I wouldn’t want you to think that I had forgotten all about Scrapy. It feels like a while since I last posted any of his work. This is a quick one by the artist in the pathway behind the Black Swan pub.
I like the way that Scrapy has worked the piece into the space available on the wall, between the flat and lumpy texture. I have quite a lot of unpublished Scrapy pieces, and might have to do a bit of a mini-gallery to catch up.
In the main, Scrapyardspec tends to paint his work in ‘cheeky’ spots that others might avoid, or simply not consider worth painting. His adaptable character lends itself very well to filling spaces in landscape or portrait orientation, again something that graffiti writers for example often struggle with.
This piece is at the entrance of the tunnel and makes use of a textured wall that has plenty of plant growth spilling over it. Scrapyardspec’s goofy character, reverts to its more basic form – no limbs or hair here – and reminds us of his iconic and unique design. I have lots more pieces by the artist and might have to do mini gallery at some point just to catch up.
I always feel much happier writing about street art once I have met with the artist. For me, it feels like I have been through some process of validation and gives me confidence to speak more authoritatively about street art and the pieces in question. This lovely piece by Scrapyardspec is a case in point.
I met Scrapyardspec about a month ago, and we chatted for quite a while. He shared with me what I’d already noticed, that he was developing his characters a little bit, now that he was confident of his archetype and his painting skills were improving. Here, the character has rudimentary limbs, and a rather fetching pink hairdo. Great to see him improving and pushing his boundaries.
When I look through my archives from this summer, I keep finding pieces by Scrapyardspec, and so what you see here on Natural Adventures is only a proportion of the pieces he has painted in Bristol. This one is a relatively recent piece created at a paint jam celebrating Werm’s birthday, and at which I met Scrapy for the first time.
The most notable thing about this piece is the inclusion of hair and the addition of rudimentary arms and feet. Scrapyardspec and I discussed his development a little and I think that now he has grown in confidence and has his archetype nailed, he can play around a lot more with his characters and improve as an artist. I am very much looking forward to watching his onward journey.
I would think that even though he only visits Bristol about once a week, Scrapyardspec must be one of the most prolific artists in town. This is a welcome pair of goofy characters on the pathway that leads to the Purdown anti-aircraft battery, painted on a container that seems a little out of place.
The two characters are very much of the archetypal variety, although he includes shoulders here, building on the central face of the characters. Another change is that he is starting to shorten his signature to Scrapy rather than the full Scrapyardspec. I have easily enough pieces to start a gallery, but he might just have to wait his turn.
I was fortunate enough to meet Scrapyardspec for the first time last weekend, and had a conversation with him that helped me to put his work into some kind of context. I’d also add that he was a really nice bloke (I was going to say young man, but somehow it sounds patronising, when it really isn’t meant to).
Scrapyardspec has been painting the streets for about two years and has lived in London, but now lives in Cheltenham (I think) but manages to get to Bristol about once a week, which would account for his productivity over recent months.
Like so many artists who work on a theme, Scrapyardspec spent a long time replicating the same basic character, but in recent weeks has been expanding the theme with additional elements. In short, he has mastered his basic approach and style and is now modifying and adapting it, adding more interest and variety to his work.
This pair of goofy characters share the same basic DNA, but one has three eyes and a wobbly tongue, where the other is more like the basic model. Both have the inclusion of brown teeth. Where this will all end up, who knows? But it is a privilege to be observing Scrapyardspec’s development.
In my mind, some collaborations were just meant to be, and this magnificent joint venture from Werm and Scrapyardspec is simply awesome. Two utterly different styles, a writer and a character artist, have combined with skilful design and colour sharing to create a piece that just works brilliantly.
There is nothing pretentious about this combination piece, just two artists comfortable with what they do where the resulting whole is greater than the sum of the parts. The letters by Werm are nicely executed with straightforward fills and a bold white border. Scrapyardspec’s goofy character replaces the ‘E’ of ‘WERM’ and is integrated into the word with the clever use of an orange border bringing everything into the single piece. Excellent work, full of the joy of street art friendship.
This is something the same, but also a little different from Scrapyardspec under Brunel Way. He has used a buffed pillar (a crazy scheme devised by Bristol City Council to eradicate graffiti, which only serves to create nice clean new ‘canvasses’) to act as a solid backdrop to one of his wobbly characters.
Instead of filling the piece with colour, like all of his other pieces, he has gone for a simple white fill which works so well against the grey. The piece is clean and almost looks like a giant sticker, rather than a painted piece. Scrapyardspec has injected some great creativity into his standard character.
I get the feeling that Scrapyardspec might have moved to or near Bristol, or he is visiting more often these days, because barely a week goes by when I don’t discover a new piece by him.
This googly-eyed character is nestled neatly on the side of one of the ramps in the Dean Lane skate park, known locally as The Deaner. Perhaps the most notable thing about this piece is the green wibbly tongue, which I would estimate appears in about half of all his character pieces.
On the pathway alongside the River Avon, that leads to the Brunel Way bridge and flyover, is a small wall which appears to be a relic from a small outbuilding that must have had some function (perhaps a pump station), probably related to the river. It seems odd that this ruin wasn’t completely demolished, but what remains has become quite a popular wall for graffiti artists.
The most recent visitor to this wall is Scrapyardspec, who is an expert in finding small nooks and crannies all over the city to paint his googly-eyed, goofy character pieces. This character appears to have no outline, just features, plastered on the wall. Three eyes, three noses and one long toothy mouth make up this harmless fellow, joining countless others about the place. Scrapyardspecs’ visits to Bristol seem to be getting more frequent, which is no bad thing.
Natural adventures 