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An eating machine
cinnabar caterpillars
fine dining ragwort
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by Scooj

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An eating machine
cinnabar caterpillars
fine dining ragwort
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by Scooj

It has to be said that Mr Draws, in his own quiet and modest way, has had a banging year so far. He has been painting as frequently as I can remember and turning out some great pieces, large and small, all over the city. As well as his distinctive writing, he has also painted some of his nature and wildlife pieces recently too. Looking through his updated gallery, reminds me of just what a brilliant artist he is.

This is a wonderfully colourful splash, looking great in the summer sunshine (shame about the tree shadow). The playful letters DR3WS are surrounded with some wibbly smiley acid faces, a common stamp used in street art. The words ‘good vibrations’ kind of sum up the whole piece, which exudes an uplifting summer feel. Great work from Mr Draws.

I said in a post recently that Bristol graffiti writer, Oust, is a little underrepresented in Natural Adventures. I am attempting to redress the balance a little now and posting his pieces that I find.

This is a really beautiful piece of writing, set on a murky green and blue splash with the letters OUST seeming to drift in and out of the background. The contrasting red, orange and yellow fills and blended beautifully, and the whole piece is given depth by the drop shadow with a central vanishing point and picked out with a thin blue line. This is a classy piece of writing from Oust.

Some more mushroom art from Dobz, this time on the M32 roundabout. I don’t think that Dobz is local to Bristol, but managed to paint a few walls on a visit in June. There is some chance for confusion when it comes to mushroom street art, because Lis and Neoliberalizard both feature mushrooms heavily in their artwork.

These mushroom-coloured mushrooms, set on a pink background, are really nicely filled, with blended colours from dark to light providing depth and structure. The gills are really difficult to paint accurately due to their slim and numerous form, so Dobz has provided an approximation to them to ensure we know that this is a toadstool/mushroom. Keep looking out for that fungi.

There is never a time when I am not utterly made up when finding a portrait piece by Pekoe. This is a modest piece in the tunnel, which was painted as part of the Wispa birthday celebration paint jam in June.

Pekoe’s subject and style has been a consistent landmark in the Bristol street art scene for years, and her corralling of the RBF crew is admirable. This portrait has some great colour contrasts – I love those glossy green lips, and green eyes. Pekoe has had a relatively quiet year so far, but I live forever in hope to find more of her work.

More paste-up magic from Tian in East Street. The French artist has left a trail of pieces on each of his visits to Bristol, and it is so much fun following his footsteps trying to locate each one. On previous trips he has occupied North Bristol, but this most recent one was concentrated in the East Street area.

The wonderful work in sepia tints and blue is a cut-out from a stencil. I imagine Tian first works on the stencil, and then once completed, prints dozens of copies, which he then cuts out and takes on his travels to paste up where he can. I have never seen his work outside Bristol, but I expect a trip to France would probably sort that out.

It took me a while to work out who this piece was by, and it wasn’t until I saw another that I could see that it was by Endz. There are no strong clues to go with – the letters may or may not spell ENDZ, the pieces are not signed, and the style is vague enough to be really difficult to place. However, all of these attributes come together, ironically, to make identification a little easier, as there care only a few artists who meet these criteria.

The sketchy style, once you register it, is a feature of some (but not all) of the artist’s work. The letters spell ENDZ with the ‘N and D’ conflated in the middle. The soft cream tones work well against the blue and white background and the writing is beautifully finished with a scattering of green leaves, without which the piece wouldn’t be complete. Lovely and unusual writing.

Because Bristol is well known for its street art and graffiti scene, we tend to see a lot of visiting artists passing through and dropping a piece or two. I don’t actually know where these two artists, El Ruby Tattoo and Umbrelle, are from, but they have combined well to create this double-header on the M32 roundabout.

Both artists are tattoo artists, and they were painting with Kid Crayon and Tera (I think), so there was a strong tattoo connection. The two character portraits are very different, but both are rather good, and they work well side by side. It is a bit of a shame that the bright sunshine has cast a few shadows on the uneven surface, but that is the price you pay for nice weather.

I was walking to a cricket match a couple of weeks back with some friends, when I spotted a flash of colour down a side street. I made my excuses, said I’d catch them up, and dashed across the road to get a closer look. My reward was this lovely Mural by Jamel (AKA Loch Ness), looking fresh as a daisy. Loch Ness was one of the first street artists I became aware of in Bristol, and he even gave me a spray-painting class as part of an Upfest festival sponsorship initiative, some years ago.

I haven’t seen anything by the artist for years, so this was a great find. The piece features a lion, which serves as a backdrop to a set of Bristol icons; the Clifton Suspension Bridge, Concord and hot air balloons. This is a wild and imaginative mural, probably a commission or for a friend/family, and is a bit of a gem. I hope this signifies a revival of Jamel’s work.
Doors 314 – Street art and graffiti doors of Bristol, Manchester, London and Nottingham, February to April 2024
Having completed the marathon of doors from Copenhagen and three weeks’ worth of doors from Leicester, I couldn’t make up my mind what to move on to next, so this week I have decided to go for some street art doors, which combines my love of doors and street art.
These doors were originally posted in February to April last year as part of my street art/graffiti category, but may have been photographed some time before that. I hope you enjoy them. Normal service will resume next time, but I still need to decide what to share next.












That’s it for another week. I prepared this post in advance, and I am publishing it very early (UK time) on Thursday, because when I did this by mistake a few weeks ago, I had far more views than I would normally expect. I am testing the idea once again, but this time deliberately, to see if that was an anomaly or a real effect.
If you have made it this far, you probably like doors, and you really ought to take a look at the No Facilities blog by Dan Anton who has taken over the hosting of Thursday Doors from Norm 2.0 blog. Links to more doorscursions can be found in the comments section of Dan Anton’s Thursday Doors post.
