The back yard art class
yields multiple benefits
aah! the smell of paint.
by Scooj
L is for learner
Tag: Graffiti
2350. M32 roundabout J3 (154)
Decay is one of the most featured artists in Natural Adventures at the moment on account of his incredible productivity and I dread to think what his monthly paint bill must be. I mentioned in a recent post that his work is getting better with each new piece and that trend is continuing. I think that he is reaching a new level and although my expectations are raised, he is largely exceeding them with each new work.
This beautiful piece is part of a collaboration with Rezwonk (to follow) on one of the long walls of the M32 roundabout. There is so much movement and animation with the explosions and decorations that the whole thing is a feast for the eyes. It is not that long ago that Decay confined his work largely to a palette of red, greys, black and white, what a contrast with the hugely colourful work he is producing now. This is another gem from the man.
2349. Dean Lane skate park (236)
Getting lucky is all part and parcel of photographing and recording street art. I remember when I first started out I never thought I’d actually meet an artist (I naively thought it was all done under cover of darkness) let alone watch them at work. Over the last five years I have met countless artists and would consider myself friends with several of them. One who I met for the first time a week or two back was Subtle, and what an astonishingly nice bloke he is.
Subtle, whose work first entered my consciousness in about 2016, is an artist who has eluded me until now and whose work just seems to be getting better and better with each piece. While I watched him doing this piece (distract I ought to say) he let me into a whole load of tips on technique, the most memorable of which is that he uses a roller and emulsion for the bulk of his work (most of what you can see above) and saves the spray paint for the details. The reason for this approach is driven by cost – a wall as large as this one would cost quite a lot if it was all done with just spray paint.
I really enjoyed my twenty minutes in the company of Subtle and am pleased that I managed to get a reasonably clean completed picture (in spite of Soak and Young’s intervention) a few days later. For sure, this is one artist I’d love to catch up with again, and now that he has moved more centrally in Bristol I think the chances of that happening are greater than before.
2348. North Street
Everything about this magnificent piece by Dale Grimshaw is awesome except for one thing… the wall. I don’t like this wall. It is the most difficult Upfest wall to photograph, and the only time I have seen it done properly is from a drone looking down. All other photographs are a complete fail.
Dale Grimshaw was invited to do this piece as part of Upfest’s Summer Editions project (in lieu of the festival taking a year out). It is another tribal piece in his campaign to fight for Papua New Guinea. His amazing portraits all have a theme, which is to present ‘the people’ with pride and dignity in where they come from, and he does this with such depth and emotion. I am very, very drawn to his work and am thrilled that he was invited to Bristol to paint here (shame about the wall).
It is possible to get reasonable pictures from the roof of the NatWest bank, but I have never been lucky enough or brave enough to climb the fire escape to do it.
Face paint is a big part of what Dale Grimshaw does with his portraits, which I always feel is a bit like doubling up… a painting of people with paint on their faces… does that make sense? Whether it does or not is immaterial, in my view Dale Grimshaw can do no wrong and I am privileged to have seen this. I only wish I could have seen him working on it and perhaps stopped for a chat.
2347. L Dub (4)
I am enjoying finding these pieces by fellow hunter DFC1848, and these characters in the entrance to the underpass have encouraged me to probably start my spraying ‘career’ on these walls. It all seems so remote that I wouldn’t need to keep one eye over my shoulder, at least that is the theory.
I think I established in one of my previous posts that the letters DFC appear in the character, in the eye, the ear and the cheek. I think that the way forward for non-artists like myself is to work really hard on a particular thing and practice it and repeat it, before branching out and becoming overambitious. DFC1848 basically sticks to two characters (for the time being) and repeats them in different spots. All good.
Inkie
A gallery of awesome street art and graffiti writing from Bristol’s legendary Inkie.
All photographs taken by Scooj.
2346. Dean Lane skate park (235)
Oainted directly over a Hire piece, Slim Pickings has produced another outstanding TES piece in Dean Lane. By now, everyone should be familiar with ‘stock’ shape of Slim Pickings’ work so it is the fills and detail that is of real interest.
His work is always sharp and clean and in this piece his colour contrasts work really well. I like also how the colours used are reversed out on the ‘S’, and by that I mean, reading left to right, he has sprayed orange letters with red spots which becomes a red letter with orange spots. Nice tidy work, from the master of TES.
2345. Hepburn Road (10)
I don’t often venture too far down Hepburn Road, but am very glad indeed that I did so on this occasion, because I was greeted by this wonderful protrait by Pekoe. The observant among you will also notice the oil drum has been decorated by Ryder.
Pekoe seems to be producing quite a lot of work at the moment and with each piece there are surprises and improvements. In this one she has made a great effort with decorating the hair in a style that resembles a nimber of PWA artists. I like what she has done with the lips and the eye, using white to create the effect of reflections. A little gem from this Bristol artist.
2344. M32 roundabout J3 (153)
Several of the posts I have written over the last few days have featured artists I haven’t encountered before, which I guess is a testament to Bristol City as a centre for urban art in the UK. Recruitment into the Bristol scene is far greater than the loss and so we have a growing community of artists, which keeps people like me ultra-busy. I guess it also indicates that street/graffiti art is becoming more mainstream. I hope that this doesn’t mean it becomes too ‘corporate’ and safe, because one of the attractive things about it is the edge. Actually another great thing about street art is that it encompasses so many styles, techniques and approaches in a way that other genres don’t.
So what to make of this piece by Morny? Personally I love it, the vibrancy and naive style really work for me, and having looked through the artist’s Instagram feed, it looks like vehicles are a favoured theme. I keep looking at this and whichever way I do so it seems to make me smile every time. I am not sure where Morny is from but an itinerant lifestyle seems to be on the cards, so this might be a bit of a fleeting visit to Bristol, we’ll have to wait and see.
2343. M32 roundabout J3 (152)
It’s great to see these two artists working together, and this is one of a couple of collaborative walls I have seen from Kool Hand and Daz Cat recently. Interestingly both artists tend to paint caricatures of animals in not entirely dissimilar styles, although Kool Hand’s work is a bit more of a line and solid fill approach where Daz Cat also uses shading.
On the left is a rather grumpy looking dog, perhaps a Bulldog of some kind sprayed by Kool Hand. It is nice to see another addition to his orangutans and crocodiles, and I am enjoying seeing his work develop further.
On the right is the piece by Daz Cat, and guess what… it is a cat, and although I have seen him deviate from his feline preference once or twice, most of his works are cats. His trademark thing is the little shape on the cat’s forehead, which in this piece gets a rather interesting fill. Both artists have well and truly woken up to the summer painting season and are pretty busy right now, which inevitably means there’s more to come.
Natural adventures 