Jake the dog – Natural adventures

6877. Jamaica Street, Liverpool

LostHills, Jamaica Street, Liverpool, March 2025

A quick couple of posts today, written last night, because I have an early start today, running a workshop in the middle of nowhere, somewhere in rural Shropshire. This is another fine piece from my short visit to Liverpool from one of my favourite wheatpasters, LostHills.

You might notice that this isn’t a paste up, but a painting, something LostHills has been doing more of in recent years. His characters are based on Jake the Dog from Adventure time, but I am not sure what the cultural reference is in the piece. A nice one to find.

LostHills

A gallery of fabulous wheatpastes and artwork featuring Jake the Dog from the cartoon series Adventure Time, by Liverpool-based artist LostHills.

Instagram: @losthills

Biography: Liverpool Radicals

All photographs by Scooj

LostHills, Northern Quarter, Manchester, February 2024

Losthills and C3, Upfest, Bristol, July 2017

Losthills, The Bearpit, Bristol, July 2017

Losthills, Jake, Upfest, Bristol, July 2016

5396. M32 roundabout J3 (500)

Soap, M32 roundabout, Bristol, July 2023

I am celebrating 500 posts from the M32 roundabout J3 with this magnificent graffiti writing piece by PWA’s Soap. My eye was drawn to it immediately, and for a fraction of a second I thought that Liverpool artist Lost Hills might have been in town for a visit. I thought this because Lost Hills Features Jake the Dog from the animation series Adventure Time in all of his work. But no, this was a Soap piece for sure.

Soap has been developing his writing considerably over the last three or four years, and incorporating cartoon characters into his letters has been central to his look. The letters are usually fairly flexible, adding to the overall artwork of the piece, rather than being the central focus. Plenty going on here, lots of fill patterns and a general feel-good factor. Great colours too.

1466. Upfest 2017 (165)

This is the last set of Losthills’ Jake the Dog pasteups from Upfest 2017 and what fun they are. Part of the joy of Upfest is finding these little gems attached to urban infrastructure in the Bedminster area, and if you are lucky, other pieces are left in other parts of town too. This was certainly the case with Losthills, and I still have a couple of those to share.

The Featured image at the top of this post sees Jake holding a ghost from the computer game Pacman. The Jake immediately above is dressed for the Daft Punk single Doin it Right.

I have no idea at all what cultural reference is being made in the wheatpaste above, but Jake appears to be wearing a basket hat and conducting electricity from his hands…if you know more feel free to let me know.

Finally, in the pasteup above, Jake is holdig a heart with the word Hex and is standing in a rather creepy horror-style environment. I am guessing this is a reference to the film Hex, which I will not have seens because horror movies frighten me and I won’t watch them.

1234. Upfest 2017 (118)

Upfest simply wouldn’t feel the same without all the ‘unofficial’ wheatpasters making their mark along North Street and other parts of town. One of the most notable wheatpasters over the last two years has been Losthills and his Jake the Dog pieces.

This one is a little different from his usual cut outs, and is a full size poster of ‘Jake World’ a parody poster of the recent remake of ‘West World’. Jake plays the lead role (in the original film I think it was played by Yul Brynner), with his face mask revealing electronics behind and confirming his robot status. I love this paste up – once again confirming Losthills as a fun-loving witty artist.

1101. The Bearpit (101)

On Friday 28 July, the day before Upfest, I strolled to work via The Bearpit, which I like to do as often as I can. Clearly one of the Wheatpasters who regularly visit Bristol for Upfest, Losthills, had been hard at work, and this was the first of many of his pieces that I saw this year.

It is a cheeky little paste up (which of his isn’t a little cheeky?) of Jake the Dog, living the dream as an Empire soldier from the Star Wars films. The piece is full of humour and is a cheerful thing to see on my pedestrian commute to work.

1061. Upfest 2017 (73)

More mischief from Jake the Dog and his master costume designer Losthills at Upfest this year. In the first picture we see Jake as a late 1970s punk, complete with colourful mohican haircut, chain and earring, holding an anarchy badge.

In the second picture, which was taken in the back yard of The Steamcrane pub, Jake is dressed as some kind of robot with a heart. This is probably influenced by a film or something, but I am not too sure. All good fun though. Plenty more to come.

967. Upfest 2017 (27)

On an advertising hoarding in North Street, there is this wonderful Losthills wheatpaste of Jake the dog posing as Yoda. The placement and writing make this piece just about perfect. I have said it before, that the placement of paste ups plays a major part in the impact they can have, and this one drew the attention of passers by, where others did not.

I am not sure who introduced the writing, whether it was Losthills or somebody else, but it sets the whole thing off really well, given the subject matter of the advertisement.

Losthills absolutely ‘nailed it’ at this Year’s Upfest, and I am looking forward to sharing a whole bunch more of his work in the coming months. Bravo.

921. Upfest 2017 (3)

I have only been familiar with the work of Losthills since last Upfest, and his wheatpastes are a joy – each one found is a treasure. It seems he stole a march on all the others this year by arriving in Bristol a day or two before Upfest.

Not only content with pasting in Bedminster, he also left a few treats in the Stokes Croft area too. This is a really great piece by Losthills, with Jake the dog posing as (I’m guessing here) Ed Sheeran. There is a lot of detail here, right down to the tattoos. Brilliant.

By the end of the second day of the festival, ‘Ed’ the dog was joined by some groupies.

A word about placement – I have said this before, but for wheatpasters, the location and orientation of your piece is almost as important as the piece itself. This is a perfect place, as good as any I have seen in Bristol.

850. Upfest 2016 (137)

Losthills had a field day with his Jake the dog paste ups and this is a collection of three pieces by way of rounding off his Upfest contribution.

With each of these wheatpastes, I would have to say ‘who doesn’t love a dog that dresses up?’

Losthills, Upfest, Bristol, July 2016

I hope that Losthills will be returning in July because I do love a good paste up, and hunting around for these ‘gifts’.

Losthills, Upfest, Bristol, July 2016

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	paulh121 on 7352. Cumberland Basin
	Sheree on 7352. Cumberland Basin
	paulh121 on 7350. Hillgrove Street (9…
	Bill Bisgood on Thursday doors – 11 Dece…
	scooj on Thursday doors – 11 Dece…

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