2018 has certainly been the year of introductions, with a whole host of street/graffiti artists new to these pages, and here is yet another one. I have no idea if Wink is a newcomer or if I have just had my eyes closed, but there are a lot of Wink burners out there, and I have to say I am rather taken with them.
Here are a couple of examples from Dean Lane – they were pretty much next to each other. I have more to post and in the mean time I will try to find out something about Wink.
It feels like the PWA crew are really waking up at the moment. Face 1st and Soap have become more active on Instagram, and on the streets they seem to be busy, not only individually but also collaborating. This is a great thing to witness, and I hope this rich streak of form continues.
This collaboration is a little unusual for me, because I haven’t seen writing from Soap before (look carefully to see SOAP), being much more used to his large mouthed characters. The piece is tucked away down a side road on the St Pauls/Montpelier border, on a wall that had been getting a bit tatty with graff and tags.
Face 1st is of course a favourite of mine and in this work we see his familiar tear drop designs (almost paisley pattern-like) and a face with large appealing eyes.
This is quite an unusual collaboration in quite an unusual place, but a most welcome find when not really looking for it. It is a pity about the green car parked in front of the piece, which prevented me getting a decent front on photograph, but cars are out there and dodging them is part of the experience.
I haven’t seen any work from Ments for quite a while, so it was great to see this piece which was recently painted as part of the ASK crew paint jam. His work is quite different from other writers, having this rather organic feel to it, rather than the harsher straight lines and angles associated with most block writing.
The letters spell out MENTS, but it is difficult to make it out. I think this is a wonderful piece, but I feel that a little more prep work on the wall would have made it stand out even more. The piese was opainted the day before I took the picture, and the suitcase in front of it belongs to Sled One, whose piece I will feature soon.
There is absolutely no stopping Mr Draws at the moment, everywhere I go I am presented with another of his distinctive burners. I would hate to think how much paint he gets through. This is a nice colourful piece on the M32 roundabout, where the turnover of work is quite high at the moment. I love the fill in this particular piece, it is like a child’s painting, full of colour and freedom.
I recently bought some sketches from Mr Draws, and it turns out he lives just round the corner, literally, from me – it seems strange that we have never bumped into each other in the street, only at graffiti spots. So much more to come from Mr Draws.
I had to ask Sled One (who happened to be painting further along the wall) who this piece was by, because I didn’t recognise the style when I first saw it. He told me it was by Joe Poe or Poer who is from London. This would explain why I am not familiar with it.
This really is a top drawer piece of wildstyle writing from a classy artist who I really know little about. He seems to be a member of ASK or possibnly just received an invite to paint with them. I’ll have to do some more digging.
Here’s another EAT crew (SPZero76 and Kid Crayon) collaboration on the side wall of Domestic Drain Services. Maybe once or twice a year, this company invites artists to paint the walls in return for free paint – or so I understand.
One wall was painted by Paul Monsters and featured on this blog a little while ago. This wall has been crafted into a comic strip which was described by Keith Hopewell, AKA SPZero76 on his Instagram account as follows:
‘This comic tells the tale of a race to find the Holy Grail in a post apocolyptic giant robot wasteland. Biker woman vs the pigs of doom (and their herder). Who will find the treasure first?’
The biker woman and robot wasteland are by SPZero76 and the pigs and their hereder by Kid Crayon. I still find this pairing of artists a little unusual, because their styles are so different, but somehow they pull it off every time they work together.
I particularly like the book end characters – Biker woman and the pig herder who reminds me a little of Woody or Andy his owner from Toy Story. The whole piece is crazy, imaginative and inspiring. I love it when these two get together, you just never know what will happen.
Regular readers might recognise this orange orangutan as the second piece I have posted by Kool Hand, this time in the tunnel at St Werburghs. There is a third one to come still from these sessions.
Looking forward to seeing more from Kool Hand, and maybe I can try and find out a little bit more about him. For now, simply enjoy those crisp clean lines and fun design.
A few days ago, it would appear that the ASK crew and some friends held a paint jam down at the M32 roundabout. This tends to happen three or four times a year and is always a hugely welcome event. Over the next few days and weeks I will post all of the pieces from the session, starting with this outstanding work from Epok.
The first thing to notice about this is that the wall has been prepped really well – this is no throw up, but a fine work presented almost like a gallery. The nicely prepped wall complements the sharpness that Epok achieves with his work. Beautiful angular clean lines and fills, and a nicely chosen pallette. It might not be obvious, but the writing spells EPOK which is beautifully disguised. Epok never ever disappoints.
Ah, how nice to see a fine collaboration piece by Cort and Laic217 down at the M32 roundabout. I was actually on the lookout for some ASK crew work, but this piece was also there.
I think that this time Cort worked on all the writing while Laic217 concentrated on the bookend characters. I say this because the style of the writing is consistent throughout.
Laic217 is doing here what he does best, giving us skeletons busy spraying their work. His fantastic use of greyscale colouring is masterful and he is continually improving the textures of the different types of clothing worn by his characters.
Of course, no Laic217 piece is fully complete without a bucket hat or brick wall – motifs that he usually adopts. I really like this collaboration, and it is great to see Laic217 up to his productive best again.
Going back a little way, this piece was created as part of the Spring paint jam in The Bearpit. Giraffiti (loving that) is by the Graft Workshop, an organisation which to my shame I was unaware of, that run graffiti workshops and paint murals in the Bristol area. Graft Workshop are Rob, Sophie and Collette, and I am sure to be finding out more about them in future.
The giraffe itself is nicely worked, but I especially like the writing on the bottom right. The main theme of the paint jam is reflected in the piece, with the message don’t bomb Syria – which dates the piece very specifically.
Natural adventures 