First 2025 visit to Graffiti Alley, Toronto

Posted on January 27, 2025 by Mary C

My previous post, skateboard portraits was from a walk down Graffiti Alley in Toronto the other day. This post contains more photos that I took that snowy afternoon… so, let’s take a look!

below: Uber 5000’s yellow bird is still walking his dog and singing a song on this side of this red brick building. It’s at least 10 years old? The black and grey portrait on the right is much newer.

below: Profile portrait by TheHalfDecent

below: “Let them drink beer”, a stencil from D. Terra featuring Ontario Premier Doug Ford whose biggest “win” in the province is bringing alcohol sales to convenience stores and gas stations…. at a massive cost.

below: A 33wallflower33 pasteup in the foreground, with a corner of one of Nick Sweetman’s bird murals in the background.

below: A collaboration between Nick Sweetman and Shanehuss produced this drippy, melting jaw portrait.

below: The top portion of ” RIP King Reign & Son of Soul” remains. This tribute mural was painted by Elicser Elliott and Omen514. I am not sure who is responsible for the newer painting on the bottom, the one in yellows and blues. That’s probably a ‘signature’ in the bottom left but I don’t recognize it.

below: Graffiti Alley in the snow.

below: Sun of Aquarius (aka Andre Mandela Lopez) painted this naked figure with brown wings and bird mask

below: A pole covered with knit squares while T-bonez is shushing you.

below: A pointy nosed, long snouted dog by Mr. Myl, aka Luis Casas, who was originally from Havana Cuba.

below: Another Mr. Myl dog, this one with its blue eyes popping out. I don’t think that it’s because of the woman next to him. “Para mi Tita” is Spanish for “For my aunt”.

below: Blue haired woman by April Showers

below: And another blue haired woman…..

below: … and a third. I think that I see a trend. Methinks April Showers likes blue hair.

below: An anti-camera, anti-photographer image, “Gimmy a break, clik, clik, clik” featuring uber 5000’s yellow bird and blue cat, with the Pink Panther is a supporting role. Love the red specs!

below: Poser bunny in red

below: He (she?) seems puzzled by the snow?!

below: Is it a man or is it a chicken? A red headed cigarette smoking, spray painting character by Tuffytats

below: This one looks more like a chicken should look, so fowl.

below: An environmental message – “Got mercury?” from a non-profit group trying to raise awareness of the impact of mercury poisoning on indigenous communities.

below: Good Luck!

below: Another 33wallflower33 vintage woman.

below: Chubby purple cheeks gives a thumbs up

below: Still reaching out and trying to touch someone…..

Photos taken January 2025

skateboard portraits

Posted on January 23, 2025 by Mary C

Toronto’s Graffiti Alley is still an interesting place to explore. Unlike some street art locations that have succumbed to the scrawls and tags of the less well-intentioned, good art and ideas can still be found here. At present, adding to the eclectic nature of the graffiti in Graffiti Alley are a few interesting portraits done on half skateboards (or at least on wood in the shape of a skateboard). All are screwed onto wooden utility poles.

below: One on natural wood colour and the other in vibrant red. The sticker says Positive Creations.

below: A man with a mustache

below: Three on the same pole in Graffiti Alley – A red person with shaggy hair and light blue glasses as well someone with very long orange hair.

below: At the bottom, a quizzical look on a pink face.

Photos taken January 2025

Kent Ave container wall

Posted on December 11, 2023 by Mary C

below: Sometime between 2018 and 2022, a large wall was built using old shipping containers. If you use street view on google maps there is a section that still shows images captured in 2018 where there is no wall at Kent & Clymer. There is now graffiti on the containers.

intersection of kent and clymer in brooklyn, wall constructed of shipping containers

below: Small sticker on an already spray painted area with a sparkly, positive message, “It will all be okay”.

small sticker in pink and glittery gold that says it will all be okay

below: Just a little black bear.

a small round sticker with head of black bear

below: Slightly misshapen but also intriguing.

below: There are a lot of containers!

a pedestrian walks along a sidewalk beside a wall of shipping containers, 3 high, that seems to go on forever.

below: Either it was the word on, or a word that ended with on. Your choice.

below: “Do not remove” and “Jesus saves”

below: Another angle.

containers, 3 high, make a wall at Kent and clymer in Brooklyn, a group of people is jogging past it

below: If you don’t have a sticker, a band-aid will do?

close up of drips of paint and other spray paint graffiti, an old band-aid with pen written words in it is stuck to the wall

below: Sarkarbeats image of the Taj Mahal along with the purple character with the funny head whose name is DPac. He has his own instagram page – DPac explores

Dpac, in yoga position in front of drawing of the taj mahal

below: Simple yet menacing.

below: Face pareidolia is the illusion of seeing faces in objects, or in this case, in the rips and tears of old paper. Quite the fancy red dress that she’s wearing!

graffiti, red 5 point star spray painted on container, with ripped old paper labels under the paint that look a bit like a face

wall made of shipping containers on kent ave in brooklyn

below: Dollar signs on green

below: A lot of the graffiti was colourful but wasn’t more that scrawls or tags. My apologies to the men and women who made them, but I wasn’t very interested in them. If I took photos of every tag, I’d be swamped. Instead, I played with the lines, colours, and textures.

small section of graffiti, curved lines in white, yellow, and red, on blue background, with some rust from the metal container showing through

below: Sold Out Art Show sticker, face with multiple sets of eyes

below: Hydration Guy

below: There is a break in the wall for the exit from Steiner Studios and this is where you realize that there is a studio lot behind the wall.

exit from steiner studios in brooklyn, road with container wall on either side, three containers high

Photos taken August 2023.

You can find more graffiti by Sold Out Art Show on a previous blog past from late August

downtown Rochester

Posted on July 23, 2023 by Mary C

Murals in the central part of the city. Some old and some new.

below: Conor Harrington headless duellng men, or one man against himself?

large mural by Conor Harrington in Rochester, a man and his reflection, or possibly two men,

part of a mural, large leg and foot look like it's standing on a car

below: It looks like a small blue whale inside a larger transparent whale. It’s called “Detecting Machine” and it was painted by Nevercrew, a pair of artists, Pablo Togni and Christian Rebecchi.

whale mural, close up of faces of two whales, eyes, mouth

below: Be stronger than your excuses, under the bridge

text mural that says be stronger than your excuses

below: Be yourself, everyone else is already taken

text mural that says be yourself, everyone else is taken

below: ‘The Giant Storybook Project’ by Herakut, painted Oct. 2012, on St. Paul Street

All pictures taken May 2023 except the bottom photo which is from 2015. The mural is still there but I didn’t take another picture of it when I was in Rochester a couple of months ago.

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Graffiti Alley Bone Head

Posted on June 27, 2023 by Mary C

There are a series of 5 paintings by Bone Head nestled between the windows of a building that backs onto Graffiti Alley in Toronto. As the name suggests, Bone Head painted characters with large boney heads or skulls. They also have a penchant for white shirts and striped neck ties!

graffiti painting by bone head on a brick wall in the narrow space between two windows, large boney head, narrow white shirt and striped neck tie

Eres un graffiti?

Posted on March 25, 2023 by Mary C

“Are you graffiti?”, asks one of the other.

Words matter! Are you graffiti? Of course not, I am more than that! I am a mural.

But what is the difference? Sometimes the difference is obvious but sometimes the line dividing graffiti from its bigger (and more important? more respected?) sibling is blurry.

It’s a question asked by an artist who left his/her mark on a concrete pillar in Girona.

Photo taken March 2023.

graffiti in Faro

Posted on February 23, 2023 by Mary C

below: Some sort of art?

graffiti, black and white wheatpaste of a man in a mask, wearing glasses, head and shoulders view, with text, I am some sort of art

below: And another some art

below: Recycle yourself

black stencil on stone, recycling symbol with word yourself below it

below: He sits behind the glass.

black ink drawing of a man's portrait, signed amarantejaoum, behind the window pane in an old window with white frame

below: Green hair, teal hair.

street art painting of a woman with greenish blue hair, blue eye shadow and red lips

below: Rube stork in black and white

sticker, line drawing of a large bird with its wings out stretched

below: Trump as purple clown. Maybe the colour suits him!

graffiti, Donald Trump in a clown costume including little hat, printed in purple and black

below: The world in red and white.

graffiti, red on white, a globe of the Earth being held by two hands

below: Two faces and an arrow

blue line drawing of a face, also a blue arrow pointing downwards

below: Ouvre les yeux. La vie est belle/ bleue. Open your eyes, life is beautiful.

sticker graffiti, two faces, words that say Ouvre les yeux. La vie est belle but someone has crossed out belle and written bleu

below: Not my World Cup … protesting the 2022 World Cup (football) being held in Dubai.

FIFA world cup trophy wrapped in barbed wire, sticker graffiti

below: Priority mail

graffiti made with a USA Mail priority sticker

below: A cute little couple by Costah (aka Nuno Costah)

below: Grey Putas DSCF4794 (2)

below: Love is blue

below: Question authority?

below: “A veces el cambio se siente como en arcoiris est blanco y negro” roughly translates from Spanish to English as “Sometimes the changes feel like the rainbows are black and white.”

below: On an old wall

graffiti text and a couple of images of people, on an old wall

below: Monkeys with weapons

DSCF4706 (2)

below: … and a red mushroom

DSCF4708 (2)

below: Fox under red

grey fo pasteup on a wall, with red spray paint above it

below: Batman!

line drawing of Batmans head

below: Yes, it’s just a chicken. If you are wondering why I took a picture of a sticker with a chicken on it, you are not alone. I think that the couple walking behind me, who stopped to look at the pole too, were also confused!

sticker on a pole, a black and white chicken

below: One frog, two frog; green frog, red frog (doesn’t quite rhyme does it?)

blog_green_red_frog

below: Love and suicide and a question that is fraught with complications

graffiti, image of person with up-do hair style, with words is love suicide?

street scene in Faro, green tag saying ano, other buildings in the background

mural with roses and a jellyfish

below:Keep smiling … until next time!

Photos taken February 2023

Elicser and Sweetman at West Lodge

Posted on December 16, 2022 by Mary C

Along a wall beside the playground at 103 and 105 West Lodge is a mural painted by Elicser Elliot and Nick Sweetman a couple of years ago. It’s theme is the outdoors and it includes scenes like kids playing baseball, people reading and sitting outside enjoying themselves, as well as people planting gardens and admiring the flowers. There are also lots of animals – a large dragonfly shows off its wings, bees fly by, squirrels hoard nuts, a robin pulls a pink worm out of the ground, and a very large hedgehog sniffs the flowers.

below: Hedgehog covered with thousands of protective spikes.

large hedgehog in a mural, painted by Nick Sweetman

below: Playing baseball and keeping an eye on the bees

outdoors theme mural on wall at west lodge ave apartment buildings, parkdale

large bee in a mural, painted by Nick Sweetman

below: An encounter with a skunk

woman in blue uniform sitting on ground beside large skunk, kids watching her

below: Playing with friends. Great dunk shot!

mural by elicseer elliott, people outside, two boys playing basketball

part of a mural along a wall by elicser elliot, a girl with a white head scarf holds a large orange flower. winter time, snow on the ground

below: This robin has found very large worm

mural, nick sweetman, brown dog standing beside a large robin that is pulling a pink worm out of the ground

mural, boy outside, kneeling on grass and playing with large pink worm, another boy is hiding behind a tree

corner of wall, interior angle, with mural painted on it

below: A blue dragonfly with translucent wings

blue bodied dragonfly in a mural, painted by Nick Sweetman, 103 West Lodge Ave., wall, snow on the ground, beside some large trees

elicser elliott mural, three kids outside, one in purple top and orange shorts sitting against tree, reading a book.

below: A black squirrel and a grey squirrel and thousands of nuts!

mural, outside, close up of a black squirrel and a grey squirrel and their piles of nuts

two people sitting in a garden, part of a mural on a wall, one person in a green t shirt is planting a small green twig in the brown dirt, the other person is female and has a purple head scarf

portion of wall painted by Elicser Elliot and Nick Sweetman, people outside,

snow covered playground with one wall covered in a mural painted by elicser elliott and nick sweetman

The people in the mural scenes were painted by Elicser Elliott while Nick Sweetman painted the animals.

Photos were taken December 2022

zirco fish

Posted on August 30, 2022 by Mary C

In an alley near Dovercourt and Queen West in Toronto are two garage door murals unlike any others.

below: ‘Elephancy’ by Zirco Fish – It’s an elephant but it’s not. Tusks like an elephant and the ears seem to be big a floppy. But the mouth is like a beak and the eyes are certainly not those of an elephant. A crazy fantastical creature, the product of someone’s imagination.

a street art mural on a garage door, rust coloured wood garage. Image looks like an elephant

mural on a grage door, another garage door that has been tagged, graffiti on a fence, the back of a house, in a lane.

below: ‘Scrat Attack’ by Zirco Fish.

mural of a cat head, in memory of Scrat, painted by James Zirco Fisher, on a garage door in an alley

boxed in Tirana

Posted on August 18, 2022 by Mary C

below: Hippity hipster rabbit with sunglasses and tatts.

painted sidewalk box on a sidewalk in Tirana, a hipster with rabbit head, wearing sunglasses and with tattoos on his arm

below: Sargent Pepper theme, character in green with drums – Ringo Starr from the Beatles.

painted sidewalk box on a sidewalk in Tirana, Sargent Pepper cartoon character in green and playing drums, like Ringo Starr

below: A second Sargent Pepper character but this time it’s George Harrison in yellow. I didn’t see the other Beatles but I wouldn’t be surprised if they are in the city somewhere.

below: A child rides on the back of a white goose as it flies in front of a boat. The boy, in the red hat, is Nils and he has been bewitched by an elf so that he is only a few inches tall. The goose is his transportation and together they have adventures. Nils saves the goose and some ducks from a hungry fox; he also rescues a baby squirrel from a hunter. The Nils books were written in the early 1900s by Selma Lagerlof (Swedish), the first woman to win a Nobel prize in literature.

painted sidewalk box on a sidewalk in Tirana, large white goose flying over a wooden boat

below: Beavis and Butthead from the 1990s animated TV series.

painted sidewalk box on a sidewalk in Tirana, television characters from the 1990s, Beavis and Butthead, sitting on a red couch

below: Green Frankenstein.

painted sidewalk box on a sidewalk in Tirana, portrait of Frankenstein with green face

below: Blue woman with a feather

below: His arms are covered with tattoos but the face has been defaced (or was very strange to begin with?) so I am having trouble figuring out who the character is.

painted sidewalk box on a sidewalk in Tirana,

below: Angry bird on the right, standing beside another hipster rabbit. The words stencilled on the box, “Nidermarrja e Dekorit Bashkia Tirane”, roughly translates to Decoration Enterprise, Tirana Municipality. There is a Dekori – Bashkia Tirane instagram page that features some of the artists whose works are found Tirane.

two painted sidewalk box on a sidewalk in Tirana, the one on the right is a red angry bird from the game

below: Chuck Norris

painted sidewalk box on a sidewalk in Tirana, portrait of man with text that says Chuck Norris counted to infinity twice

below: Quentin Tarantino.

painted sidewalk box on a sidewalk in Tirana, portrait of Quentin Tarantino

below: A tiger growls at the passing traffic

painted sidewalk box on a sidewalk in Tirana, tiger with open mouth

below: An older man with many birds in his beard, inspired by a poem by Edward Lear:
” There was an Old Man with a beard,
Who said, “It is just as I feared!—
Two Owls and a Hen, four Larks and a Wren,
Have all built their nests in my beard.”

painted sidewalk box on a sidewalk in Tirana, man with large grey beard with birds in it

below: A rooster on a cat on a dog on a donkey in the night. This time it is a story that is referenced here, “The Town Musicians of Bremen”. Although the story dates from the 12th century it was first published in 1819 by the Brothers Grimm. It is the tale of 4 older animals no longer useful on their farms who meet up and decide to go to the city of Bremen to be musicians. They never get there but they have other adventures instead (you’ll have to read the story to get the details!)

painted sidewalk box on a sidewalk in Tirana, silhouettes of animals stacked on top of a donkey. A rooster sits at the top. Cat and dog in the middle, night time

below: Another story – here it is Peter Pan and the Darling children, Wendy, John, and Michael, flying off to Never Never Land.

painted sidewalk box on a sidewalk in Tirana, yellow box with black silhouettes of Peter Pan and the three children flying through the sky

below: Bob Marley in front of Hops.

Eyes on the Streets

and feets on the ground. Graffiti, street art and murals seen while wandering the streets and alleys of our colourful world.

Tag Archives: paint