This piece was one of a series of ‘quick ones’ from Kid Crayon, and if I understood correctly, part of passing his skills on to another aspiring street sprayer. I love the way the community has a social structure of its own where artists respect and look after one another. Of course, like any society, it is not all easy; there are codes, ‘territories’, legality, status and hierarchy and so on to contend with every day.
Kid Crayon, The Bearpit, Bristol, July 2017
This is a really nice simple piece by Kid Crayon, and something of a reversion to his wheatpastes that were so influential in getting me interested in all this stuff in the first place. Respect.
Another fine piece at this relatively new location at Temple Meads station. This is a lovely work from Kid Crayon featuring a group of people and their obsessions with their mobile phones. Possibly representative of the crowds of people departing from and arriving at the station each and every day.
Kid Crayon, Lower Approach road, Bristol, June 2017
I am not sure if any of these characters are based on real people, but the fellow on the right eating his phone has an uncanny resemblance to Paul Monsters (Paul Roberts) who painted a collaboration with Copyright just around the corner.
Kid Crayon, Lower Approach road, Bristol, June 2017
Somehow no Kid Crayon piece feels complete without purple or blue-faced people, and here he offers lashings of them. The young girl actually looks quite sinister, reminiscent of the character from The Addams Family played by Christina Ricci.
Kid Crayon, Lower Approach road, Bristol, June 2017
Quite who the pretty lady with the squinty eye at the centre of the picture is I don’t know, but I love the detail of her necklace and freckled nose. All in all this is a superb piece from Kid Crayon…full of stories and beautifully executed.
Kid Crayon, Lower Approach Road, Bristol, June 2017
I am absolutely loving this EAT crew partnership of Kid Crayon and SPZero76. As street artists go, their styles are quite different, KC tending to have softer lines and whose characters have a kind of lumpy quality to them…I’m not sure I have used the right term there, but I know what I mean. SPZero76 tends to use sharper lines and his characters are altogether more angular and prickly (another dodgy art term).
Kid Crayon and SPZero, Dean Lane, Bristol, June 2017
I mention their styles, because, of all the works they have done together that I have seen, this is the one where their art is starting to merge or rub-off on one another. The left hand side id by Kid Crayon and the right hand side by SPZero76.
Kid Crayon and SPZero, Dean Lane, Bristol, June 2017
I have absolutely no idea what is going on in this piece, but love the sort of Summer watery feel to it all. A purple giant, some little ‘ginger bread man’ type figures and a pretty lady bathing with a rubber duck. KC is clearly bonkers.
Kid Crayon and SPZero, Dean Lane, Bristol, June 2017
On the other side of things, SPZero76 gives us a couple of snorkelers a flamingo rubber ring and a pirate ship. The couple are in love. SPZero too is completely bonkers.
Kid Crayon and SPZero, Dean Lane, Bristol, June 2017
I absolutely love this collaboration and even more enjoy the way that these two just seem to love to paint all the time, about anything. This is one of my favourite pieces so far this year. Bravo.
Aloha! Domestic Drain Services can be found just off the end of Millpond Street. I like the name of the street because it tells us something about the history of the area, I guess it all looked very different here a hundred years ago.
SPZero76, Millpond Street, Bristol, May 2017
This is a wonderful collaborative curtain-raiser to Summer by SPZero76 and Kid Crayon of the EAT crew. The left hand side is characteristically SPZero76 and features a fine lady playing a ukulele next to one of his face masks that he paints a lot.
Kid Crayon, Millpond Street, Bristol, May 2017
On the right hand side we have a fabulous ‘island life’ collection by Kid Crayon. I think the geography of the piece is a little confused however, Hawaii and Easter Island, but who cares about that, it is the cheery welcome and thoughts of Summer that appeal.
SPZero76 and Kid Crayon, Millpond Street, Bristol, May 2017
These two artists are working really well together at the moment, and I look forward to seeing more collaborations from the EAT crew.
On 20 April each year, there is a legalise marijuana protest, or smoke-in if you like, where weed smokers will overtly disobey the law and rely on the theory of safety in numbers to avoid arrest or prosecution. In the UK, the main ‘celebration’ is held in Hyde Park, but in Bristol there is a parallel exercise held on the Downs.
Kid Crayon, Dean Lane, Bristol, April 2017
This piece is dedicated to the 420 campaign and is unmistakably by Kid Crayon, who demonstrates his knowledge of marijuana admirably in this protest work.
Kid Crayon, Dean Lane, Bristol, April 2017
I always like a good political or protest bit of street art, and this one ticks all the boxes. Colourful, illustrative and subversive. The piece remained untagged for a long period in an area where street art tends to have a very short lifespan, possibly indicating a general respect and support from taggers and other artists.
Right next to the recent Georgie artist stencil ‘citizen of nowhere’ in The Bearpit steps (see previous post), is this magnificent Kid Crayon piece. I cannot tell you how much I love this. It has colour, humour, craziness and a blue face. Something about it reminds me of an upbeat Gaugin crossed with Picasso…know what I mean? With a touch of Jean de Brunhoff (creator of Barbar the elephant).
Kid Crayon, The Bearpit, Bristol, April 2017
It is so raw and so good. I will stop there for fear of gushing too much. I like it…you got it?
Kid Crayon, The Bearpit, Bristol, April 2017
It is with some disappointment that I am updating this post to report that this and many other great pieces in The Bearpit and elsewhere in Bristol have been tagged and dogged at the end of the Easter break. It is annoying when this happens. I think everyone accepts that it does happen, but it does seem really senseless and damages the reputation of street art and graffiti art in the City.
Following on then from the previous post, this is the piece that Kid Crayon created to cover up the one he had been unhappy with just a few days before. This is something more familiar altogether from the Bristol regular.
Kid Crayon, The Bearpit, Bristol, February 2017
The piece that this replaced was had been sprayed at the same time as a piece on the adjacent wall by SPZero76, and it really does seem that these two do like painting together. I also note that he references the ‘EAT crew’. I am guessing that this is what these two artists call themselves when they spray together, and would explain a recent collaboration posted here a few days ago.
Kid Crayon, The Bearpit, Bristol, February 2017
This is back to the familiar style of Kid Crayon, but it seems as though he has abandoned the floating crayon, which I think is a pity as it was part of his USP. I like this piece though.
When I first found this piece in The Bearpit, it felt somehow familiar, but it was unsigned and I wasn’t sure who the artist was. A bit of a google search threw up nothing. It wasn’t until another piece went up over it a few days later that I found out who it was by.
Kid Crayon, The Bearpit, Bristol, February 2017
It is quite an unusual piece by Kid Crayon, but contains none of his tell-tale features – no crayon, no blue faces, no signature. It turns out that he didn’t like it much and went over it with another piece a few days later, and my next post is about that newer work.
Kid Crayon, The Bearpit, Bristol, February 2017
I am a big fan of Kid Crayon, and have to say that I quite like this enigmatic piece, and in one small way I am disappointed that I discovered the mystery behind it. I thought we were witnessing the emergence of a new artist on the streets of Bristol.
It seems strange that this is the first time I have posted about a piece on this landmark building…although it is possible I have written something before, but named it under M32. This is a fine collaboration – and not the first on this wall – by SPZero76 and Kid Crayon.
SPZero76 and Kid Crayon, Millpond Street, Bristol, February 2017
The building is owned by Domestic Drain Services and runs parallel to the M32. I understand, from speaking to the owners a week or two back that they invite SPZero76 and others to spray the building and in return they will pay for the spray paint.
SPZero76 and Kid Crayon, Millpond Street, Bristol, February 2017
The character on the right in the mask is by Kid Crayon and really showcases his development as a spray artist, having been something of a paste up specialist. I’m not sure what the ‘EAT’ reference is all about.
SPZero76 and Kid Crayon, Millpond Street, Bristol, February 2017
On the left hand side are a couple of great characters by SPZero76, whose work often features a raccoon and a ‘Pacific Island’ style mask. I would love to know where his influences came from to repeatedly use these motifs. This is a wonderful collaboration, and these two seem to work quite a lot together.
Only a few days after I had taken the picture of the Decay piece in this exact spot (see previous post), Kid Crayon had overwritten it with one of his trademark faces. In recent times he has moved away from his wheatpastes (which I loved) and his faces, and tends to do more spray work, in particular in collaboration with SPZero76. So it was nice to see him revert, if only for a little while.
Kid Crayon, The Bearpit, Bristol, February 2017
Although the piece looks like a wheatpaste, because of the creasing of the lining paper, it is in fact a spray piece. The blue face, great expression and peculiar proportions are what I would expect to see from this growing Bristol artist. More of his collaborative works to come soon.
Natural adventures 