behind Alhambra

alley on a rainy day, wet pavement, garages, some with painted garages, street art below: This short alley in Toronto starts at Alhambra Avenue and runs east towards Dundas.

alley that runs east of alhambra south of bloor, before turning south behind dundas west

below: Renovations to expand up and out.

large house on alhambra, from alley behind, addition on back including third floor and rooftop terracebelow: Cats, dogs, and little yellow clouds.

garage with 4 cartoon-like cat and dog heads painted on it

below: He walked into my picture.

red garage with white doors, in an alley, beside a larger white building, west pavement,

below: The lane turns south and runs between Dundas West and Alhambra Avenue.

looking south down lane behind dundas west, just south of bloor

lift parked beside wall covered with street art

below: She stares at you from beside the Taj Mahal.

below: Ready to play.

basketball hoop, slightly crooked, mounted on garage with large mural of a woman with pale purple flowers over her eyes,

below: Two Kizmet Radcliffes, the crazy raccoon.

painting by kizmet, radcliffe character, on the side of a garage in an alley

metal stairs, exterior, painted orange, contrasts with a bright blue wall

below: Cruz1 painting  (signed as Cruz Uno) – a parrot flies somewhere over Toronto.

A parrot flies somewhere in Toronto - painted by Cruz.Uno

below: Herbs vegan snacks

mural on a garage door in an alley, cartoonish characters

below: The Faceless Few in orange and blue.

faceless few mural covers the front of a garage including both doors at number 15, in an alley, mural is in orange and blue
faceless few mural covers the front of a garage including both doors at number 15, in an alley, mural is in orange and blue

below: Can you see it?

alley scene, garage painted in olive green camo pattern

small building in an alley covered with graffiti and street art

below: Sunflowers, bent over under the weight of their heads.

two sunflowers painted on a white garage door

Photos taken November 2025

small graffiti on a white brick wall, small yellow heart with black eyes, black drawing of an ugly face or head

Dusseldorf, big and small

… a few things seen as I walked around Dusseldorf on a rainy day.

below: At the train station – not really street art? But it’s a colourful addition to a grey platform.

below: One of the original pieces of street art in Dusseldorf is this large yellow Monkey that appears to be painted by a group of smaller monkeys. It was painted in 1969 by the Majo Brothers. The title is, appropriately “Affe” which is German for monkey. You could probably call it Der Gelbe Affe, or the Yellow Monkey.

below: Joseph Beuys is memorialized in this large portrait – he was a native of Dusseldorf who was influential in the development of the city from the 1960s until his death in 1986. One of his famous phrases is, “Everyone is an artist”.

street art mural in Dusseldorf Germany

below: Complex and largely symmetrical in shades of pink and purple is one way to describe this mural by HowNosm (or How & Nosm), a partnership between brothers Raoul and Davide Perre.

street art mural in Dusseldorf Germany
street art mural in Dusseldorf Germany

below: This is a large-scale, monochrome mural realistically depicting a person’s feet as they stand. They are wearing old boots (or shoes) and you can also see the bottom of their pant legs in the image. The artist was Hendrik Beikirch (aka ECB).

street art mural in Dusseldorf Germany, by Hendrik Beikirch, monochrome, boots and bottom of pants leg, on the side of a building

below: “Meat is Murder” he says as he holds out a sausage.

rough street art painting in Dusseldorf Germany, green male figure holding a sausage in one hand, text on painting says meat is murder
throw up wild style urban art

below: “No more wore” written on the Ukrainian flag.

graffiti of blue and yellow ukrainian flag

below: Floral dog on a black and white slap, image by Christin Wenga.

black and white graffiti slap on pole, image of a dog, by Christin Wenga

below: Sad face with a blotch of yellow on his forehead.

graffiti portrait, sad face

below: “Nix Gelernt?” Nothing Learned?

graffiti sticker with words, Hans, nix gelernt?

below: In the center, raising the flag but it has been altered from the original photograph of the American the flag being raised at Iwo Jima on 23 Feb 1945 to an Anarchist flag. In the bottom corner is a small League of Legends sticker

graffiti slaps on a pole in Dusseldorf

below: His burning inside produces enough hot air to keep him afloat. There is a word written on his T-shirt which might give some clue as to the artist who created this large paste-up but I haven’t been able to find any answers online.

black line drawing graffiti of a large balloon headed character, hot air in balloon is making him float through the air

below: The thirteen of hearts and a pinwheel of robotic arms.

Three graffiti slaps, one is a line drawing of a mobile phone, another is a playing card thirteen of hearts, and the other is a pinwheel or gear cog made of robot arms or gloves in a circle

below: mmm

graffiti face on a brick wall, very pink face, yellow eyes, and open small mouth

below: A bright green potted barrel cactus “growing” on a concrete wall.

paper paste up wheatpaste on concrete wall, a bright green barrel cactus in a pot,

below: Another dusseldorf monkey, not so big this time.

a monkey sticker on a grey metal pole

below: A lot of advice packed into a small space. “Don’t Panic”, “Be Big”, as well as “Never ever on a first date”.

6 graffiti posters hung together on a concrete wall, most have text - don't panic, you the people have the power, be big, never ever on a first date,

below: Red head.

red stencil of a woman with long hair, seen in profile, also a small red heart beneath the portrait

below: Framed twice.

old brick building with boarded up windows, windows used as frames for 2 paper paste up wheatpaste graffiti pieces, on left is cartoon character in blue, on the right is bald headed person with garland of flowers around head,  head only, no body

below: For aspiring photographers – here is one way to display your work. Do you think that is effective? Worth the effort?

many coloured photos mounted on large white sheets of paper or bristol board, and then mounted on plywood, displayed outside

close up of part of one panel, many coloured photos mounted on large white sheets of paper or bristol board, and then mounted on plywood, displayed outside

below: I’m not sure who it is, but they have very big black and blue lace-up shoes.

Dusseldorf slaps - bright sticker of characted with big blue and black lace up running shoes

below: “Love will tear us apart”

Dusseldorf slaps - some graffiti slaps on a wall including a yellow square with words, love will tear us apart, also diamond shape face with big red mouth, turquise top, black and white striped bottom, blue eyes,

Photos taken November 2025

barber shop wheatpaste

below: In the Belgian Quarter of Cologne, where the streets are named after Belgian cities, there is a barber shop (and hair salon) where the exterior wall is covered with paper.

a woman sits on a small stool outside of a barber shop, on her phone, all of exterior wall is covered with graffiti slaps, stickers, and paste ups,

below: Blue hair, purple hair, and a fat yellow bumble bee.

paper graffiti on an exterior wall, a woman with very blue hair that is tied up in two buns, one on each side of her had, also a big fat yellow bumble bee and a light blue doll by angry amily and lady mkei, with purple hair

below: These are Angry Amily drawings on brown paper

angry amily long haired young girl with green hat, beside brown teddy bear character, another fat yellow bumble bee

below: Another section of the wall – The portrait, lower left, is probably about Sophie Scholl and the white rose movement. Scholl (1921-1943) was a German student who was active in the White Rose Movement, an anti-Nazi organization at the time of Hitler’s rule. She was executed on 22 Feb 1943.

below: Evyrein’s Elon Musk/Mask is in the middle. Notice the little Hitler mustache. Also, the placement of Elon’s body over the stiletto heels is marvelous! To the right of Elon is a little pink octopus hanging onto a red heart by 8arms2hug, a maker of octopus-themed street art.

below: Cats and rappers. Garfield is on his phone while under a three-eyed cat. The three men are Joseph Simmons, Darryl McDaniels, and Jason Mizell of the hip hop group RUN-DMC. The group was formed in 1983.

below: The images of people on cans of spray paint is the work of The Postman. Much of his art focuses on celebrities, many of whom, such as Grace Jones and Sid Vicious pictured here, have appeared on these spray paint cans. Tweet cat (now sporting a German fedora) sneaks into the photo too.

below: Many little things can be seen up near the top of the wall.

below: “The tide is high; my love is low” by Behind Green Eyes, is reminiscent of lyrics from song by Blondie, “The tide is high but I’m holdin’ on, I’m gonna be your number one.”

spam is the signature on blue graffiti, text graffiti by behind green eyes that says The tide is high my love is low but I'm hoping on, other text graffiti that says try before you die.

below: A series of cartoonish characters in various colours form a column beside a window. Lots of merde there too but I am not sure if that is part of the original drawings or if they were added after.

paste up graffiti on a wall, 7 cartoonish characters in a column, all in different colours, the word merde has been written over each one in white ink or white marker,

below: A large blue cat by Metraeda prowls beneath a portrait in shades of brown.

two large paper wheatpaste, one is portrai of brown girl with long brown hair, and the other is a large blue cat (cougar, bobcat, lion?)

below: Pope with a gun. Pope Benedict XVI in fact. The hat in this picture is the same as the hat worn by Benedict XVI in the picture used by Wikipedia. It is an image of Jesus holding a cross while he sits with two sheep.

graffiti image of pope benedict the 16th, holding a large pistol gun

below: Zoologne, aka Marcel Kreutzer is the creator of the small round sticker with the oval yellow happy face standing beside a plant. There are quite a few similar stickers all over Cologne. As for the fiddler, I have no idea who produced that image.

slaps and paste ups on a wall, a man in black pants and white shirt, playing a violin. sticker by nanE, another sticker by zoologne,

below: The signature seems to be RUDE and might be your opinion of the image as well.

RUDE stencil graffiti, young girl vomiting

below: An unhappy green bomb with a microphone. Or at least it looks like a comic drawing of a bomb – that way I can say that it’s unhappy because it’s bombing on stage.

below: Reading cross-legged on the floor.

paste up by angry amily, black drawing on brown paper.

below: Bee nice or buzz off, as well as Support your local Antifa.

slaps and wheatpaste on a wall in the Belgian quarter of Cologne

below: Diskettenlaufwerk is actaully the name of an Ultimate Frisbee team. NanE (or Nanelife)

slaps and wheatpaste on a wall in the Belgian quarter of Cologne

below: Clint Eastwood is portrayed as The Savior in this paste-up. Actually there is quite a bit here – a very small pink Ghostcat, a yellow smiley face, a NanE slice of bread, “Love knows no conditions” text by BehindGreenEyes, as well as a pink and black portrait by Pixmen… and more

stickers and pasteups on a wall in Cologne or Koln, urban art, Clint Eastwood as the savior, loves knows no conditions, a yellow happy face,

below: A cute little girl and an even cuter little red block with googly eyes.

pasteups on a wall in Cologne, little girl in orange dress, beer de froo, small red block with googly eyes

below: More paper.

many stickers  pasteups on a wall in Cologne,   The corona brothers, nane apple faces, paradoxon, black and white women's portraits,

below: Skulls and more

pasteups on a wall in Cologne, chicken, heart Joiny in blue, man, Nane fish, black bomb 4 skulls,

pasteups on a wall in Cologne or Koln, love rocks, a black and white portrait of a man,

below: It looks like a chicken in orange and blue as well as an anatomical heart with slight modifications. Perhaps that’s where his heart lies, or where it longs to be.

pasteups on a wall in Cologne, orange and blue chicken, anatomical heart divided into sections,

below: A big hug for Mopsy! Lots of love for an amazing character!

graffiti stickers on two metal poles,  On the left at the top, are four monsters, 2 are purple, one is turquoise, and the fourth is yellow.  All have big teeth.  On the bottom, an orange cat is giving pug Mopsy a big hug.  On the other pole is a weird green cow with text eat more weed

below: Encouraging words by Luna in a white circle with an Australian themed sticker by Tweet below it (kangaroo, emu and balloons!). On the other pipe are two creatures. The one on the bottom is a collaboration between MyCuteCreatures and Joiny.

4 graffiti stickers on 2 metal poles.  Words by Luna, aka wortevonluna, in a round white sticker, another sticker is by tween street art with a kangaroo, an emu, some flowers, and lots of balloons.  Another stricker id a my cute creatures image“Sei doch mal – Nicht so streng mit dir – Du hast die wahl – immer, jetzt und hier” br> Don’t be so hard on yourself. You have a choice, always, now and here.

Photos taken November 2025

along Kolnstrasse, Bonn

part of mural by Shaleen Faussner of woman in oversized forest

Walls of Vision, “Wald” by Shaleen Faussner. This was the winning image in a competition for young artists. One of the requirements was that the piece had to be a modern Interpretation of the historical artwork. Faussner chose “Woman Walking in an Exotic Forest” by Henri Rousseau. The artist duo innerfields (aka Holger Weissflog and Jakob Bardou) helped translate the winning image into the much larger size that was needed.

mural by Shaleen Faussner of woman in oversized forest

below: “Schöner leben ohne macker” = Better life without machos. (These are available as stickers from Etsy where they have the translation as “Live better without a bloke” – similar yet very different).

small paste-up, seahorse in rainbow colours with words schoner leben ohne macker

below: This stencil of girl reading a book titled “Tactics” is by seiLeise (aka Tim Ossege)

printed photo paste up of a young girl with long hair and glasses, reading a book with title Tactics.  She has three other books, Technology, Doctrine, and Analyses.

below: Ludwig von Beethoven’s image is all over Bonn. Here, it’s mostly just his eyes that you can see.

long skinny mural of Ludwig von Beethoven's face, mostly just his eyes

below: Helicopters bring relief that many (half?) of you will relate to.

on red background, graffiti of three helicopterd in flight, each carrying something, all feminine hyguene products, tampons, a rolled up pad, and a menstrual cup.

below: Parakeet on a pink heart – as an aside, there are noisy parakeets in the nearby cemetery.

pink heart painted on grey wall, with image of parakeet in the middle

below: Du bist schön = You are beautiful

paste up graffiti, a red headed woman in a blue skirt is spray painting on a wall

below: Smoochies with a very pink, and very happy, flamingo

black and white printed image of a woman in a dress, crouching down to kiss a pink flamingo

below: Many little pieces

collection of small graffiti pieces on a wall, red hearts, a photo of two children in glasses, a photo of a person singing,

below: Birds on a wire – but one just has to be different.

below: Homeless astronaut

paper paste up, printed image of astronaut sitting on the ground with a sign in front of him that says homeless.
paper paste up, printed image of astronaut sitting on the ground with a sign in front of him that says homeless, beside two other paste ups that look like pez candy dispensers.  one has head of a floppy eared dog and other has head of Wednesday from the Addams family.

below: PEZ dispensers, one with a red floppy eared dog and the other is Wednesday Addams. PEZ candies (actually officially known as Pfefferminz), in their special dispensers were invented in Austria back in 1911.

 two other paste ups that look like pez candy dispensers.  one has head of a floppy eared dog and other has head of Wednesday from the Addams family.

below: Another PEZ dispenser – I think that he came from Star Trek? He’s accompanied by a few other paste ups.

four paper paste ups in a corner of a wall in an alley

paper paste up, line drawing of young girl

below: Rainbows and Arab men.

sticker, rainbow, with an Arab man's head on it

alley in Bonn Germany, with graffiti on the walls

Photos taken late October 2025

trouble makers

below: Trouble Makers on Heliosstrasse in Cologne. There was a Paste Up Festival in August of 2025 here that was organized by Street Art Against Hate. Although that was a couple of months ago, lots remain here on this wall and many other walls on the street.

paper paste-ups graffiti  on a wall in cologne, along with words trouble maker in black paint

below: Some of the paste-ups found on the “Trouble Makers” wall.

paper paste-ups graffiti  on a wall in cologne

below: On the left is a cross-eyed orange Pummel Fee Fart Fair (and I wish I knew what words were in the thought bubble above his head!). On the right is a MyCuteCreatures little cat with two even smaller friends between her ears.

paper paste-ups graffiti  on a wall in cologne

below: One of these dogs has a peach coloured sweat shirt adorned with eyelashes and lips, by Miss GlueInverse (she calls her work analog collages). To the left of that dog is a woman cutting her long hair with a pair of blue scissors by Kalaa Baar.

paper paste-ups graffiti  on a wall in cologne

below: An interesting phone conversation? And a bearded man in sunglasses and a bear (cat?) suit.

paper paste-ups graffiti  on a wall in cologne

below: At the bottom, a pink Nadroschka pretends to be modest.

paper paste-ups graffiti  on a wall in cologne

below: Another MyCuteCreatures and a second Mopsi. This time Mopsi has a bat on his neck and the words read, “Good boy, Bat habits”.

paper paste-ups graffiti  on a wall in cologne

below: “I love Cologne” – but that cat seems too excited! So Schoen Immer Wieder is a German street artist who is responsible for the paste-ups of her pug ‘Mopsi’, most of which have cute/interesting words. In this case, the words are “easy, peasy, lemon squeezy”. The little blue dog also comes with words (same artist? I don’t know). It’s sign says, “You did so well today”.

paper paste-ups graffiti  on a wall in cologne

below: On the right is a black and white drawing by SheepArt Cologne (aka Klaus Schaefer) while sleeping in the bottom left corner is a small drawing by French artist Balaet Balaets (viens, on rêve). A very full purple trash can sits in the middle. Is that a yellow balloon in the garbage?

below: Tweet cat (seen in Melbourne!) has teamed up with Mario while a little furry nose pokes his nose over the wall.

paste ups on a wall in cologne

below: “Wer mit Dreck wirft verliert am Boden” which Google translates to “Those who throw dirt lose on the ground” which, by the sounds of it, may not be precise!

paste ups on a wall in cologne

Photos taken October 2025