2451. Cheltenham 2019 (1)

What a cracker! This is an absolutely stunning piece by Dice67, AKA Andy ‘Dice’ Davies, the architect and organiser of the Cheltenham Paint Festival which was held this year on 5-8 September. This colourful piece is a portrait of Debbie Harry and I think is probably the best freehand piece I have seen from Dice67 yet.

I felt it appropriate to start my Cheltenham posts with this piece and I’ll be interweaving more of them into my regular posts over the coming weeks/months.

I have not been to Cheltenham since I was a little kid, and so on this visit I was able to catch up with some of the pieces from last year’s festival too, and they really are rather impressive. Dice67 has tried to find new walls each year of the festival so that the old ones can remain in all their glory alongside the new ones rather than being over-painted. Let’s hope he doesn’t run out of walls!

Dice67, Paint festival 2019, Cheltenham, September 2019
Dice67, Paint festival 2019, Cheltenham, September 2019

Back to this piece… it is so beautifully worked, especially the amazing reflections on the glasses, and this is all a far cry from his stencils which was my introduction to his work. There was a festival theme this year which I think was books and in this piece the link is that Debbie Harry will be atending the Cheltenham Book Festival later this year – Dice67 is rather hoping that she’ll be photographed standing next to this portrait of her. A great way to introduce the Cheltenham Paint Festival to Natural Adventures.

943. Charles Street (2)

Some of the artists who came to Upfest made the most of their time in Bristol to decorate other areas of town, such as Stokes Croft. D7606 returned to ‘his spot’ as he described it, next to an Aspire robin. I think this must be the third or fourth telephone box that D7606 has pasted up here. This time with Debbie Harry ‘hanging on the telephone’.

D7606, Charles Street, Bristol, July 2017
D7606, Charles Street, Bristol, July 2017

I like to see his work in Bristol, as I don’t get to London much these days. A couple of the previous wheatpastes are shown below.

Aspire and D7606, Charles Street, Bristol, August 2016
Aspire and D7606, Charles Street, Bristol, August 2016
Aspire, Charles Street, Bristol
Aspire, Charles Street, Bristol