Posts Tagged ‘painting’

the painting of a mural

Posted: July 15, 2015 in graffiti and street art, public art
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Piliriqatigiingniq

This mural is on the south wall of Hosteling International on Church St.,
and in a parking lot on Court St.,
just north of King St. East and across from St. James Cathedral.

Painted July 2015

The beginnings of the mural on Court St. in Toronto. The picture is drawn in blue on the wall, and the bottom part is painted. Scaffolding is in place but no one is there at that moment.

This project was a collaboration between Mural Routes and the Nunavut Arts and Crafts Association.  Artists were youth from Cape Dorset as well as graduates from Toronto’s Oasis Skateboard Factory: Latch Akesuk, Audi Qinnuayuaq, Cie Taqiasuq, Parr Etidloie, Julieta Arias and Moises Frank.

Two people sitting on scaffolding while they paint a mural

A man wearing a hard hat who is sitting on scaffolding and painting a mural on the side of a building.

Completed mural of stylized and symbolic bird and snimal shapes in many bright colours. It is at least two storeys high.
Close up picture of the mural's bottom center part showing a man in winter clothing with a snowmobile strapped to his back. He is hunched over as he walks. On the snowmobile of a very large bird shaped crature with faces covering its body.

 

from Portland to Niagara

Posted: July 10, 2015 in graffiti and street art, locations
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A few days ago I posted a series of photos of some of the graffiti and street art that I saw in Graffiti Alley between Portland and Spadina.   This post is a continuation of that one as it consists of the photos that I took on the same day but in a different section of the alley, between Portland and Niagara streets.

graffiti and street art in Graffiti Alley in Toronto - a very large grominator on the second storey, beside a door that goes nowhere

graffiti and street art in Graffiti Alley in Toronto - a large two headed grominator above a garage door, and a birdo creature on the door.

graffiti and street art in Graffiti Alley in Toronto - on a concrete wall, a birdo creature with a mouse head, a blue waffle body and pink and turquoise striped curvy body with long legs. It is holding a green oval shape in its front paws.

graffiti and street art in Graffiti Alley in Toronto - a wooden gate, double doors, so that when the doors are closed a stylized face is the result. It has mirror symmetry.

graffiti and street art in Graffiti Alley in Toronto - three large scowling men's heads in blue above a garage door that has swirls in pinks and purples.

graffiti and street art in Graffiti Alley in Toronto - black line drawing on white of a young man standing on the left and a young girl sitting on the right

graffiti and street art in Graffiti Alley in Toronto - a stencil that looks like a Calvin and Hobbes cartoon, both characters are sitting on a tree branch, Hobbes is stretched out and sleeping, Calvin is sitting. THe words 'There's never enough time to do all the nothing you want

graffiti and street art in Graffiti Alley in Toronto - a large blue socket puppet with bulging eyes and a big black marker in its mouth.

graffiti and street art in Graffiti Alley in Toronto - Two buildings in the picture. In the foreground is a one storey garage with a large totund stylized guitar player sitting on the ground with one knee up. Behind him you can see another painting of a guitar player but this one is a bit more realistic.

graffiti and street art in Graffiti Alley in Toronto - A basquiat crown on a cartoonish face on a door

graffiti and street art in Graffiti Alley in Toronto - a sylized blue woman from the waist up. Puffy curly hair. She's been scribbled on including a heart on her chest.

graffiti and street art in Graffiti Alley in Toronto - Back wall of a store, large woman's face on part of the wall

graffiti and street art in Graffiti Alley in Toronto - the side of a concrete garage, small tree in front of it. To the left of the tree is a man's head and hand. In his hand is a lollipop but with it shaped like the symbol for Shell Oil. Beside it are the words Rich Kid Lollipop. To the right of the tree is a little blue figure with a pink basquiat type crown

a small collage by clowntearz, a sad face, rainbow, clouds,

graffiti and street art in Graffiti Alley in Toronto - a collage like piece of street art on a garage door by clowntearz. Googley eys, cannabis leaves, happy faces, zigzags, green alien faces, red ooze

graffiti and street art in Graffiti Alley in Toronto - a tag in browns and turquoise

graffiti and street art in Graffiti Alley in Toronto - on a wall at the bottom of the stairs, a mulitfaced person by elicser with a woman standing beside him with her arms stretched towards him. The words 'Kill'em with niceness' are written between the couple

graffiti and street art in Graffiti Alley in Toronto - blue lettering, G P C

graffiti and street art in Graffiti Alley in Toronto - a very large chocolate sundae, complete with whipped cream and a cherry, on a blue garage door

graffiti and street art in Graffiti Alley in Toronto - a woman's face in profile, seems to be looking at a large ice cream sundae.

graffiti and street art in Graffiti Alley in Toronto - BRDL, Penguin looking worried, dollar bills are flying out of his pockets and into a (real) vent of the building. He's wearing a blue tophat. Word bubble says

graffiti and street art in Graffiti Alley in Toronto - A large white man's face on a garage door, with a pile of broken boards in front of it. The man is supposed to be Kim Jong of North Korea

graffiti and street art in Graffiti Alley in Toronto - the upper part of a topless woman with curly pink and turquoise hair. Running vertically beside her are the words 'I got out of bed for this' and below her is the words 'or leave'

graffiti and street art in Graffiti Alley in Toronto - a lovebot of hearts playing card sticker on a metal pole beside a sticker of a woman's head with curly black hair and big earrings in the shape of a cross

graffiti and street art in Graffiti Alley in Toronto - brightly coloured painting in many colours and shapes

yipyaps sticker on a metal pole in an alley

graffiti and street art in Graffiti Alley in Toronto - angular shaped tag in blues

graffiti and street art in Graffiti Alley in Toronto - words scawled on a garage door,

graffiti and street art in Graffiti Alley in Toronto - an orange tag on rusty red background, painted across a wide doorway

graffiti and street art in Graffiti Alley in Toronto -

graffiti and street art in Graffiti Alley in Toronto - Charlie Brown in the bottom right corner of a garage. In green are the words Be WHo You Are

graffiti and street art in Graffiti Alley in Toronto - on a wood fence, someone was scrawled the words

graffiti and street art in Graffiti Alley in Toronto - a colourful tag on a white garage door. The number 710 is above the door.

graffiti and street art in Graffiti Alley in Toronto - two stickers on a pole. A small skull and cross bones and a large one that is a black and white creature with website liarliar.etsy.com on it.

graffiti and street art in Graffiti Alley in Toronto - five stickers on white, also a big orange X. One sticker is a knuts frog with its tongue stuck out.

a fresh coat

Posted: March 31, 2015 in graffiti and street art
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Repainting a wall in Graffiti Alley

begiinning to paint, starting with the red - new graffiti tag art in the alley, red with yellow polka dots on blue background

painting new graffiti, blue and yellow next, new graffiti tag art in the alley, red with yellow polka dots on blue background

new graffiti tag art in the alley, red with yellow polka dots on blue background

new graffiti tag art in the alley, red with yellow polka dots on blue background
new graffiti tag art in the alley, red with yellow polka dots on blue background
close up of a door and doorstep that is incorporated into new graffiti tag art in the alley, red with yellow polka dots on blue background

Regent Park hoardings

Posted: March 13, 2015 in graffiti and street art, locations, public art
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Located at the northwest corner of Regent Park Blvd and St. David St.,
(which is south of Dundas East and east of Sackville)
painted on the wood hoardings around a construction site.

 This wall was painted as part of The Patch Project
PATCH = “Public Art Through Construction Hoarding”

Unfortunately, one photo that is missing is one of the section of the wall that is a large section that says “Conquer Adversity with Diversity”, the title of this work.

Colourful graffiti on hoardings around a construction site. Scenes of people and faces, kids on bikes, activities. The word Welcome is written in red cursive. Two apartment buildings are in thebackground.
Colourful graffiti on hoardings around a construction site. The words Regent Park are written in large blue & purple cursive writing. An entrance to the construction site is between the two words.
Colourful graffiti on hoardings around a construction site. A woman's head and three men's faces in profile. They are all under the same pink head covering.

Colourful graffiti on hoardings around a construction site. A large woman in head scarf with her eyes closed, people on bikes riding on a path

Colourful graffiti on hoardings around a construction site.Young man in blue baseball cap

graffiti people. One of whom has there hands over their mouth.

Colourful graffiti on hoardings around a construction site. Six stylized hands in a row, on blue background. Highrise apartment building is in the background.

Colourful graffiti on hoardings around a construction site. Large blue boy's face with a large bird taking flight beside him

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Street art of six stylized hands on a blue background.
Colourful graffiti on hoardings around a construction site. Two men punching, one is punching while the other stands beside him with fists clenched

Street art painting of two guys on a wall around a construction site. There are words in the picture. The first word ends with e n c h I think. The other words are Generation Rising Still

More information on The Patch Project

Bathhouse raids mural

Posted: February 12, 2015 in graffiti and street art, history, locations
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The Bathhouse Raids by Christiano De Araujo is a mural on Church Street just south of Carlton.
Completed in the fall of 2013, it was the largest of the Church St. Mural Project pieces commissioned for WorldPride 2014.

The following photos were taken with a very wide angle lens
because of the size of the mural and because there are always cars parked in front of it.

large mural on the side of a building. A number of cars are parked in front of it. The mural depicts the bathhouse raids, an event in Toronto's history where police raided gay bath house and arrested those they found inside. A yellow Toronto police car, a fire truck with its lights on are both in the picture. An oversized person is in the center, hands held over her/his head.

On the 5th of February, 1981, Toronto police raided four bathhouses in what was known as ‘Operation Soap’.
Around 300 men were arrested.  Most charges connected to the incident were eventually dropped or discharged, although some bathhouse owners were fined.

part of a large mural showing a yellow Toronto police car from the 1980's, a couple of policemen and a crowd of men standing just back of the police car

part of a large mural showing a yellow Toronto police car from the 1980's, a couple of policemen and a crowd of men standing just back of the police car

The event marked a major turning point in the history of the LGBT community in Canada.
The raids led to protests – the night after the raids, 3,000 people marched on 52 Division police headquarters and on Queen’s Park, smashing car windows and setting fires.  That spring the city held its first Pride Parade.

right hand side of the bathhouse raid mural on Church St. showing a firetruck with its red flashing lights on

Douglas Coupland at the ROM

Posted: February 5, 2015 in galleries
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Douglas Coupland: everywhere is anywhere is anything is everything

Royal Ontario Museum
until April 26, 2015

entrance to an exhibit at the Royal Ontario Museum featuring a large yellow wall with the name Douglas Coupland in large black letters. In the distance are two women standing in front of a painting that is hung on point.

In the background is a large painting of geometric abstract shapes in yellows, reds and greys. In the foreground is a close up of two stacks of blocks. The blocks are old children's wooden building blocks but they are alll different. Three have letters of the alphabet on them, one has a picture of a birds nest.

The 21st Century Condition
“I want to explore how it feels to be inside the 21st century brain as opposed to the 20th century brain”

Six paintings arranged three across by two down, on a wall. One in grays, one in pink, one in purple, one in ornage and one in pale pink.

a large wall is covered with coloured rectangles and in each rectangle is an expression that has become common. For example, get a life, oh my god, delete entire history?, etc. A woman is standing to the left of the wall, taking a picture of it with her cellphone.

view of an art exhibit, some people are walking through it and a couple of people are looking at the art on the walls

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Painted with dots.  When they are hanging on the wall, they look abstract.
When they are shrunk down and viewed on a smartphone, the picture comes into focus.

three paintings hanging on a wall in an art exhibit. One is of Osama bin Laden and the other two are 9/11 related, New York .

update:  Here is an interesting article that appeared in the Torontoist on 24th Feb about this exhibit.

by kids

Posted: December 7, 2014 in locations
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On a fence at Adam Beck Junior Public school in Scarborough is a wonderful “mural” composed of pictures painted by some of the students.  Kudos to all involved in the project!

a large number of colourful paintings by students at a junior public school. Some are scenes of Toronto, others are of animals or plants or buildings.

A “Danger due to construction” sign, the CN Tower and a Toronto police car.
Ladybugs, flowers and trees.
On the very right is a picture that looks like a sunset or sunrise.  What you probably can’t read are the words written on the blue stripe.  They say, “the story of my life”.

Close up of the fence at a school. About twenty paintings done by the students.

 Buses, soccer balls and a hat left on the fence.
Another CN Tower, an arena, and ice cream.
Stop bullying too.

close up of the left part of the fence with paintings by students at the school.

A Canadian flag and the Toronto Maple Leafs.

more of the collection of paintings by elementary school students that are hanging on a fence around the school.

Scarfo Lane

Posted: November 29, 2014 in graffiti and street art, locations
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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…..

a blue animal like creature is carrying a stick over his shoulder. three wood bir houses are at the back of the stick. A blue bird is sitting in front on the stick, and looking at the creature.

street art mural on an alley garage door. A red deer is seated in what looks like a computer lab, or factory.

street art mural on a double garage. yellow background. three floating logs with birds sitting on them are being pulled by a creature with a pink and purple head as well as a blue body.

street art on a garage door - paisley shapes in blues and purples
 

and then walking north from Herrick St…..

an alley with garages on both sides, also tall trees that have lost their leaves, small piles of dead leaves along the sides of the alley.

Looking north from Herrick St.

graffiti of a black and white dog's face on a metal garage

under the tracks at Bathurst

Posted: November 28, 2014 in graffiti and street art, locations
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Murals painted by Elicser in 2014, under the railway bridge on Bathurst St., just north of Dupont.

It is difficult to do justice to the paintings with a camera because of the structure of the bridge.   The following images are ones that I took yesterday.  Yes, there are many!

part of a mural beside the walkway under a railway bridge - taken from across the street, The picture is of 4 people who seem to be looking at the camera.

part of a mural beside the walkway under a railway bridge - a man on a red bike who is cycling towards a woman with outstretched arms

part of a mural beside the walkway under a railway bridge - a woman sitting cross legged on the ground beside a miniature city

mural under a bridge

part of a mural beside the walkway under a railway bridge - a man's hand reaching towards a miniature city. roads, houses, tall buildings and hydro wires

part of a mural beside the walkway under a railway bridge - a man with a football helmet on and green triangles in his hand

A man in a blue winter coat is walking under a bridge, beside a mural that is painted on the wall of the bridge.

part of a mural beside the walkway under a railway bridge - a pair of legs with sneakers on flying past a man's head.

part of a mural beside the walkway under a railway bridge - a man with a red baseball cap on backwards

A man sitting on a bench who is looking down into a bag that is on the ground. A face in profile is beside him

part of a mural beside the walkway under a railway bridge - Two large people in the mural. A woman is walking past on the sidewalk. The picture is taken from across the street so bridge supports are also in the picture.

part of a mural beside the walkway under a railway bridge - the triangular part of the wall of the bridge at the end, showing a woman in yellow coat and hat.

woman holding baby, man behind her making rabbit ears with his fingers

rusty metal railway bridge over a city street. There is a mural painted on the wall beside the walkway on the far side of the bridge.

mural street art painting of a man's face. He has a moustache. He is looking at the camera

 

heritage murals – Kingston Road

Posted: November 14, 2014 in history, locations
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The Heritage Trail murals are a series of murals depicting the history of Scarborough.  The project began in 1990 and consists of 12 murals at different locations along Kingston Road (old hwy 2).

Just west of Midland Ave are two of the murals.

Half Way House painted in 1990 by John Hood at 2052 Kingston Road, the NW corner of Midland & Kingston Rd.  It is a picture of the Half Way House inn (and stage coach stop) that stood at this corner.   It’s name comes from the fact that it was halfway between the village of Dunbarton (now a part of Pickering) and the St. Lawrence Market in Toronto.   In 1965 the building was moved to Black Creek Pioneer village.

A mural that takes up the side of a building. It is a picture of an old two storey inn. It is a street scene as well, with people wearing clothes from the late 1800s.

Just farther to the west is another mural.  ‘The Bluffs as Viewed by Elizabeth Simcoe c. 1793’ was painted by Risto Turunen in 1992.  It is on the side of the building located at 2384 Kingston Rd, now Wong’s Martial Arts.  Elizabeth Simcoe was the wife of wife of Lieutenant-Governor John Graves Simcoe, the first Lieutenant Governor of Upper Canada.
mural on the side of building depicting an early scene from Canadian history - a small rowboat with a couple of people in it is passing by the cliffs that are now known as the Scarborough bluffs.

The property beside this mural is now vacant and is enclosed by the type of blue temporary fencing that you see around many construction sites all around Toronto.  If there was a building there, it has been demolished, otherwise there is no work being done there at the moment.

mural on the side of building depicting an early scene from Canadian history - a small rowboat with a couple of people in it is passing by the cliffs that are now known as the Scarborough bluffs.

Wongs Martial Arts building, a nondescript two storey brick building.

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