October 2013 Archives

For Halloween, I thought that I would showcase London's most haunted pub, the Viaduct Tavern. The Viaduct Tavern is located at Holborn Viaduct, near Smithfield's Market. (Smithfield's Market was a meat market.) This is a very old and haunted area of London, and three Halloweens ago, I took a ghost-walking tour that focused on this area. The location is near Charterhouse Square, which was the scene of murders of monks in Charterhouse abbey and monestary, and the location of the Black Plague pits. It's also near St. Bartholemew's church and hospital, which are also rumoured to be haunted. Outside the hospital, many lives were ended due to religious differences, and Braveheart also met his end here.

Holborn Viaduct is the world's first flyover, and the River Fleet is now buried beneath the streets here. The bridge on the flyover contains impressive statues (science, agriculture, commerce and fine art), and this bridge must have been impressive on the way into (or out of) the City.

The Viaduct Tavern was built in the mid-1800s on a spot where part of the Newgate Prison was demolished. The prison would be completeley demolished in 1902, and the Old Bailey is now located in its place. Hangings took place just outside the prison, where a fountain (across the road from the pub) marks the spot, and some of those hanged are rumoured to be buried there. The Viaduct Tavern was a "gin palace"; gin was a popular drink in London and pubs that were lavishly decorated took the name "gin palace". According to various articles I've read in the past, gin was cheap and not polluted; in these days, the Thames was dirty and full of waste, so gin-drinking was more common. 

The cellars of The Viaduct Tavern are rumoured to be original cells from Newgate Prison, though some doubt the accuracy of this. Irregardless, my friend and I asked the staff to check it out, and we were given a tour. Whether or not these cells are original, the cellar area would have been used to lock up prisoners as the prison was located here. Perhaps the cells have been altered in some way to be used by the pub at a later date. It is possible that the doors and caging were used by the prison.

Once we arrived at the bottom level, we found ourselves in a large room with three or four closed and locked doors off to the side. We were shown the cells by the member of staff. One of the cells held a series of cages staked three high. We also saw a sign painted with the "Gaol Rules" on one of the doors.

It would not have been nice to be locked up in one of these rooms with little light and surrounded by other different types of criminal. I am sure that many who were confined to prison here met their fate here as well. Based on the deaths that would have happened and the hangings that took place, it is no wonder that the pub is rumoured to be haunted. Some of the bartenders will not go into the cellar, and others have had bottles fly off the shelves.

For those in the area, I suggest going to the pub at non-peak times and ordering a drink to soak up the atmosphere before asking if you can see the cellar. I found the staff to be friendly and helpful. For non-peak times, avoid after 17:00 and avoid the hours between noon and 14:00. I believe that my friend and I made our visit at about 16:00.

Street artist Beau Stanton recently painted a wall off of Brick Lane. I love this style of artwork as it combines patterns and has a vintage feel. The work is highly detailed. The artist must have worked quickly or at the weekend because I walk up this street most days, and I didn't see it in progress. Beau Stanton is from California but now lives in New York. He gathers inspiration from ancient architecture, letterpress, old photographs and antique machinery.

Beau Stanton

For more information about the artist, visit his Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/beaustantonvisuals or the website at http://www.beaustanton.com.

This has been a busy summer and autumn for street art, and I have been posting as much as I can in relation to street art. For the new pieces I have discovered over the summer, I decided to create one entry as it is difficult to keep up with the amount of work seen each week. Several times a week, I often see new pieces that have been put up. Once I catch up, then perhaps I will be able to showcase a selection of new work much more quickly. Below are a few selections from this summer and autumn, and many of these are street artists that I have previously features who have added new work.

I enjoy seeing the artwork by Fan Horror Crew (Street Art: Fan Horror Crew). I love the characters made from Liquorice All-Sorts and balloons. These popped up recently on the same wall, but they did not last long with other street artists putting tags and paste-ups over the top of them.

Fan Horror Crew and Sell Out

Horror Crew

HIN (Street Art: HIN) created a few new creations recently as well. I particularly enjoyed seeing the world's political leaders enjoying gymnastics in front of a crowd at Old Street. His work is always funny.

HIN's politicians gymnastics

HIN's feeding the cat time

Otto Schade (Street Art: Otto Schade) recently created some new pieces, and other ones appeared over the spring and summer this year. I discovered that some pieces that were not painted in the usual ribbon style were also marked with the artist's name. 

A lady smokes near Old Street

Eyes in the wall of a car park on Hackney Road

Ears

A painting and close-up near a gallery that sells the artist's work on Brick Lane

O.Schades's tribute to the Curtain Theatre, which Shakespeare performed in.

Otto Schade

Otto Schade

Swoon (Swoon's Street Art in London) also recently added some new work in east London.

Swoon

I discovered this red man made out of tape this summer.

Red tape man

Jonesy (Street Art: Jonesy) added a few new pieces, and I particularly appreciate the brass symbols. This artist is always adding new paste-ups with drawings of birds around Brick Lane.

Jonesy

Nhobi is a street artist from Brazil, and he painted a few walls in London this autumn. I got some photos of the work before it was painted over; some of the pieces did not last very long until they were tagged over. (For more of the artist's work, check out his website here: http://binhograffiti.com/en/creations/street-art)

Nhobi - the middle picture contains work by Inkfish and Captain Kris 

Street artist JimmyC (Street Art: JimmyC) returned to the walls this summer with a selection of artwork. 

Selection of JimmyC's new work and the bottom also contains ALO

Nathan Bowen (Street Art: Nathan Bowen) recently added some new artwork on Sclater Street with Skeleton Cardboard.

Nathan Bowen and Skeleton Cardboard

Bailon (Street Art: Akse, Vhils, Bailon, Sliks, Grud, Drypnz, and Vinz) recently added a new piece on Brick Lane.

Bailon

Street artist La Peregrina painted this artwork, and HIN added a blue figure to it, which is now missing its head. I took this photograph this spring; I discovered it on my walk around east London. I do not know anything about the artist and cannot seem to find much about him/her.

La Peregrina

Broken Fingaz (Street Art: Broken Fingaz Crew) recently added this new work on Hackney Road. They have been busy painting in London this summer, and you can see some more of their work from this summer in the link above.

Broken Fingaz

Eoin painted this portrait early this summer. The artist primarily paints parts of faces with eyes. For more information and work from this artist, see his website here: http://artbyeoin.com

Eoin

Shok-1 (Street Art: Shok-1) recently painted this raimbow tail bone on Great Eastern Street a few weeks after their last series of rainbow X-ray art disappeared.

Shok-1 and Thierry Noir

The artwork by artist DFace appeared in the summer, but it was immediately tagged over.

ThirdEye painted this building below. The building is now painted with new artwork every month or so.

ThirdEye

The same building has been painted black, white and red recently. I'm not sure who the artist is.

Art by Shok-1, Thierry Noir, Ronzo and unknown

I saw this bus off of Rivington being painted in bright colours. I'm not sure of the artist, but these colours were recently used this spring for the Dulwich House (Open Day at the Street Art House, Dulwich Arts Festival: Part 2) by street artist Malarky (Street Art: Malarky, Mr. Penfold, Billy and Lucas).

A colourful bus

I also discovered this unknown (possibly by Pablo Delgado) red door off of Brick Lane, inside a hole in the bricks at the ground level. Little painted bats appeared to be flying out of it. It inspired me. Always look up and down to see what surprises can be found.

A red doorway

Hayze painted this red and blue picture on a wall this summer. Actually, I have seen a lot of his/her work over the summer. This is just one piece.

Hayze

I've added a selection of other artwork below.

RKuit

BlankWalls.com.au

Obit

Various work - I. Crow, Authentic, ImanOne and others

Thierry Noir (left) and Unknown

Roits

Lyken

Unknown and Kid Acne

ChinaGirl - CCTV camera street art

Birdseed and Dscreet and unknown

Unknown (located in a closed car park)

Assassins and Vinnie

LostMe

 
Unknown, possibly Ben Murphy

 
Boon (Marching Figures - London Street Art)

Odeith

Norwich Cathedral was started in 1096 and completed in 1145. It was built on a Saxon settlement. The cathedral has the largest occupied close in any English cathedral and the second largest cloisters, second to Salisbury Cathedral. There are a few similarities with this cathedral and Salisbury, including the cloisters and the large spire.

Stained glass windows ray of lights

The vaulted ceiling is very impressive and detailed with sculptures on the joins of the ceiling vaults. The cathedral was made of stone shipped from Normandy. 

Interior of Norwich Cathedral

Statues around some of the walls in the cloisters were interesting, such as the one below. There are also many sculptures on the clositer's vaulted ceiling.

Norwich Cathedral cloisters

Norwich Cathedral exterior

Friends from the U.S. visited me this summer, and I took them to Fortnum & Mason's "The Parlour" cafe for afternoon tea. This is one of my favourite places for tea in London, and it doesn't require a booking unless visiting on weekends. "The Parlour" is less formal than other venues for afternoon tea and didn't require a reservation in advance. We were able to walk in and get a table. As my friends were unsure of their schedules due to conferences that they were attending, we could not book ahead, so this was perfect for us. 

"The Parlour" is located on the first floor of the department store. The tea was such a hit with my friends that we ended up going back a second time, and they wanted to pick up more shopping in the department store. Our first trip to "The Parlour" was for afternoon tea, and our second trip was primarily for the ice cream. 

A pot of tea

A mixture of scones.

Ice cream dessert treats.

The ice cream portions are large, so sharing is advised. 

Mini taster ice creams.

Strawberry and vanilla ice cream dessert.

I saw these posters pasted up in various locations in Shoreditch and Spitalfields at the start of the summer. The heading on the poster was "Tear off a smile", and people passing by could tear off one of eight lip-shaped cut-outs. I liked the idea. Each of the lips had a different saying on the back. I took one from one poster and one from another poster later in the day. The smiles disappeared quickly, though. These were popular.

'Tear off a Smile' in Puma Court

I still have the two lip cut-outs at home. Perhaps I will send them to a lucky user on PostCrossing, a postcard exchange social network. Everyone needs a smile now and again.

For more information about the project, see its Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/taifafataifafa

Street artist Urban Solid is actually two artists based in Italy. Urban Solid creates sculptures that are pasted up onto walls. A few of these have been recently installed around Shoreditch and Spitalfields. The series features faces or brains inside of television screens or giant ears with the words "Audio Surveillance Zone" underneath them. I've included a few photographs of their recent work below.

These television screens with faces are located off of White Church Lane.

A television-mask on Whitecross Street

A brain television is located on Quaker Street

Various 'Audio Surveillance Zone' sculptures are pasted up.

I've also dug through some of my older street art photographs after noticing a resemblance to an unidentified piece of work that I captured last summer (2012). This featured a plaster mask around the remains of what looks like an old television screen. Although I've seen this work attributed to another artist, I am certain that it is Urban Solid because the cast of the face looks exactly like one of the ones in the first image (above), though without the remote control of the television in its mouth. 

Today, I will be posted a series of street art by various artists that appeared in east London. These include pieces that I captured this spring and summer. The works are by Faith47, Cernesto, Rolling People, Joyce Treasure, Mag Magrela, El Gat Mao, ORFN, Edwin, and many more.

Mag Magrela

Mag is a street artist from Brazil, and she painted a large wall this summer on Old Street. You can see more of her work on her website here: http://www.magcrua.blogspot.co.uk/

Mag Magrela 

Faith47:

I watched Faith47 paint two beautiful tigers at the Truman Brewery this spring, and I watched these evolve over a few days. I love the style; the tigers are so beautiful. Sadly, they did not get to stay too long before the panels were taken down. It looks like either they are getting ready to build something new or remove the panels altogether. I hope they bring them back once they have finished. In addition to the tigers, a large woman was painted on a brick wall off of Great Eastern Street.

Faith47

Cernesto

Cernesto's artwork features elephants. The artist, originally from America, painted a few walls in London early this summer. They are cute and playful.

Rolling People

Earlier this year, they painted the big wall of the Village Underground. I've also captured one of their pieces off Hackney Road. Their work is colourful and reminds me of comic-book style. They also were at Dulwich this year and painted a whole room in a house, which I blogged about here.

Rolling People

Rolling People

Malabrocca

I cannot seem to find too much about this artist, but this looks like their website: http://www.malabrocca.com/.

Malabrocca

El Gat Mao: https://www.facebook.com/pages/El-Gat-Mao

Doughnats

These four large, painted doughnuts looked delicious, but they were painted onto the walls at the Village Underground. I walked by there a few times, and the artwork changed - bites had been taken out of some of the doughnuts, leaving some crumbs behind. The work gradually had more chunks taken out of it until they disappeared altogether.

Doughnats

Edwin

I've seen some tags from street artist Edwin appear across east London, and I've captured the following artwork on camera that has appeared more recently.

Edwin and Edwin and Jevons

Other artists

I've pictured work by various artists below that I have taken this summer. It was a busy year for street art in London.

ORFN

Festa

Roma

Houl

Millo

Millo

Paul Insect

Joyce Treasure

Ian Stevenson

This summer, I paid a visit to Columbia Road Flower Market in east London. The flower market is on Sunday mornings, and it is a good idea to get there before the crowds that descend at around noon. The road is always busy and filled with vendors selling bright and colourful flowers.  

I liked the freshly-cut cornflowers and the flowering cacti. Needless to say, I walked away without any flowers as it was a hot day, and I had some other events to do in London. I did not think that the flowers would survive the journey. Although the flower market is on every weekend, it is seasonal. I will have to go back again next year.

Earlier this year, Bedminster (an area not far from the centre of Bristol) launched an art trail featuring a series of painted bugs. In total, there are over eighty bugs, and they have been painted by street artists and schools. The art trail launched in March during the week of the city's Upfest, a popular event that celebrates street art. 

I caught a glimpse of a few of these bugs when I went to visit the Gromit Unleashed art charity trail. The bugs are located on buildings, and apparently a few of them can be seen inside some of the shops and restaurants in Bedminster as well.

A few colourful Bedminster bugs

Bedminster is one of the areas that received funding (Mary Portas) to make it appeal to local businesses and to thrive; it is one of the successes of the scheme. The Bugs of Bedminster art trail is just one of the initiatives to come out of that.

The bugs will be on display for a year, which would take us to the middle of March in 2014. Bugs of Bedminster even has its own Facebook page so that you can view the bugs. https://www.facebook.com/bedminsterbristol.bs3

I visited the city of Norwich this summer in order to visit GoGoGorillas!, a public charity art exhibition. This was my first visit to the city. The town has many nice places to visit, including the castle and cathedral and picturesque cobble-stoned streets of Elm Hill. There's also ample opportunities for shopping and appreciating the arts. Some of the photographs I took in Norwich are below.

Elm Hill

A timber-framed building and church

A timber-framed building and church

Church from the market place

A boat shaped like a rubber duck 

I was impressed to see that Norwich had some street art in the town centre. I liked the message on this red post box: "You still have 1 unread message".

Red post box

Banana street are from Rene

"Consider the lemmings, how they doth grow"

A couple of weeks ago, a new mural by Martin Ron turned up on Hanbury Street, off Brick Lane. I got some photographs of this work in progress on the weekend, and by Monday morning, it had been finished. This was the last work completed in London before the artist went back to Brazil. A couple of weeks previous to this, Martin Ron completed the large wall on the Village Underground, which I covered here: Street Art: Martin Ron's "Badgergate" Mural.

The work features a Royal Guard (still wearing his wig) doing a hand-stand. The red costume is seemingly draped over the wall. This piece seems to interact by popping out of the wall. It is next to ROA's famous crane, which has dominated this wall for awhile.

Photographs of the work in progress are below. 

Martin Ron's work in progress

Chance Street near Shoreditch High Street has recently had a makeover by three large-scale street artists. The new murals add colour to this area already popular with street art. Nearby are large murals by ROA, JimmyC, Shephard Fairey, and Ben Eine. 

Australian street artist Reka painted a building on a corner in the middle of Chance Street earlier this summer. I had the pleasure of photographing the painting of the wall in various stages of completion. Reka's style of organic shapes (depicting women) and bold colours is instantly recognisable, and I enjoyed seeing it come together. The artwork is called 'Fallen Angel'. (For more information about Reka's street art, visit http://rekaone.com/blog/.)

Reka's mural in progress

The finished mural 'Fallen Angel' by Reka 

Not long after Reka's mural was finished, MadC painted the building next door. MadC (Claudia Walde) is an artist from Germany. She enjoys painting letters and using bright colours. She was one of the artists who painted in Dulwich earlier this year for Baroque the Streets and painted a room in the Dulwich Art House. (For more information about this artist, visit her personal website: http://madc.tv/category/street/.)

MadC's Chance Street mural

Today, I am focusing on the work of several street artists as many of these street artists tend to collaborate a lot with each other. Covered are Artista, Binty Bint, DecoLife, Irony, Pixie, Ino, and SeaPuppy. Another common theme in these artists are using bright colours.

Binty Bint

Binty Bint's work is colourful and features a lot of pink birds, eggs, fish, and hearts. Her work can be discovered at South Bank and around Shoreditch. (Binty Bint's Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/Bintybint)

Artista

Artista's work uses bright colours and characters, which are normally triangles with eyes. You can see examples below with the triangles dressed up in different styles (Vikings and with swords) and painted different colours.

Artista and DecoLife; Artista; Artista; Binty Bint and Artista

Artista

DecoLife

DecoLife's work consists of using a lot of colour and detail. The artist is from Brazil. (DecoLife's Facebook page can be found here: https://www.facebook.com/paginadecolife)

From top: RUN, DecoLife and Tizer; DecoLife and Hunto; Irony and DecoLife; DecoLife; DecoLife

Irony

Irony is a street artist that paints colourful animals and portraits of females. Irony and Boe have also contributed to animal-themed street art.  

Irony - an elephant

Boe and Irony

St8ment, SkyHigh, Irony and Artista

From top: SkyHigh, Irony and Artista; Irony and Artista at work and their finished piece off of Brick Lane

Pixie

Like the previous artists, Pixie's work is colourful and 'fun'. She collaborated on a piece with Irony and Artista earlier this year off Brick Lane, which features sea turtles. Pixie's contribution with a boombox turtle and paint-spraying octopus is photographed below.

Pixie

To the left of Pixie's contribution are the realistic-looking sea turtle by Irony and the bright and colourful sea turle and triangular characters by Artista.

Artista and Irony

More recently, Pixie painted a girl and fox with her name on Bethnal Green Road.

Pixie

Pixie

Ino

I'm not able to find out too much about the street artist Ino, but the following portrait is done by this artist.

From top: Ino; DecoLife; Ino; Artista, Irony and DecoLife

SeaPuppy

I'm not able to find out too much about the street artist SeaPuppy, but the work below is a memorial to someone that the artist knew. It isn't my favourite piece that has gone up on that wall.

I published a write-up about street artist Cityzen Kane earlier this year: Street Art: Cityzen Kane. This summer, Cityzen Kane was also a part of the Dulwich Street Art Festival and had some of his work showcased in the Dulwich Open House (covered here). Recently, the artist has just placed one of his pieces up on a wall near Shoreditch High Street station (photographed below). This is an awesome piece. 

New work by Cityzen Kane

Earlier this summer, a new piece appeared on Rivington Street where some of the artist's work has previously been installed. This piece looks like it has been inspired by science fiction and features a woman with a gun. It is a little different in style from previous work by the artist.

Cityzen Kane

As many of the artist's pieces are looking a bit worn now, it would be nice to see more of the artist's work back on the streets.

FF Chartwell is a font family that can be used to create different types of visual graphs and diagrams for designers to use. The font family contains the following, each for a different type of graph, such as a bar graph or a pie chart:

• Chartwell Bars 
• Chartwell Bars Vertical 
• Chartwell Lines
• Chartwell Pies
• Chartwell Radar
• Chartwell Rings
• Chartwell Rose

The designer can create the graphs by using one of the programs in the Adobe Creative Suite, such as Fireworks. Essentially, the designer creates a textbox with the font family and adds a string of values with their colours attached to each value in order to create the graph. A tutorial is included on the following page fron FontFont: https://www.fontfont.com/how-to-use-ff-chartwell 

Since the end of last year, this font has been made for use on websites. However, it is not used as a font. Instead, it has been transferred into Javascript libraries, and a tutorial on the website above allows the developer to use the Chartwell Radar family in order to test how it works. (Note that it does not work on IE8.)

I am not sure that I would use it for the web, but FF Chartwell looks like it could save time spent in design. If you have used this font for the web, let me know how you found it.

I paid a visit to Violet Cakes (http://www.violetcakes.com/) a few weeks ago. They are located in Dalston in east London. (They also sell on Saturdays at Broadway Market, but I visited their shop). There were many baked goods on offer, but some of their treats had already sold out by lunch time. I got some photographs of these and also bought a couple of items. 

The shop doubles as their bakery, and several members of staff were hard at work making the baked goods. I also like the branding. (Stationary from their shop can be seen below.)

Cinnamon Buns

Carrot cakes

Cupcakes

Brownie

Shop front and seating outside

Violet Cakes Branding

Early this summer, I took a couple of friends from the states to the city of Bath. I lived here for a couple of years and miss the city, so it is always good to go back and visit it every now and again. We were not too long in the city, but I took my friends to see most of the landmarks, such as the abbey, Roman baths, the High Street, and the Royal Crescent. 

One of the places I miss is Parade Gardens, the park area close to the river. This place is located in the centre and is a quiet spot to get away from the busy and touristy city. As I was a resident, I simply needed to show residency proof (my library card) to get into the park for free. Normally, there is a cost. I would buy a sandwich in the city and bring it here. There are nice views of Pulteney Bridge from the lower end of the gardens. 

Parade Gardens in Bath

I took my friends to Hands' Tearooms in Bath. As it is inside the city centre and close to the abbey, it is always busy. The food is alright, but I think that it is a nice place to come for afternoon tea or a light snack, and one can buy a Bath Bun here. (Sally Lunn's famous 'Sally Lunn' bun shop is around the corner, but I had never been there, despite living in Bath all that time.) Whenever I show friends around, I always end up at Hands'. (Add a comment if you are looking for more than just a snack as I can recommend a couple of very good restaurants in the centre of Bath.)

Cupcake

This time when we visited, we parked in a different place than the usual Victoria Gardens or car park at the top of the town. We saw views of the canal with canal boats and a nice view of Pulteney Bridge.

Pulteney Bridge and canal boats on the river

Getting a nice angle for the photograph of Pulteney Bridge is always difficult. I was not too unhappy with this photograph. The bridge looks more impressive in person, and I enjoy looking in the shops on the bridge. I discovered a new one, tearooms, have opened up. It would be nice to try that one sometime and to sit on the bridge and look over the river with a cup of tea.

Pulteney Bridge