In Toronto, running west off of West Lodge Ave., there is an alley behind Queen Street West on the north side. The upper part of this long, low building was painted blue a number of years ago. Since then it has been tagged and used as a place to spray, stick, or paste graffiti.
below: T-bonez from Urban Ninja Squadron practises yoga positions.
below: A bright red door that has unfortunately been scrawled on. Beside it is a black figure that seems to be diving backwards while holding a bunch of colourful balloons.
below: Once it was a pink cat with green whiskers
below: Holding tight to that red rose.
Continuing west towards Lansdowne ….
below: Faces in the alley, with a bit too much gold
below: Chubby cheeks and big fat lips…. and how many eyes?
below: Faces, many faces with their eyes closed and their hair swirling around. Mural painted by Carol Ann Apilado
below: “Tell me its all going to be okay? Not sure if I can do that buddy…..
below: Patterns and shapes on fence, by Hello Kirsten
below: Enough! Although once upon a time it said more than that…..
Fairgrounds describes itself as an immersive arts and technology experience. It is located near 28th Street S and the 275 freeway in St. Petersburg. You’ll find the Pinellas Trail nearby. The area around it is home to some interesting street art.
below: Derek Donnelly’s Fairgrounds mural on the outside of their building.
below: “Girl Power”, is a mural of a girl and her horse among the sunflowers. It is a project that involved both the Girl Scouts of West Central Florida and the The Happy Mural Project.
below: Straight Edge Creative is responsible for the bright and cheerful music themed painting of the front of this building.
below: Einstein, and “Seek knowledge”
below: Gibbs Mural Club, “Local Bounty” A woman with a crown of flowers surrounded by blueberries, mangoes, lemons, watermelons, and other fruits and vegetables.
below: When two faces merge together, one canine eye and one human eye but two noses and two mouths. An interesting concept painted in blues by Marcus Debie aka GOMAD
below: Butterflies and bright words, “Go Outside” and hiding behind the palms are more words, “Look Inside”. This mural was painted by Sydney Prusso as part of the 8th SHINE Mural Festival in 2022.
below: “The Siren” by Sarah Sheppard
below: As part of the 2021 SHINE Mural Fetival, this was painted by Aurailieus
below: Abstract seaside scene in waves of blue and orange gradients.
below: More abstracts – Designs and patterns using triangles and colour variations.”
below: Blue headdress on a cute little creature.
below: “You are beautiful”, “You are amazing”, and other positive messages.
below: A 3-D cube and other shapes on the outside of the Hideaway Cafe
below: The long neck of a flamingo reaches around the corner towards a bit purple crab and an octopus
below: A pelican taking flight, part of a larger mural for the Florida Wildlife Corridor by Ernesto Maranje.
below: Words on the wall, “Haleakala, Our patron saint of perpetual street art”. I may have misspelled the first word – it’s actually the name of a volcano on Maui.
2016 was the first year that the Vancouver Mural Festival was held. This event that ran nine years but apparently will not be held this year, 2025. In the first year there were about 40 murals painted in 20 different locations. A concentration of them can still be seen near Main and Industrial.
below: Wall of murals on Industrial Street in Vancouver
below: “Van City Scape” by Ola Volo
below: A frog and a flying insect beside a pond or lake, a mural by Cody Lecoy,
below: This mural is a representation of Buddhist figures Yama and Mara, where the 3 heads rep Mara’s daughters, Craving, Aversion, and Desire. It was painted by Paige Bowman
below: Everything Matters; Nothing’s Important, by Katie Maasik
below: This dragon is a collaboration between Katie So and Ben Knight, “Knot Yourself”. The title comes from the fact that the mural spells out those words; the portion shown here is the O and T at the end of KNOT and the Y at the beginning of YOURSELF.
below: Nevercrew painted this large red mural – it’s a polar bear stuck inside a plastic bottle and it has the title, “Exhausting Machine”
There was also a wall of murals painted along Southern Street. Most of them are now at least partially obscured by changes in the building, or by items stored in front of the walls.
below: Mural by Julia Iredale,
below: Shannon Elliott’s mural of large birds with little naked men in their beaks.
below: Conductor with baton and lightning bolts?, the blare of a trumpet and a determined cello player. by Tim Mack
below: Only a very small portion of the mural was visible the day that I passed by, kids and little pink fingers or worms, by Peter Ricq,
below: Words – the whole mural originally said, “We’re looking for people who like to look for people”. by Bobo
below: In Melbourne’s CBD, Tattersall and Stevenson alleys are connected. They are also covered with a lot of paint and paper! As I wandered through these lanes I tried to capture some of the more interesting things, both big and small.
below: Spiderman likes taking pictures
below: The Street Art Hunters (aka SAH) are dressed in hot pink!
below: A purple Frankenstein along with his bride, also in purple, hanging out together behind bars. Artwork by Moon of Jupiter Art (aka Ryan Callisto)
below: Now in green. A small Complimentary Nuts paste-up is immediately below this version of Mr. and Mrs. Frankenstein, “7 out of 10 dentists say that your teeth are awesome. The other three need your cash”.
below: A third poster by Ryan Callisto. This time Frankenstein is just a tattoo on her arm.
below: “You’ve got to love Melbourne!”
below: Fall in love, not in line
below: “Sending you love because wow! what a shithow” and Love is Hell.
below: “What if we kissed in the smouldering ruins of capitalism?”
below: Little beaded diamond shapes like these have appeared all over downtown Melbourne.
below: Every deck of cards needs a Joker
below: Two artworks, paper paste-ups. A woman’s portrait on top and a playing card style image of Jimmy Hendrix, the H of Hearts, below.
below: Prince, in purple, becomes the P of Hearts in this playing card style image.
below: When someone came along with a can or two of spray paint, the little girl with the “Just doubt Fascism” sign survived. The bug on the right is probably not too happy with the situation.
below: A musical bluebird by Lukas Kasper.
below: Is it smiling? or smirking?
below: Two megaphones… and a very determined look on her face
below: It’s always fascinating to see how some bits of graffiti last so much longer than others. Even if they are left untouched, they slowly weather and fade away until almost ghost-like.
below: While we are on the subject of “vintage” graffiti, there are four pieces on this wall by Junky (aka Daniel Lynch) They are looking a little rusty and forlorn. I first encountered ‘recycled’ cans like these when I was in Melbourne in 2016. See post, Junky Recyles
below: Button-eyed face
below: What is a Lost Form?
below: Door covered with posters, street art images
below: Closer view of the posters on the bottom half – SAH, Tweet
below: top half
below: Scrawny alien-like character with big yellow eyes and spikey hair. Is there a pop culture reference for this guy?
below: Flowers growing beside the entrance to an office building in a painting by Anais Lera
below: “Dreamweaver”, 2020, by Lauren Brevner and James Nexw’Kalus-Xwalacktun Harry (aka James Harry) in part as a response to the death of George Floyd and the Black Lives Matter movement. Commissioned by the Vancouver Mural Festival and Hudson Pacific Properties.
below: On the side of a parking structure at Seymour and West Pender, Carolyn Wong has painted a large mural featuring aquatic life in a pond. Ducks and fish swim among the water lilies.
below: In the fading light of late afternoon, “Earth Justice” by Shepard Fairey takes on a yellowish glow. Financial help for this mural was provided from the Burrard Arts Foundation and their ‘Surface Series’
below: Another Lauren Brevner and James Harry mural; this one, also from 2020, is the story of how salmon came to the Squamish people.
below:Ola Volo’s “Wall for Women” at Burrard station.
below: A collage of musical elements adorns a wall behind the Lennox Pub in a lane off of Granville Street. It was painted by Nada Hayek.
below: The sad grey man with the very long arms and bad posture is another creation of stenandoli. In the middle is an Australian White Ibis by tweet – I wonder what it is trying to say to the cat?
below: A foxy lady, by Susi Foxy Art, aka Susi Luard.
below: Carried away by a yellow balloon…..
below: left: “T Phobia is rooted in White Supremacy” with a purple flower. middle: “Don’t be dick”, with a yellow flower. right: He seems to be holding a fish. Seems fishy?
below: Look out everyone, there’s an angry looking Blastoise pokemon character coming your way!
When I walked around the Mission District back in February, I walked Osage Lane and Orange Alley one after the other. Later that day when I was sorting my photos, I messed up where one set of pictures ended and the next set started. It’s possible that the photos that I posted a week or so ago were not just Osage Lane either! (Mission District: Osage Lane) The two laneways run parallel to each other, one on the east side of Bartlett Street and the other on the west side.
below: Someone is a Gladys Knight and the Pips fan with a quote from their song, ‘Midnight Train to Georgia’, “Trying to get back to a more simple place in time….”
below: A Cheech and Chong themed mural celebrating the famous comedy pair. Cheech Marin and Tommy Chong rode the free loving, hippie era to success with stand-up routines, records, and films based largely on drugs/cannabis and other counterculture subjects.
below: “My name is…” a 2022 mural by Precita Eyes Muralists. Directed by Flavia E. Mora. Assisted by Teresa Benson. In collaboration with 6th and 7th grade arts electives students at Synergy School. It’s a mural that touches on most social justice issues of the day – Missing Equity, Land Back, Black and Trans Lives Matter, Equality, and Reproductive Rights.
below: Only some heads remain.
below: Frija, Goddess of Fertility with her antlers and long white hair.
below: Faded.
below: Pablo A. Medina, “There is so much love in this city”.
below: All in green – a large tree…. and a hand on a paint roller… and everything in between.
below: A colourful fellow with whiskers and button-like eyes, in a mural painted by Sune Nesu. It also has a little glowing halo; is this a memorial to a lost friend?
below: San Francisco under the window with the Golden Gate bridge in the background.
Batman delivers. Unfortunately, the image below is cut off but the words say, “Oh Clark, the Christmas street art is amazing!”
And Christmas street art it is, a whole double door in Hosier Lane covered with Christmas themed graffiti, stickers, and paste-ups – part of the Melbourne Street Art Collective meet-up on 15th December 2024.
“Have a crackin’ good Christmas” nutcracker by Lisa D. as well as a Christmas tree full of guitars. The “pin-up women” Christmas images are the work of Srta~Dolores. In the bottom right corner is a painting of a woman done on a drinks list menu; Moscow Mules, Bellinis, Brambles, and Dark and Stormys for $9 each. It is the work of Jimzina
Minnie Mouse and a grandmotherly Mrs. Claus make an appearance along with another Lisa D. illustration, this time candy canes.
below: Rock on Santa, love the cool shades. The yellow LEGO guys have “SAH” on their jackets – Street Art Hunters!
below: “Gnome means gnome.”, Homer Simpson as Santa Claus, and Robbo-t gets dressed up like an elf.
below: Batman is still delivering gifts but now he’s wearing a special Batman Christmas sweater. A very Australian koala looks on.
below: This Santa wears big pink glasses and a rainbow hat.
below: Bart Simpson spray paints a Christmas message while Lisa Simpson stands by.
below: The bottom of the image is cut off, and a blob of blue spray paint gets in the way, I’m afraid, but there is a pink and white cowboy boot filled with Christmas goodies by Alice Mole. Also here, SAH – Street Art Hunters, ‘playing cards’ with Rudolf the Red-nosed Reindeer….
below: I think that it’s Marilyn Munroe surrounded by shiny Christmas baubles.
below: Santa Sleighs
below: Even pokemon characters celebrate Christmas, as do the characters from ‘The Nightmare before Christmas’.
Santa gnomes with text: “Damn we’d like a kiss from a beauty like you. Come on mistletoe, work your magic” and top right: “With looks that hot, you’re melting any chance of a White Christmas”. These were brought to you by the Complimentary Nuts
below: Santa and Mrs. Claus baking in the kitchen together – maybe they’re making gingerbread men!
below: Santa celebrates a successful night of sleigh driving and toy delivering with a well deserved day at the beach with a friendly kookaburra and a playful platypus.
below: “It’s okay to say No, No, No” by Katie Ruby
Eyes on the Streets 