Krimsone, Cheltenham Paint Festival 2024, Town Centre East car park, Cheltenham, July 2024
Here are three more wonderful pieces from the Cheltenham Paint Festival this year, and I have to say that Andy Davies, the Director and organiser of the event, has excelled in gathering a blend of international, national and local artists together to show off their talent. I believe that 2024 is the best one yet. This first enormous piece, on the side of the Town Centre East car park, is by Krimsone, an artist I have only once before come across at Upfest 2017. This is a top class portrait piece worked to fit the tall wall perfectly, with a vase delicately balanced on the woman’s head taking up the top half of the wall. Incredible stuff.
#DFTE, Cheltenham Paint Festival 2024, Honeybourne Line tunnel, Cheltenham, July 2024
As reliable as ever, Bristol artist #DFTE manages to raise a smile with his appropriately coloured writing exclaiming “Totally Bananas”. Fabulous drips.
Fark, Cheltenham Paint Festival 2024, Princess Elizabeth Way, Cheltenham, July 2024
Finally in this mini selection, Fark, who is a regular at street art festivals, presents one of his superb birds with precision and tidiness. Great work.
Snug One, Cheltenham Paint Festival 2023, Sherborne Place Car Park, Cheltenham, July 2024
I took these pictures at this year’s Cheltenham festival, although the first image featuring an extraordinary piece by Smug One is from the Cheltenham Paint Festival 2023. I managed to catch up with Smug One as he was finishing off this stag beetle piece “Monarch of the End”, but rain was forecast and he was rather agitated that he might not be able to complete it before it came. I often present Cheltenham pieces a year late, because many are incomplete at the time of my visiting the festival, and I tend to only visit once a year. This is a magnificent piece.
Benzi Brofman, Cheltenham Paint Festival 2024, North Place car park, Cheltenham, July 2024
I don’t know Benzi Brofman at all, but I rather like this irreverent take on family life with the line “Being normal is boring”. The sentiment of the picture taps into the subversive nature of street art and I rather like it.
LPVDA, Cheltenham Paint Festival 2024, Swindon Road, Cheltenham, July 2024
I also don’t know the French? artist LPVDA but his Instagram feed is fascinating. It looks like he creates his work using an angle grinder, etching out images on wooden ‘canvases’. The effect is stunning and it is amazing how he achieves depth and tone just by altering the depth of his grinding.
Epod 3000, Cheltenham Paint Festival 2024, Dunalley Street, Cheltenham, July 2024
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.
Epod 3000, Cheltenham Paint Festival 2024, Dunalley Street, Cheltenham, July 2024
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?
Fark, Cheltenham Paint Festival 2024, North Place car park, Cheltenham, July 2024
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.
Wolfskulljack, Cheltenham Paint Festival 2024, Two Pigs, Cheltenham, July 2024
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.
Roo, Cheltenham Paint Festival 2024, North Place car park, Cheltenham, July 2024
So this is the second of the first three posts from the Cheltenham Paint Festival 2024. I have had to pull together three pieces in each post, simply so that I can fit them in with my regular posts of Bristol street art. Things have never been so busy, and at the end of each month I still have dozens of unposted pieces, because there is so much great art being produced out there. I can’t get close to posting it all.
Roo, Cheltenham Paint Festival 2024, North Place car park, Cheltenham, July 2024
It was a pleasure to watch as Roo finished off this wonderful piece, and catch up with her in the Two Pigs where she was selling her merch. This is a great piece that tells a fun story of a frog and a ‘no swimming’ sign. I think it might just be one of my favourite Roo piece ever.
Apparan, Cheltenham Paint Festival 2024, East car park, Cheltenham, July 2024
In the car park is this outstanding portrait piece by Apparan, who is not a stranger to Natural Adventures, having posted an Upfest piece and one from Stratford in London in the past.
The portrait is beautifully accompanied with a flower and a beguiling background, which certainly brightens up an otherwise ordinary concrete car park wall.
Codo, Cheltenham Paint Festival 2024, North Place car park, Cheltenham, July 2024
Rounding off this small selection of three pieces from the CPF is this excellent piece by Codo, who I met at last year’s festival and who was very kind to me, giving me some caps and paint. His intricate doodle work is superb, and brings out the best in the central character which is a large version of the smaller background symbols and characters. Some very nice pieces from Cheltenham. Three more to come tomorrow.
Curtis Hylton, Cheltenham Paint Festival 2024, Barnyard Close, Cheltenham, July 2024
A couple of weekends ago I managed to spend a day at the Cheltenham Paint festival, which was amazing, and organiser Andy ‘Dice’ Davies and his team should be congratulated for building the event into one of the best paint festivals in the UK, and in a town that has quite a small graffiti/street art sub-culture. I took so many pictures of pieces from this year and previous years, that I will be bunching them together in my posts of the festival, due to sheer volume of photographs in my folders.
Curtis Hylton, Cheltenham Paint Festival 2024, Barnyard Close, Cheltenham, July 2024
Here we start with a wonderful piece from Curtis Hilton on the edge of the town, with a signature piece of a bird composed of flower petals.
DFC1848, Cheltenham Paint Festival 2024, Honeybourne Line tunnel, Cheltenham, July 2024
Next up is a large piece by local artist DFC1848. How magnificently the gold colour on the diver’s helmet picks up the texture of the wall and appears to glisten. Really nice cartoon character fun.
Stephen Quick, Cheltenham Paint Festival 2024, North Place car park, Cheltenham, July 2024
Finally, for this first burst of three pieces from the festival, a stunner from Stephen Quick, a Bristol Stencil Artist, who I caught up with for a moment. He said the he left the peeling white paint on purpose to add texture and interest to the piece. Such a nice man by the way. More of these Cheltenham compilations to follow.
This is the second small gallery of Cheltenham art photographed at the Cheltenham Paint Festival 2023. I am posting this as the 2024 festival begins at the end of this week, and I felt it would be good to share some of last year’s pieces as a bit of a warm up.
Not all the pieces were painted last year – the Alex Lucas mural (feature image) was painted a few years ago, but I only got round to photographing it last year. I hope to be visiting Cheltenham for this year’s festival alongside Paul H, and am getting pretty excited about it all. Enjoy the gallery:
Alex Lucas, Cheltenham Paint Festival, Cheltenham, July 2023
Alex Lucas, Cheltenham Paint Festival, Cheltenham, July 2023
This piece was actually painted in 2020 for the Cheltenham Paint Festival. Still looking magnificent.
Ajax Piper, Cheltenham Paint Festival, Cheltenham, July 2023
I don’t know an awful lot about Ajax Piper, but I believe he is a British artist who hasn’t been painting for too long, or so his website might suggest.
Wispa, Cheltenham Paint Festival, Cheltenham, July 2023
A wonderfully colourful and vibrant piece by RBF artist Wispa (featured reasonably regularly on Natural Adventures).
3rdeye, Cheltenham Paint Festival, Cheltenham, July 2023
3rdeye has produced this typically mysterious piece with one of his creature characters and plenty of eyes.
Curtis Hylton, Cheltenham Paint Festival, Cheltenham, July 2023
One of the featured artists at the CPF 2023 was Curtis Hylton, who smashed it with this outstanding large mural on the side wall of the Holiday Inn Express hotel in the centre of town.
I will need to do a few more posts from the CPF 2023, and some more unposted pieces from Upfests passim. So much to do and so little time to do it.
Everything is catching up with me. The Cheltenham Paint Festival begins next weekend, although I believe some pieces are already well underway. The problem for me is that I still have loads of pieces from last year’s festival that I haven’t posted, so here are a few pieces that I’d like to share by way of a warm-up act for next week. I will do this as a mini gallery, because I don’t have time to write up each individual piece.
Paul Monsters, Cheltenham Paint Festival, Cheltenham, July 2023
Bristol artist Paul Monsters doing what he does best.
Heat One and Shade One, Cheltenham Paint Festival, Cheltenham, July 2023
Shade One, Cheltenham Paint Festival, Cheltenham, July 2023
superb collaboration from Shade One and Heat One.
Joe Greenaway, Cheltenham Paint Festival, Cheltenham, July 2023
An interesting piece from Joe Greenway
Philth, Cheltenham Paint Festival, Cheltenham, July 2023
Finally an outstanding floral piece from Philth, which was tricky to photograph because of the car parked directly in front of it.
More from the Cheltenham Paint Festival 2023 in tomorrow’s post.
N4T4, Cheltenham Paint Festival, Cheltenham, July 2023
A favourite artist of the paint festival circuit is N4T4, who has been a feature of Upfest and Cheltenham posts on Natural Adventures for a few years now. His portrait pieces are always beguiling and beautifully crafted – I have only good things to say about his work.
N4T4, Cheltenham Paint Festival, Cheltenham, July 2023
This was actually N4T4’s second piece at this year’s festival, the other one, which I have ready posted was a stunning goldfinch. In this piece you can just about make out the patterns on the woman’s face, that add texture and complexity to the portrait. The patterns from the face overspill into the surrounding orange and red decorations. Lots of swirls and blended colours give away this piece as a work by N4T4. A fabulous festival piece.
Unify, Cheltenham Paint Festival, Cheltenham, July 2023
One of the very earliest street art pieces I posted on Natural Adventures was by Unify, painted on the side of the Highbury Vaults in Kingsdown. Both Unify and I have come a long way since then. This wonderful monkey in a spacesuit stencil piece is perfectly presented on the side of a ramp in the Cheltenham skate park.
Unify, Cheltenham Paint Festival, Cheltenham, July 2023
The freehand background is very dramatic and sets the scene perfectly for the intricate stencil work. I love the reflection of the earth in the space helmet. I don’t know why, but I have seen a lot of space monkey street art over the years and it appears to be a really popular theme (note to self – potential for a themed gallery). This is a classy piece from Unify, whose work can be found all over London where I think the artist lives.
Pekoe, Vozie, Bnie, Wispa and Evey, Cheltenham Paint Festival, Cheltenham, July 2023
The Resting Bitchface (RBF) crew appeared to have a ball at the Cheltenham Paint Festival, painting this long collaborative wall, and then going on to decorate the multi-storey car park, which was opened up as a CPF venue for the first time this year. The dayglo colours of the piece give is a bit of a 1980s look, but with a contemporary RBF twist.
Pekoe, Cheltenham Paint Festival, Cheltenham, July 2023
On the left and starting off the collaboration is a writing/portrait combination from Pekoe. This is as good a piece of writing I have seen from Pekoe and the character to the right is something a little different, a punk or skinhead girl with a plaster on her head. Vibrant stuff.
Vozie, Cheltenham Paint Festival, Cheltenham, July 2023
Next up is a classy piece of writing from Vozie, spelling out her name and breaking up different sections of the letters with different colours from the paint jam colour palette. The overall design is top class and the execution brilliant. Amazing stuff.
Bnie and Wispa, Cheltenham Paint Festival, Cheltenham, July 2023
The next section has Bnie and Wispa snuggly side by side. Bnie’s writing picks up on the colour palette, but designs in the colours in a completely different way to Vozie. Bnie has gone for some horizontal layers, and a horizon line running through the midpoint of her BNIE. Finished to perfection, this too is an outstanding piece. Wispa has gone for a character piece overflowing with attitude. She has also decided not to go with the ‘corporate ‘colours and the impact of that is her character stands out as being a bit different. I get a feeling that the attitude isn’t constrained to Wispa, but runs through the whole collaboration in its loud colours and boldness.
Evey, Cheltenham Paint Festival, Cheltenham, July 2023
Finally, the right hand end of the collaboration is represented by a fabulous piece of writing from Evey. In recent posts I have spoken about her rate of improvement this year, and this piece only goes to reinforce my view. Great letter shapes and delightfully eclectic fills that somehow work incredibly well together. This collaboration has all the hallmarks of a very successful and enjoyable day out for the RBF Crew. Outstanding.
Natural adventures 