Collingwood (Melbourne) portraits

Posted on January 22, 2026 by Mary C

A collection of faces that I saw as I walked around Collingwood one summer day.

below: She looks down on the parking lot.

street art painting, portrait, woman's eyes and nose on grey wall, high above cars parked below, lower part of face has been tagged over

below: Artist LING painted this image of Patrick Coyle on the side of the Albion Hotel. Coyle was the original owner of that hotel.

street art painting, portrait by artist LING, of Patrick Coyle, man sitting with a full glass of beer in his hand, elbow on table, chin in hand, face has mustache and beard

below: mmm

street art painting, portrait, 2 workman with beards and mustaches, yellow and orange high viz vests, black wool hats

below: An older portrait by Adnate graces a small brick wall.

street art painting, portrait, a woman, by adnate, with head scarf and red cloth covering mouth

below: There is another, much larger, Adnate mural nearby. This apartment building on Wellington Street was painted in 2018. I wrote a blog post about it a few years ago – Four Adnate Faces, Dec 2018

below: On the left, is a portrait by Vince Moloney. Three little yellow characters by dscreet are on the door to the right.

on the left, in grey tones, street art painting, portrait in greys of young man wearing large headphones and on the right, three yellow characters by dscreet, one of which looks like an owl

below: Another portrait by LING, this time it’s Alf Stewart who stars in ‘Home and Away’, an Australian soap opera.

street art painting, portrait by artist LING, of Alf Stewart, under a street sign that says Bedford street, red car parked in front, person on sidewalk beside,

below: Michelangelo on a wood fence.

Michelangelo portrait in many colours, on wood fence in alley,

below: It almost looks like someone is playing “Peek a Boo” although I am sure that the two faces were not painted at the same time, or by the same person.

below: Drew in bright colours

top of head in blue, bright blue nose, pink glasses, yellow and green eyes, red very short hair and red eyebrows, word Drew written across bottom of face, 24

below: One of the uglier faces that you will see today…

ugly mis-shapen face painted on gate, small forehead, large jaw, mouth and teeth, long nose,

below: With visions of palm trees in front of his face – a blue skull by Callum Preston

blue skull wearing red glasses with images of palm trees in the lenses, by Callum Preston

Photos taken February 2025

in the alleys of Owen Sound

Posted on December 31, 2025 by Mary C

Owen Sound is a small pleasant Ontario town that is nice to wander around. It has more street art than one might expect from a town its size.

parking lot and alley behind shops in Own Sound, three storey brick buildings with street art murals along the bottom third.

below: Back in 2013, the Bleeding Carrot Cafe decided that the alley adjacent to the cafe needed some art and thus the Bleeding Carrot Alley Project was born. That summer, the exterior walls of the cafe (in the alley) were painted with street art murals. Most of them still exist. Although the Bleeding Carrot doesn’t seem to be in business any more, it has left behind a colourful legacy. The first part of this blog post is dedicated to those murals.

below: Brilliant red poppies painted by Andree Levie Warrilow

a young woman's face and some bright red poppies, a mural

below: This was the first mural that was painted in the alley, a boy and his toys.

below: Another from 2013, painted by Alan Glicksman … where everybody seems to be talking.

below: Keep on rockin’ downtown, bright yellow by Robert Menzies (also 2013).

below: More 2013 – a surreal scene by Marc Matei with a purple octopus (with more than 8 legs!) makes a headpiece for a surly looking man who has a shaggy beard and one big tooth.

street art mural, purple octopus, orange donkey, man with beard,

below: Portrait of Jim, by Jennifer Crawley (2013)

below: Logan Pellerin’s trippy trees and a rocky road that leads infinitely into the distance

below: Jana Miller painted these wavy rays of sunshine.

below: In later years (post-2013), the other side of the alley was also painted.

alley behind shops in Owen Sound, three storey brick buildings with street art murals along the bottom third.

below: An orange skull

below: “Vida” is a collaboration between artist Billy Goodkat and local high school students. Vida is the Spanish word for Life.

alley behind shops in Own Sound, three storey brick buildings with street art murals along the bottom third. Purple stripes

brown turtle partially submerged in water, face is above water street art painting

below: A large section of wall in Carney’s Lane is covered by this Owen Sound mural which is also known as the Koodoo mural.

street art mural with words, Owen Sound, and a pink bunny and a blue fish

below: The south wall of the Grey Gallery is covered by “Transformation” a large mural by Raquell Yang that was painted in the summer of 2020

mural painting along one wall, exterior, outdoors, of the Grey Gallery Garden. Two large blue whales across the top, two male portraits below with a large eye with butterfly wings between the men

below: There is a large mural behind the Roxy Theatre that was painted to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the theatre. It is composed of a number of theatre related vignettes. It is the result of a collaboration between a number of artists under the leadership of Billy Goodkat.

car in parking lot, parked in front of a large theatre themed mural painted on the back of a cinema

below: And last, I found a wall covered with Emily May Rose’s raccoons.

blue raccoon with a microphone, Emily May rose mural in Owen Sound

pink and blue raccoons, one playing a guitar, the others dancing on the stairs.

Photos taken July 2025.

along rue Oberkampf

Posted on November 7, 2023 by Mary C

Rue Oberkampf is in the 11th arrondissement in Paris.

below: Tall pink mural by Francis Essoua, (aka Enfant Précoce)

below: A mix of little scenes, thunder and lightning, twins in red, pictures in a gallery,

below: Horse, by BONOM aka Vincent Glowinski

below: There were two little quick sketch portraits in red and yellow, possibly by LUIS?

below: A squashed spray paint can, a NEXT (nextmosaic) pedestrian crossing mosaic, and an orange and purple skull.

below: More little things, mostly paper this time – white dove of peace on the mailbox and two larger pieces beside, both by Corine Forest

below: These stencils were on a building at the corner of rue Oberkampf and rue Camille Crespin du Gast in the 11th.

below: A Kraken (aka Lou Daho) octopus, swims past as an orange cat or tiger jumps down.

below: “Telemaqueland” by Hervé Télémaque, was painted in 2000 along with eleven other large murals in Paris as part of a project “the walls of the year 2000” (les murs de l’an 2000).

below: Like many Paris streets, there is an Invader mosaic high up on a wall.

Photos taken March 2023

Greenleaf Street., Rochester NY

Posted on July 16, 2023 by Mary C

This is another post about some of the murals seen around Rochester. As you may have noticed, there are many!

below: A small tree grows in front of a mural of stripes, rectangles, and other shapes

a small tree on the grassy area in front of a mural with stripes, shapes, and different colours, abstract

below: What big feet you have!

close up of top of a door that is within a mural, it looks like large foot is resting on the door

below: That foot, and the skin tight boot, belongs to this man, the creation of Swedish artist Andreas Englund who likes to paint people in grey superhero outfits with scanty red pants. This was part of Wall/Therapy 2015.

below: The abstract painting in greens and blues is the work of Nova.

two murals, one is man removing his boots and other is abstract lines in greens

below: Skull surrounded by moths, butterflies and flowers that seem to be growing out of it in a work titled “Cosmos” by Nico Cathcart as part of Wall/Therapy. Painted in Sept 2021.

mural, large skull, many butterflies around it

below: Letters and symbols

street art mural featuring letters of the alphabet

below: Pink face but with only one visible eye, by Sam Rodriguez, 2014.

below: Omen (from Montreal) painted this woman lying on her side with her eyes closed.

mural by Omen in Rochester, pale skinned woman lying on her side with her eyes closed, large

below: The World is Yours by Queen Andrea (as in Letter Queen!), 2014.

below: Super Fresh

mural with cursive writing, calligraphy, says Super Fresh

below: Mural by Pixel Pancho, a boy embracing a robot that has seen better days.

large mural by Pixel Pancho of a robot and a boy

close up of the boy in Pixel Pancho mural

below: “Mother” by Maxxer242 aka Max Gramajo, painted in Sept 2021

mural, black background, woman portrait in blues

below: Another mural featuring text.. A Word is an Image, by Shoe aka Niels Shoe Meulman. Image is written in very large letters spread out across the black wall.

Part of a larger mural, black background, white lettering, A word is

below: Four quadrants of an eye and cheekbone is all that remain of a once larger mural by Daze aka Chris Ellis.

a mural divided into four equal sized rectangles, two top and two bottom

Photos taken May 2023

Some of these murals appeared in an earlier blog post titled, “murals, Rochester NY” from Dec 2015.

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

at 1st Street North & MLK

Posted on April 23, 2022 by Mary C

below: The northwest corner of Martin Luther King Blvd and 1st St North in St. Petersburg Florida where there are a few murals on the buildings. The mural of the cat and dog in the foreground was painted by Matt Kress.

below: On the other side of the building (an animal hospital) are more cats and dogs.

In the first photo, you can see small parts of another mural. This one features well known cartoon characters such as the cats Felix and Garfield, as well as Disney’s Donald Duck, Daffy Duck, and Goofy. It was painted by Greg Mike as part of the SHINE mural festival in 2021.

below: The whole mural

below: The last mural here, on the far side of the back building, is another recent painting. Also part of the SHINE 2021 festival is “Tell Me How You Feel, Part III” by Bakpak Durden.

Maika

Posted on February 19, 2022 by Mary C

Maika is another Montreal street artist. So far, these are the paste-ups of hers that I’ve seen as I’ve walked around the city.

Red, white, and blue, melting into a puddle.

on a black door, a white piece of paper paste-up with a drawing, head and shouders, of a person. Line drawing. There could be one face or two depending on which way you look at it — One face or two?

a man walks past a wall that has a poster graffiti on it, unfortunately there is a rip in the paper so image is difficult to see but there is a had and a cow's head, image by Maika — The hand of David as a wing but with the head of a cow.

graffiti pasteup colourful image of a hand and open cigarette lighter but instead of a flame there is a small bouquet of flowers — You can’t start a fire with flowers can you? Lit.

other Artist Lane murals and graffiti, Windsor, 2018

Posted on August 2, 2021 by Mary C

Artist Lane runs parallel to Chapel Street between Green and Union streets, just north of Windsor railway station. Most of the lane is covered with street art of some sort.

street art painting of a man's head, a woman's head and a bird's head, all above a text piece

street art painting in Artist Lane of a man with two merged heads. He has one set of hair, four eyes, two noses, one mouth. below: Four hairy dudes by AEON aka Tom Gerrard
stencils of four people's heads with bright orange hair

Artist Lane, Windsor, Melbourne with street art on garages and walls

street art in Artist Lane, two faces, one man in orange hat, also a fish

a blue mural at the end of Artist Lane, a blue creature

below: “I ain’t afraid of no ghost”, says the cat the skull and the devil.

black drawings on white of a cat head, and a skull. cat has word balloon that says I am not afraid of ghosts

graffiti of a cat in egyptian goddess outfit
below: Fresh presto phats diva!
a text abstract street art with the words fresh presto phats written in the top corner

section of a large series of murals along Artist Lane

below: A tropical scene by Skr3am (aka Skream III)

a mural by skr3am of a tropical beach sunset with palm trees

mural of a dog's head in blue with a large nose

Artist Lane, Windsor, Melbourne with street art on garages and walls
realistic street art painting of a man's portrait in grey tones, black and white

street art, a cartoon painting man with a hat with rabbit ears, he is eating a carrot

mural thati includes a large spray paint can with arms, legs, a mouth and a very big red tongue

a paper paste up of a brass faucet that is peeling away, on a pole in Artist Lane

an eye ball in the middle of a palm of a hand, graffiti

street art in an alcove, up under air conditioning units and plumbing, looks like a sea creature with a big mouth and teeth

creatures and faces, Thessaloniki

Posted on October 8, 2018 by Mary C

below: A large mural in Thessaloniki by DAL and Faith47.

large mural on the side of a building, a woman in profile with her hair tied up, a feathery black bird above her

below: The unspeakable truth

graffiti on a grey wall, a tree growing in front of it, a man in armour and old fashioned aviation goggles on his forehead, holding a creature with human like face and arms trying to break out from behind bars

below: Large owl in purple and white with pink eyes staring at you.

below: A mad dog (wolf?) with teeth showing, chasing a man in green.

mural of a very large wolf, or dog, head with open mouth and large sharp teeth showing, chasing a man dressed in green, looks like the man is almost in the dogs mouth, small enough to fit whole man in the mouth

below: All you see are the blue eyes… veil by vales?

motorbike parked in front of a mural of a person with head covering and veil

below: It reminded me of the story of the Trojan horse. Or you can think of it as two modes of transportation, then and now.

drawing of a horse with its back covered with a blanket, on a wall covered with small green horizontal lines, a motorbike is parked in front of it.

below: Encircled in purple

small street art painting, purple, circle shape with woman's profile in it, in light blues and oranges

below: How is your Greek? I haven’t a clue but I hope it’s not too profane. When I tried a google image search, it came up with maps of Thessaloniki – is that a clue? I thought the image was more like a bird.

Green wall. Topless woman street art. Grey feathery object beside her. Also words written in Greek.

below: Making music. Once again the words are written in Greek so I don’t understand them.

street art painting in black and white on a red wall of a musician, signature is buz 2012

below: White tigers on a wall. Mama and her two little ones along with some paste-up faces.

three white tigers on a red wall, a parent tiger with two cubs (kitts?), some other pasteups on the wall too

below: Death sneaks up from behind. Colourful.

graffiti and street art on a low wall in Thessaloniki, with leaves of trees above the wall

below: Oh no! Another picture with a motorbike!

two large white ovals with faces drawn in black lines, one continuous line for each face. A motorbike is also in the picture

below: A skeleton between the windows.

below: A fence to keep the cows in, even if it’s a wind up cow. You probably can’t see it, but someone has written “go vegan” by the cow’s tail. The signature seems to be shogun1.de

below: This octopus seems quite happy with his ride!

below: #ironik in English,

Street art and graffiti on a wall including a blue skull. Two white posters have been pasted on top, both by ironik. Words in English. One says

below: oink, oink, grunt, grunt. A wonderfully real looking pig albeit a purple one.

Mural on a wall that includes a realistic looking purple pig. Also words (signature?) Bepia Me Xdona

below: Be yourself even if you’re blue.

below: Skull and head.

below: Not even skin and bones, just bones but bones with wonderful detail.

small street art piece, black background, white skeleton of small animal such as a cat or dog, very realistic skeleton

below: His sunglasses match his tongue.

a large face painted on a garage door, yellow skin, purple sunglasses and purple tongue

below: Skane, sorc and zombie with a tongue

three ugly creatures drawn and painted on a metal door

below: Little blue man and a signature that I’m not sure about.

street art, short little purple man with oversized head, fabric mask over his nose and mouth, one arm up raised. on the other side of the mural is a creature with large eye and three monstrous teeth

below: Two faces in white and orange.

two street art faces, one white and one orange, both with lines drawn in black

black line drawing of a man on a graffiti covered door, top painted orange and bottom of man painted green

To find out where we’ve taken picture of street art, check our “Locations” page!

Quito Ecuador

Posted on February 20, 2018 by Mary C

There is a lot of street art in Quito. It covers a lot of concrete walls that are part of the city’s infrastructure (supports for elevated roads, walls around buildings, etc). Here is some that I saw in February 2018.

below: Two people, one inside sitting pretty in pink and one outside.

grey and white painted stencil of a man including head, upper body and one arm. on a yellow wall beside a window with a pink window frame. There is a sticker or pasteup of another face in the window looking out. Quito Ecuador

below: A bird in flight. One wing looks like flames while the other wing resembles water. Signed by yo-ho-ho.

street art in Quito Ecuador, a bird in flight, one wing looks like flames and the other wing looks like water, painted by yo_ho_ho. mural in Quito Ecuador

below: Many, many faces in pink.

on a wall with ivy growing over the top of it, many faces in shades of pink , overlapping each other. mural in Quito Ecuador

below: Part dragon and part fish?

on a yellow wall, behind a small tree, a colourful painting of a dragon

below: A painting by BEGO

on a house beyond a white fence, a painting on the upper storey of a woman with red hair and red flower

The next few paintings were on a wall surrounding an house that was falling down.

on an old stone wall, two animal heads, a dog and a cat maybe.

painted in blue, a pig with sunglasses and crossed arms, words say smoky pig

on a crumbling stone wall is a large green face with many pink eyes, and pink liquid spewing from his mouth

below: This is the last of the photos from the ruined building – note the broken bottles across the top of the wall. That’s very common in Quito… although electric fences seem to be replacing broken glass as a means of keeping trespassers out.

mural of a boy's head in profile, short hair, wearing goggles, all in blue shades

below: Crab (lobster?) hands

stylized painting of a man upper body with large crab hands, lack hair and blue writing (illegible) on both sides of his head. ‘

below: Laughing and pointing

large man's face with laughing open mouth, moustache and short hair, pink shirt collar, hand with index finger pointing , mural in Quito Ecuador , Hecho salsa

below: Someone stole an orange cone.

graffiti on a wall

below: Covering his mouth and I don’t think that it’s because he’s coughing.

mural in Quito Ecuador , large red face with a blue hand covering its mouth

below: Me

wall painted part red and part blue. on the blue part is a large ME in white with black border. Quito Ecuador graffiti

below: Pasteup over his face, a mouse and a mousetrap

part of a larger mural with soldier, wearing helmet with three gold stars on it, someone has put a red dot in the middle of his forehead, also a pasteup now covers his face, with a rat on it, mural in Quito Ecuador

below: Another gorgeous bird. Signed by Pagach? (Pagache?)

mural in Quito Ecuador , realistic painting of a bird with a black and yellow head.

below: Painted on a rusty metal gate. Reaching for the skull. I am not sure of the words but if it’s “ponte y las alas” that translates to ‘stand and the wings’ but there are more letters. Any ideas anyone? Painted by Aster in 2017.

on a rusted metal gate that is locked closed, graffiti of a person with outstretched arm, as well as a skull

below: Resiste

small paste up of a face and star with green and red parts

below: Graffiti behind the fence

graffiti on a wall beside an outdoor stairwell, behind a chainlink fence in Quito Ecuador

below: Supay Corpus in a residential area.

below: Someone likes to paint underwear, men’s brief to be more specific.

large black and white painting of a pair of men's briefs, underpants in Quito

below: A very realistic portrait of an old man with one green eye open.

realistic, and large, painting of a wrinkly man's face, one eye open and one closed. The open eye is green.

faded red concrete steps leading to a black door with a metal grille covering it,also some graffiti tags. Two bottle brush trees are in front with their red flowers

circular pattern painted in black and white with a cat's face ferocious in the center circle, painted mural

And last, there were some word stencils….

below: #2mayo and “ecuador ama la vida” which is ‘ecuador, love life’ is now someone’s love note to Mina.

two black stencils, the first is a raised fist with the words #2mayo and the other says ecuador

below: “Sigue to corazon & disfruta el viaje” which means “follow your heart and enjoy the trip”.

black stencil on grey concrete, sigue tu corazon a disfruta la viaje, written twice

below: Natura Insurrecta? and “Mineria responsable cuento miserable”. The direct translation for the latter is “mining responsible, tale miserable”.

green stencil on top and black on the bottom that says mineria responsable cuentu miserable

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.

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