This year’s Dyke March (the 20th!) was an energetic, supportive, and positive celebration once again. It was led as usual by motorcycles and then Dykes on Bikes. Numerous groups and individuals walked and there was a good turnout that lined the sidewalks to watch the parade pass by. Colourful. Joyful.
#pride | #prideTO | #prideToronto
This blog post is about a flock of birdos, meaning that I found a lot of alley garages decorated with paintings by street artist birdo. Or maybe ‘a menagerie of birdos’ would be a more accurate description as most of the pictures were of different animals such as elephant, cat, dog, coyote, and mouse along with a number of different birds.
These photographs were are all taken in alleys behind the south part of Dovercourt Road (between Queen and Sudbury streets). The majority of the paintings that I saw were result of birdo’s work but there were examples of and I have included them in this post too.
below: Two birdo birds with eggs, with a slice of mushroom and pepperoni pizza by Shalak.
below: Howling at the moon, with a cactus and a scorpion too.
below: Blue dog, pink lava lamp
below: A rooted turtle and cool owl with sparkly shades
below: “Just a robot that doesn’t like technology”
Graffiti and street art on walls and garage doors in the alleys surrounding Sorauren Park.
below: If you are walking eastward along Dundas West, this is the first mural that you see.
below: A friendly fuzzy blackburn animal playing in the park
below: Dog (wolf?) by Aaron Li-Hill
below: The guy in the blue shorts is saying: “You don’t need a mirror to look good, you’re beautiful on the inside, like you’re brain and stuff.”
below: Spudbomb mural
below: by elicser, I was on cloud nine for a long time.
below: by elicser, It’s almost dark. One more wave, then we go in.
In the world of graffiti and street art, change is usually inevitable and sometimes interesting. One exception seems to be the alley that you can see from subway between Keele and Dundas West stations. The building on the corner of Bloor West and Indian Road is new, but otherwise little is changed. Even though most of the street art is the same as before, I don’t think that I have posted it in the past. Here is documentation of most of it.
below: King Midas still looks over the TTC parking lot at Keele station. Well, I’ve always assumed that it was King Midas although he was the guy whose touch turned everything to gold, not grey.
below: And this monkey is still asking what the noise is all about.
below: ‘Sink or Swim’ by elicser
below: A lovebot shares wall space with an Uber5000 birdie….
below: … because Everybody’s a Winner
below: Laser, not loser. Now with laser vision.
below: Ghostbusters in a hard to reach place
below: Zooks is still on her wall.
below: This turtle has seen better days
below: Guard dog at the bottom of the stairs
below: She seems to turn when the door opens, a mural by EGR art
below: He (she?) still keeps goal on the back porch.
below: This mural also has a painting of Marilyn Monroe in it along with Bruce Lee and Alfred Hitchcock. There were too many cars parked in front of it when I walked past the other day.
below: King Kong dominates this wall.
below: We Rise Up
below: War and Peace
![graffiti street art in an alley - Two black and white hearts, one with a face drawn on it. The words cloud + glare = [heart]](https://mcfcrandall.blog/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/blog_cloud_glare_heart.jpg)
I happened to walk into the Queen Mother Cafe (on Queen West) this afternoon. They often have original artwork displayed on their walls and today was no exception. I found some intriguing and very creative masks.
They are the creation of Jeff Mann, a Kingston based artist.
According to his website, Mann makes the masks mostly from car parts and shovels. The ones here are only a sample of the collection I saw at the Queen Mother cafe. In addition, there are pictures of more masks on Mann’s website.
I was sorting through older photos recently when I discovered some of street art and graffiti that I saw in an alley near Trinity Bellwoods Park. The photos were taken in February so there is lots of snow in them. I thought that it would be silly to write a blog post in August using cold and snowy photos so I went back the other day to retake the pictures.
The alley is at the north end of Trinity Bellwoods Park, running behind Dundas West between Montrose and Grace. The east end of the alley turns north to exit at Dundas West.
below: This guy, and his chess issues, is at the corner where the alley meets Dundas West.
below: close up of the dog from the painting above, taken in February
below: There was one garage that had been painted between February when I first saw it and early August when I went back. The two photos below show the garage ‘before’ and ‘after’.
below: This Anser face was on the doors of the above garage back in February.
It has since been painted over.
below: Blaze Works has painted this where the Anser face was. Always remember.
other garage doors
The Magical Garden, by Broadview Community Youth Group and Wallnoise
in a park just north of the Danforth between Ferrier and Logan.
One wall features four murals created by members of the youth group.
Local street artists have decorated the other fences in the park as well as a couple of garage doors in the lane adjacent to the park.
Street art seen in a small lane, on the side of 314 Adelaide East.
above: painted by Aaron Li-Hill
above: painted by IAH Media
people painted by Elicser
314 Adelaide East is the home of Artik, a custom T-shirt (and other things) printing company.
Honest Eds, a Toronto icon, at the corner of Bathurst and Bloor since 1948
Looking south from Bloor Street towards the parking lot behind Honest Eds.
There are a few murals on the buildings that back onto the parking lot.
Trumpet players on the back of the Victory Cafe at the corner of Markham and Lennox Streets
Woman with boxing gloves has been on the back of Trainers Fitness for a few years. The newer dog is painted on the back of A Leg Up Pet Services.
Purple behind Southern Accent restaurant and a mural painted by Christie Ossington Neighbourhood Centre through their LOFT program.
Yesterday I came across some interesting colourful garage doors on Scarfo Lane that I have not seen before. I didn’t see any signature on them so I don’t know who painted them.
Walking south from Herrick Street…..
and then walking north from Herrick St…..
Looking north from Herrick St.
as I walk Toronto 