I am in a conference all day today, and only twigged late last night, so I am writing this yesterday in a bit of a rush. Halloween has been well-observed by several Bristol artists this year, and this beauty by Kool Hand was painted alongside a cartoon pumpkin by Werm.
Kool Hand, Purdown, Bristol, November 2025
Kool Hand has gone for an orangutan – pumpkin mash-up and absolutely delivered the goods. The toothy character is nicely painted with superb solid fills and confident thick black outlines. A perfect piece for the square concrete slab.
Kool Hand, Horfield Skate Park, Bristol, October 2025
What a pleasure to find this tidy three-quarter profile of a trademark orangutan by Kool Hand at Horfield skate park. The piece was painted alongside a wonderful pair of cats by Daz Cat. A quick look at an updated gallery of his work gives an insight into his progress over the years.
Kool Hand, Horfield Skate Park, Bristol, October 2025
The green-faced character has particularly large teeth, and looks a little more ferocious than some of his renditions of the ape. Two things stand out for me in this piece; the confident solid fills and lines all neat and tidy, and the slight angle of the portrait, moving away from the straight on face, which is where it all started.
It was an absolute delight to catch up with Face 1st while he was painting this piece at Kool Hand’s birthday celebration paint jam. We chatted for a long while about our shared common interests in nature and nature-friendly farming practices, such as regenerative farming, something he is keen to practice in his new home of Herefordshire.
Face 1st, St Werburghs, Bristol, October 2025
These photographs are a little blurry… something went wrong with my iPhone camera in the darkness of the tunnel, but I wanted to share the piece nonetheless. Face 1st has been enjoying playing with his letter style and here he has crafted a script font with a deep drop shadow. Alongside is a small character laughing girl, and above it a motif by Soap. There was a good turnout for Kool Hand’s.
It has been a while since I last saw a scary clown piece, so this one from Tera is most welcome. It was painted as part of a belated birthday paint jam in the tunnel for Kool Hand, and served as a tasty precursor to Halloween. Tera’s meteoric rise as a street artist of great talent continues at pace.
Tera, St Werburghs, Bristol, October 2025
This scary clown character is superbly presented within a colourful decoration, I want to say scroll, but it is more like a designed plate with interlocking parts. The clown itself is really demonic, and falls very squarely into Tera’s preference for all things satanic. Peeping over the top of the piece is another of the artist’s previous nightmarish creations, see below:
Kool Hand has been having a great 2025 so far, producing numerous characters and writing pieces all over the place, each contributing to a noticeable and steady improvement over time. This is a lovely piece that was painted in the tunnel as part of Wispa’s birthday paint jam.
Kool Hand, St Werburghs, Bristol, June 2025
This KOOL writing is very well produced, although in my least favourite range of colours. He is experimenting with some interesting fill pattern, which all look rather nice, and his fat white highlights work quite well to give the letters some depth. This is a nice piece to add to Kool Hand’s ever-expanding portfolio.
Kool Hand, Mr Crawls and Bean, Brunel Way, Bristol, May 2025
Well this is an unusual trio, but nonetheless a very welcome collaboration from Kool Hand, Mr Crawls and Bean. On closer inspection, I am guessing that it is actually two distinct pieces, a collaboration from Kool Hand and Mr Crawls and an independent piece by Bean, which is perhaps why it looks like an unusual coming together.
Kool Hand, Brunel Way, Bristol, May 2025
Kool Hand has been painting a lot this year, spreading his time between writing and characters. This piece is a profile of his famous orangutan character, which is synonymous with the artist. Constantly improving, Kool Hand has added more detail with shading and complexion.
Mr Crawls, Brunel Way, Bristol, May 2025
Mr Crawls just keeps on going with his gulls, and I just keep on going with photographing them when I see them. This is a nice one painted in his stylised cartoon format – nice and sharp. Difficult to read the expression on this one.
Bean, Brunel Way, Bristol, May 2025
Finally, Bean, who has made a quiet comeback in recent weeks, has painted this exquisite piece with two characters in blue tones spraying the wall. The larger character looks like he is ‘high’ floating on the fumes from the paint can. They have been busy painting the letters BEAN. This is beautifully presented, and it is a great pity that some wally has plastered mud on the piece – what is wrong with some people? A refreshing wall, that didn’t last to long.
Mr Crawls and Kool Hand, M32 roundabout, Bristol, March 2025
Mr Crawls and Kool Hand have been painting together more regularly of late, and it is good to see. Their character styles, although quite different do complement one another rather well.
Mr Crawls, M32 roundabout, Bristol, March 2025
Mr Crawls has painted one of his ‘skeleton’ bird characters, which look slightly creepy if I am honest, but are very much part of his repertoire. He has shown another side to his talent here though, with some very nicely presented writing, spelling out JIM. I expect that this is a shout out to a friend/family member.
Kool Hand, M32 roundabout, Bristol, March 2025
Kool Hand presents his orangutan character, who over the years has developed and become ever so slightly more sophisticated. The solid fills haven’t changed much, but the clean lines have improved and the overall shape of the head has softened. Some nice white flashes add to the 3D appearance of the character. A rather nice collaboration.
This piece by Kool Hand was part of a recent collaboration in the tunnel, but alas his third only lasted about 24 hours. On the upside I was fortunate enough to see it, literally moments before it was painted over by Mr Klue.
Kool Hand, St Werburghs, Bristol, April 2025
I have said it before, but Kool Hand is a bit of an unsung hero of Bristol street art. His unique blend of colour, characters and writing is a central part of the heartbeat of the Bristol scene, without which it would feel diminished. The letters KOOL and nicely presented in very Kool Hand orange, with some great solid fills and spots. The background in softer purples and blues provides a perfect counterbalance to the graffiti writing. Nice work from Kool Hand.
Kool Hand is a bit of an unsung hero on Natural Adventures. I kind of take it for granted that he will turn out regular pieces in his unique no-nonsense cartoon style, but that smacks of complacency on my part, and I feel I need to ‘big him up’ a little, because he deserves higher recognition of his work.
Kool Hand, Cumberland Basin, Bristol, March 2025
This is a lovely, clean and tidy character piece featuring a cartoon duck tossing a spray can in the air. Wearing a bucket hat, the duck in a coat has a friendly demeanour about him and seems to be having a good time. The piece is set on a solid purple background, and the superb yellow border bleeds out in countless places to form bubbles. A well conceived and executed piece from the fabulous Kool Hand.
Mr Crawls, Kool Hand and Daz Cat, St Werburghs, Bristol, February 2025
This is something of a rarity, a character collaboration. Often you get combinations of characters and graffiti writing in small or large collaborative efforts, but exclusively character pieces is unusual and just how brilliant is this collection from Mr Crawls, Kool Hand and Daz Cat?
Mr Crawls, St Werburghs, Bristol, February 2025
Mr Crawls has hit the ground running this year with some outstanding pieces and a slight change in direction or modification of his characters. He is always looking to move things forward and adding new ideas around his central theme of a bird wearing a hat. This most recent phase I would describe as stylised cartoon work.
Kool Hand, St Werburghs, Bristol, February 2025
Another artist who has been busy over the winter is Kool Hand, and what a good artist he is, I have just updated his gallery and there are some really fine pieces to enjoy there. This piece features a three-quarter profile of his famous orangutan character, this time in green. Crisp and clean and really well presented.
Daz Cat, St Werburghs, Bristol, February 2025
An artist whose work has become more sophisticated and complex over the last few years is Daz Cat. In the early days his cat pieces were fairly two-dimensional, and although fun to find, had plenty of headroom for improvement. Now Daz Cat is operating at an entirely different level, turning out first class portrait pieces (mostly of cats) with every outing. This smiling cat is a perfect example of his work, so full of character and detail and a enjoy to behold. Below is an example of his early work to give you an idea of what I am talking about. This is a very fine character collaboration.
Natural adventures 