Tag: Cumberland Basin

5582. Cumberland Basin

Maes, Cumberland Basin, Bristol, October 2023
Maes, Cumberland Basin, Bristol, October 2023

Maes is a writer who I have featured a couple of times on Natural Adventures, and whose work peppers my archive. He is rather underrepresented in this blog, and I will need to find a way to feature his work more often. He is on the early stages of a steep learning curve, and is out there a lot, seeking to try new things out and improve. I fully expect to be writing about his improvement in a year’s time and, given his productivity, a gallery of his work.

Maes, Cumberland Basin, Bristol, October 2023
Maes, Cumberland Basin, Bristol, October 2023

Maes’ work is getting tidier and his fills more imaginative, although his can control is perhaps still developing, and that will come with practice and confidence. The letter design is interesting and colour selection eye-catching. He is working on his details and has created an interesting piece. Could we be witnessing a diamond in the rough? Time will tell.

5577. Cumberland Basin

Werm, Cumberland Basin, Bristol, October 2023
Werm, Cumberland Basin, Bristol, October 2023

This is the third piece of graffiti writing that I have posted today. I do make efforts to try and mix up writing with street art and character pieces in my posts, because I completely get it that graffiti writing isn’t everyone’s cup of tea and is definitely an acquired taste. However, there are a lot of writers out there and sometimes there is just a lot to publish.

Werm, Cumberland Basin, Bristol, October 2023
Werm, Cumberland Basin, Bristol, October 2023

Werm is quite slow to change his basic designs, preferring to lock on to a particular idea and bash out dozens of quite similar pieces, before moving on to a slightly different design concept, and I think that this piece is a bit of a new transition. The yellow and purple colours are a good combination, and are actually ‘opposite’ colours, and the green glowing background accompanies them well. The letters spell WERM and are much bigger than of late, without quite so much expansion and fuss. It will be interesting to see where this transition takes us.

5558. Cumberland Basin

Kid Krishna, Cumberland Basin, Bristol, September 2023
Kid Krishna, Cumberland Basin, Bristol, September 2023

Earlier on this year, perhaps the most productive and creative street artist in Bristol for a while was arguably Kid Krishna. He was smashing it all over the place with his writing/character mash-ups and then, all of a sudden, nothing until about three weeks ago. I know that he had some other projects on the go and perhaps he was working on those.

Kid Krishna, Cumberland Basin, Bristol, September 2023
Kid Krishna, Cumberland Basin, Bristol, September 2023

This piece, on his return, is much softer and rounded than what I am used to seeing, but still characteristically a Kid Krishna piece. The letters spell CRIE, not that you’d be able to guess just by looking at it. I would describe this piece as more ‘mainstream’ than some of his work, but he has since painted something a little bit more ‘scratchy’ in St Werburghs. I hope that we will be seeing more of his street work over the remainder of the year.

5555. Cumberland Basin

Morag, Cumberland Basin, Bristol, September 2023
Morag, Cumberland Basin, Bristol, September 2023

When I first saw this piece I wasn’t immediately sure who it was by, and the penny didn’t drop for several days, mainly because the central elements used by Morag are there, but the fruit somehow completely threw me off the scent.

Morag, Cumberland Basin, Bristol, September 2023
Morag, Cumberland Basin, Bristol, September 2023

Most of the Morag pieces I have seen to date have been individual faces, usually painted on columns. This piece is telling a bit of a story, and from a fruit perspective, perhaps a rather sinister story, the suggestion being that the large bully orange is extracting juice from a grape much to the consternation of the apple. The face drawing using a single line technique is the trademark style that gives the artist away. It has been a while so it was great to find this piece a few weeks back.

5539. Cumberland Basin

The Last One, Cumberland Basin, Bristol, September 2023
The Last One, Cumberland Basin, Bristol, September 2023

This character/writing combination is by The Last One, and is the second piece by the artist to appear on Natural Adventures… it won’t be the last. The artist has a very strong style with writing that is quite unique. I can’t quite make out the letters. At first I thought it might be ZFG, but looking at it and other pieces on Instagram, it might be LAST.

The Last One, Cumberland Basin, Bristol, September 2023
The Last One, Cumberland Basin, Bristol, September 2023

The character, beautifully painted, is Speedy Gonzales from Warner Brothers’ Looney Tunes and Merry Melodies cartoons. The Last One has a fabulous touch for recreating these characters, remaining faithful to the original while adding a little extra depth. I’m not sure where The Last One is based, but trips to Bristol appear to be quite regular, which is great news.

5534. Cumberland Basin

Mr Crawls, Cumberland Basin, Bristol, September 2023
Mr Crawls, Cumberland Basin, Bristol, September 2023

Demonstrating that he is not a one-trick pony, Mr Crawls has painted this ‘stripped back’ version of one of his bird characters. Painted on a pink background, the chrome and black piece is quite unlike his other work, and shows the artist playing around with his characters.

Mr Crawls, Cumberland Basin, Bristol, September 2023
Mr Crawls, Cumberland Basin, Bristol, September 2023

I am very much enjoying Mr Crawls birds cropping up all over the city, and likening the way that he is switching things up from time to time. It is interesting to see that he has started signing his work, and I wonder if that is something to do with his level of confidence, or maybe even starting to market his brans a little. Unusual and enjoyable.

5520. Cumberland Basin

Hiccup (Bloem), Cumberland Basin, Bristol, July 2023
Hiccup (Bloem), Cumberland Basin, Bristol, July 2023

Hiccup, or Bloem as she is signing herself, is fast becoming a favourite of mine. Not only is she developing her technique at lightening speed, she hasn’t been painting walls for all that long, but she has a wonderfully creative mind, and her work is exciting and varied. This ’tile’ piece is a great example of her versatility.

Hiccup (Bloem), Cumberland Basin, Bristol, July 2023
Hiccup (Bloem), Cumberland Basin, Bristol, July 2023

There is a little bit of the Willow Pattern in this tile piece, which adopts the colours of Delftware, or Spode. What Hiccup has done here is quite original, and certainly different from anything I have seen in Bristol before. There is a softness of touch in the piece, and an ease with itself, which I can’t properly articulate. The patterns and the letters are beautifully painted, and the flashes through the letters gives the tile a shiny look. Beautiful work from Hiccup. I would love to meet the artist, to be able to complement her on her great work.

5516. Cumberland Basin

The Last One, Cumberland Basin, Bristol, July 2023
The Last One, Cumberland Basin, Bristol, July 2023

There are times when great pieces appear, and I have absolutely no idea who painted them. In most cases this will be because the artist is a visitor, and their signature undecipherable. When this happens I become reliant on social media channels to try and find out more. This was a piece too good not to include in Natural Adventures, but I had to be patient before I happened upon an Instagram post that provided the artist’s name. It is by The Last One from the ZFG crew – time for me to do some more homework.

The Last One, Cumberland Basin, Bristol, July 2023
The Last One, Cumberland Basin, Bristol, July 2023

To me, this is a really classy writing/character combo, and stood out when I first saw it. I note that The Last One has since returned and I will be posting another piece by the artist in due course. I would like to think that the writing spells ZFG, but I am not too sure. What is clear is that the writing is accomplished and clean, and easy on the eye. It is perhaps the rendition of Bugs Bunny that really wins the day though – presenting a rather fretful-looking bunny, superbly painted. Welcome to Bristol.

5503. Cumberland Basin

DFC1848, Cumberland Basin, Bristol, August 2023
DFC1848, Cumberland Basin, Bristol, August 2023

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.

DFC1848, Cumberland Basin, Bristol, August 2023
DFC1848, Cumberland Basin, Bristol, August 2023

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.

5498. Cumberland Basin

The Mole, Cumberland Basin. Bristol, August 2023
The Mole, Cumberland Basin. Bristol, August 2023

Inca the Mole, paints from time to time in Bristol, usually with his LRS crew friends, which was the case with this pink and blue piece for Werm’s birthday paint jam. The pink and Blue colour scheme was enthusiastically embraced by all participants in the paint jam, which makes a collaborative wall more of a collaboration as there is a golden thread running through all the pieces.

The Mole, Cumberland Basin. Bristol, August 2023
The Mole, Cumberland Basin. Bristol, August 2023

Sometimes The Mole paints a mole, sometimes he writes Inca, and sometimes he does both. In this case it is the letters, complete with a sensational fill, which he varies with a different pink in the ‘C’, that are the subject of his efforts. The whole piece looks really rather nice and is nestled comfortably on a puffy white cloud. It is obvious that this was a hugely successful paint jam, and I am sure we’ll all be looking forward to something similar next year.