6753. St Werburghs tunnel (477)

Mr Crawls, Kool Hand and Daz Cat, St Werburghs, Bristol, February 2025
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, 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
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
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.

Daz Cat, The Bearpit, Bristol, November 2017
Daz Cat, The Bearpit, Bristol, November 2017

6751. St Werburghs tunnel (476)

Mr Draws, St Werburghs, Bristol, February 2025
Mr Draws, St Werburghs, Bristol, February 2025

It must be fun ‘going big’ from time to time, and on a bad-weather day there is no place better than St Werburghs tunnel to spread yourself out a bit. Mr Draws has made the most of the space with this long piece of graffiti writing, which even with a wide-angle shot is impossible to photograph head on.

Mr Draws, St Werburghs, Bristol, February 2025
Mr Draws, St Werburghs, Bristol, February 2025

Under the lights of the tunnel, this chrome piece takes on all sorts of colours, from silver through to gold. Decorative arrows point inwards to the letters spelling Mr Drawers, the long format version of his name. The impact of the letters is enhanced with a colourful background using that effective combination of blues and pinks. Going large can be fun.

6744. St Werburghs tunnel (475)

Tao Create and Big Hev, St Werburghs, Bristol, February 2025
Tao Create and Big Hev, St Werburghs, Bristol, February 2025

Of interest, but not really of much importance, is the gender split of street artists and graffiti writers in Bristol which I would say is around the 60:40 Men to women, but it is noticeable that a higher proportion of women are painting now than were ten years ago, when I first started this blog. This is a fabulous collaboration from Tao Create and Big Hev, who have painted together before, and I assume are friends.

Tao Create and Big Hev, St Werburghs, Bristol, February 2025
Tao Create and Big Hev, St Werburghs, Bristol, February 2025

To the left is a portrait piece by Tao Create, who underwent something of a transformation in her style over the last year or so, taking her to a new and much higher level. I can’t find any information about whom this is a portrait of, but it is stunning nonetheless, with superb depth and texture in the greyscale shades. Big Hev’s words ‘I’ve been ghosted by a ghostboy’ are equally mysterious. The piece appears to be a tribute to GB perhaps? This is a striking collaboration, which sadly has been overpainted, but was a delight while it was there.

6730. St Werburghs tunnel (474)

Haka, St Werburghs, Bristol, February 2025
Haka, St Werburghs, Bristol, February 2025

So many of the combination pieces painted in Bristol leave me wondering who the painted character might be portraying (there are often modern cultural references to cartoon productions of the 1970s to now), but every once in a while the character is one I am familiar with, and this is one of those moments. The character in this Haka piece is Percival Proudfoot Plugsley or Plug member of the Bash Street Kids from the children’s comic Beano.

Haka, St Werburghs, Bristol, February 2025
Haka, St Werburghs, Bristol, February 2025

Indeed, this is not the first time Haka has incorporated Plug into one of his pieces and other members of the comic strip. The letters are classic Haka letters, nicely overlapping and filled with two colour shades and some yellow decorations. Some nice shout-outs too, including the ever-present tribute to CK1.

Haka, Greenbank, Bristol, January 2023
Haka, Greenbank, Bristol, January 2023

6707. St Werburghs tunnel (472)

Zed in the Clouds, St Werburghs, Bristol, January 2025
Zed in the Clouds, St Werburghs, Bristol, January 2025

Only a few days ago I posted a piece by Zed in the Clouds and said at the time that he was hugely underrepresented on this blog, so as part of remedying that gap, here is a recent piece by the artist in St Werburghs tunnel, which is rather larger than his usual offering.

Zed in the Clouds, St Werburghs, Bristol, January 2025
Zed in the Clouds, St Werburghs, Bristol, January 2025

This combination piece features his familiar character donning a red bucket hat and the letters ZED. Both parts of the combination are filled with a cream tone that is draped in a mass of colour streaks that look like scribbles from a child’s drawing pad. All of the lines run vertically and are augmented with some star decorations. To round off the piece, Zed has included some blood-red drips throughout that bled from the border. Overall, a very nice piece.

6674. St Werburghs Tunnel (471)

Benjimagnetic, St Werburghs, Bristol, January 2025
Benjimagnetic, St Werburghs, Bristol, January 2025

What a lovely clean and tidy piece this is from Benjimagnetic at the entrance to St Werburghs tunnel. Ordinarily, I would say that Benjimagnetic’s pieces spell out BEN, but I now know it says something different after Benjimagnetic corrected me the last time I mistakenly got it wrong.

Benjimagnetic, St Werburghs, Bristol, January 2025
Benjimagnetic, St Werburghs, Bristol, January 2025

What I like about Benjimagnetic’s work is the way he deconstructs and then reconstructs his writing, so that it is composed of loads of design elements that come together in a novel way. Another artist who uses a similar deconstruction technique is Minto. Great colours in this piece and overall a classy bit of writing.

6655. St Werburghs tunnel (470)

Sworm, St Werburghs, Bristol, December 2024
Sworm, St Werburghs, Bristol, December 2024

Today is my first day back at work after a week away, and I am bracing myself for a whirlwind of emails, and will be hearing about How I will be helping another department, which is causing me huge anxiety, as I am already working at full capacity. Inevitably, this and other future posts will be shortened until I am in a new rhythm.

I was lucky enough to bump into Sworm and also meet Omie for the first time, who was working alongside Sworm, as they painted their Christmas collaboration.

Sworm, St Werburghs, Bristol, December 2024
Sworm, St Werburghs, Bristol, December 2024

This piece displays Sworm’s talents really well, and although the colour scheme is fairly simple, the overall writing is complex and beautifully worked. Because I saw this piece as a work in progress, I was struck by how similar the process was to how Elvs paints his pieces. Basically, Swarm started with the white fill, and then added the outline and detail as an overlay. The result is stunning. Unfortunately, when I returned to take these pictures, Omie’s letters has been overpainted, which was a real pity.

6606. St Werburghs tunnel (467)

Hypo and ZBomb, St Werburghs, Bristol, November 2024
Hypo and ZBomb, St Werburghs, Bristol, November 2024

Hypo has been quite busy in St Werburghs tunnel of late and here he has teamed up with ZBomb, to create this rather nice collaborative wall. The only common factor between the two pieces is the blue background, but it qualifies as a collaboration because of that and the fact that they painted together.

Hypo, St Werburghs, Bristol, November 2024
Hypo, St Werburghs, Bristol, November 2024

The Hypo letters are less elaborate than some of his recent pieces and the horizontal fills – I can see at least six colours – create a nice traditional feel to the piece. The whole thing sits nicely on the background, and is beautifully bordered with a yellow line and a few icicle drips.

ZBomb, St Werburghs, Bristol, November 2024
ZBomb, St Werburghs, Bristol, November 2024

I don’t know much at all about ZBomb, but I am sure I have seen other work by the artist about the place. This is a real case of say what you see… the letter Z painted over an archetypal cartoon bomb. The piece is eye catching and instantly fun, sometimes the simplest of ideas can be the most enjoyable. A nice collaboration.

6605. St Werburghs tunnel (446)

Nips, St Werburghs, Bristol, November 2024
Nips, St Werburghs, Bristol, November 2024

These pictures are proof that it is always worth taking pictures (however bad the conditions might be) of street/graffiti art if you can, because the next time you swing by the piece might have gone. There was a van parked in front of this writing by Nips when I passed by, but I thought I’d try to photograph the piece, even from rather weird angles, just in case it didn’t last. It didn’t, so the strategy worked, and I get to share the graffiti writing, even if the pictures aren’t the best.

Nips, St Werburghs, Bristol, November 2024
Nips, St Werburghs, Bristol, November 2024

Nips is one of my favourite artists in Bristol at the moment. Her simple and no-nonsense approach to her letters and her creative fills, in this case nicely worked blue and grey blended colours and spots,  tick my boxes and make me happy. She is one of a handful of artists that always bring a smile to my face when I find their work.

6596. St Werburghs tunnel (465)

Lis (Le Imposter Design), St Werburghs, Bristol, December 2024
Lis (Le Imposter Design), St Werburghs, Bristol, December 2024

I am always encouraged when I see studio artists exercising their subversive side by painting illegal walls, with their different take on street art, and a recent emerging talent is Lis AKA Le Imposter Design. Her work seems to feature nature a fair bit and in particular, mushrooms.

Lis (Le Imposter Design), St Werburghs, Bristol, December 2024
Lis (Le Imposter Design), St Werburghs, Bristol, December 2024

This piece, presumably entitled ‘party shrooms’ depicts three mushrooms or toadstools having a good time dancing to an imaginary beat. The piece was painted over the corner of a Hypo piece, but in a respectful way, with four black corner tabs, as if it were a photograph inserted into an album. I am loving the emergence of Lys and am very much looking forward to finding more of her work in future.