot of Vermo’s pieces to share from my archives, but I decided to start with this combination piece alongside the river. Unusually this piece of writing includes a character, where most of his pieces contain only the ‘floating’ letters that are made up of component shapes, for example, both the ‘E’ and the ‘M’ are composed of three ovals of increasing size in different orientations. I wouldn’t quite know how to classify Vermo’s writing, but it might fall into the category of abstract graffiti writing, a bit like Mr Klue, but quite different in appearance. Watch this space for more from Vermo.
Last year Scrappy (formerly known as Scrapyardspec) managed to visit Bristol several times and leave behind several of his distinctive character faces. So far this year, he has been quiet, but I am hoping that this piece heralds further activity.
This particular pair of characters feel very fresh and stylish, and continue with Scrapy’s development, forever adding sophistication and improving the quality of his artwork. These goofy characters add humour and a lightheartedness to the walls Scrapy paints.
Every once in a while a top-end collaborative piece appears, and when it does, it simply needs to be admired for its craftsmanship. This is a wicked three-piece collaboration from three established and gifted artists, 3Dom, Dibz and Cheo.
I don’t know if there is an overall theme here, but on the left is an anti-war piece by 3Dom featuring a warring world going up in flames, and a frog-type character seemingly in despair. The gold and blue writing from Dibz is a classic piece of wildstyle writing, delivered with total competence and control. Finally, the TV head character on the right by Cheo has overtones of Evil Edna, a character from a children’s cartoon series called Willow the Wisp. The whole thing is both brilliant and unsettling. Bravo!
I think I have said it before that one of the great joys of patrolling the streets in the search of street art is that there are so many unexpected surprises, and each one fills me with a warm feeling inside. This newt/amphibian piece by Silent Hobo at the entrance to St Werburghs tunnel is one such surprise.
I’ve not seen a piece like this by Silent Hobo before, but it is unmistakably his work. The amphibian has some human qualities, for example it is standing upright and has human arms, but the head feet and tail are truly newt-like. It would be interesting to know what the story here is, but I think it was simply something that had been on Silent Hobo’s mind for a little while.
The better weather has definitely produced an uptick in activity in Bristol, and Minto, like so many other artists, has been making up for a quiet winter. This is a classic piece of Minto writing, full of intriguing details and stories.
The letters spell MINTO in a turquoise theme colour throughout. A little character with a hat and sunglasses is towards the left of the piece. Although there is so much going on in this busy piece, everything is in place and the finishing is first class. More to come from the fabulous Minto soon.
Natural adventures 