Give Paste a Chance

A very familiar face peaks out at you between some bars on an 18b Arts District window. It is the famous face of John Lennon, wearing his infamous NYC shirt. We've seen several artists use this very same image for art, and we guess this won't be the last either. A store bought black and white poster with some added orange and black spray paint. We're guessing in an attempt to make this more then some stolen image poster they bought and pasted up, with a poorly placed peace sign has been sprayed and is dripping right into the quote for this image. This feel to us like some pretty novice work, with random dots and lines painted all over the place. Maybe it is just us, but it doesn't come off great. We do however enjoy the feeling of catching someone starting at you out of a window, and then you realize its just art. We love that part, and with a little work this could be done way better. We hope we get to see that, when and if!

All That Glitters

We spotted these unusual pieces on the side of the Coolidge building in the 18b Arts District recently. Three gold spray painted shapes with three crudely painted black outlines, finished off by an additional canvas glued in the middle of each shape. We aren't sure who the artist is, but it does seem oddly familiar to us. The first piece on the left is of a woman that looks to be drawn in crayon or colored pencil, with all sorts of shapes and faces decoupaged in consecutive layers. An added shredded base of orange paper really makes this piece come to life and our favorite of the bunch. The middle piece is of a fiery woman with the text "sometimes I get so freakin angry i just want to scream", ok then. Finally we have this little odd fellow that looks like some sorta of bug or crustacean with those claws on a black and green background. We can't help but wonder if this was a final image we saw from an artist on this day, or was this a piece that had layers added to it over time? Since we have no idea who the artist is, we can't really be sure. But we are sure happy to see new artwork being put up, so keep it up!

Birthday Bunny

First off, yes we know we've only posted twice this week. Not really too much artwork and/or photos happening, plus we might be losing stream with this blog since we've been doing it for about three years now with no break. There have been times where we had to search for hours just to find something to post on this site, so we feel that we might have reached an impasse. I guess if we keep posting, then we are still here! Til then, Milk The Bunny made a run recently in the 18b Arts Disctrict. Around Keith Haring's past birthday to be exact, and gave us this tribute to the late artist. A direct copy of one of Haring's most popular images, but she has added her trademark bunny ears in an effort to make it her own. We have to be honest, sometimes when we see artists paying tribute to other artists it is just usually a fairly bad ripoff of said artist. We don't think that is the case here with MTB, she has added her own charm and flair to keep this piece original even though its a tribute. Good job! But what about that heart that was left by Jennifer Korsen in 2013 still riding up above this piece?! All the paint is gone and only a wooden piece in the shape of a heart remains, we love it. But damn, she needs to come back with fresh artwork and get back up soon and regulate!

Blickhead

Um, ok then. What is really going here? We spotted a few pasters with the Blick's logo on it of all things! We know that a ton of artists go to and/or use their products, but did someones district manager think this was a good idea or something?  We like to imagine it would go something like "Hey everyone, I know how we can hit the urban street art demographic" Ha ha ha, seems rather unlikely but then again we've seen weirder things. But anyway, we've got three pasters with Blick art materials printed on it. We don't have any idea who this person was that put these up though, was it an artist? Was it an employee? We don't really care either way, but we can tell you one thing. We REALLY hate it when companies that have money for legit advertising try this kinda thing on the streets, exactly like what we have going on here. You people have the money, you people have the means but you don't have the skills nor the wit to pull it off with any success. Found pasted to a light pole on Art Way in the 18b Arts District, how apropos......or so they thought!

Window Display

Man, Dekoe is one busy individual! Between doing live painting events and huge murals, he still finds time to get up with some new wheatpaste pieces. This grouping of artists was spotted on the corner of Casino and Charleston in the 18b Arts District, and this spot always seems to have something pasted on it as of late. It is good to see these staying up and new artwork being added on the regular, they seem to buff all the larger pieces that were just to the left of these. But these can stay, no idea why but we are just glad they are there. Dekoe gives us four versions of his trademark character, one large tiled black and white combined with a few different colored versions below. Also on the scene, we have There She Is and You Killed Me First with new art as well. There She Is with a hand painted Madame Leota from Disneyland's Haunted Mansion, and well that is a switch! Usually its her art partner YKMF that would be the one paying tribute to the theme park ride, but not this time and we like it! YKMF with another one of his spooky looking Quija pieces in the shape of a coffin to dig a little deeper into the unknown, so to speak. Finally we have a bunch of the usual boring tags and some ads for some show we don't even care about, so yeah those flyers are working great! Great job!

The New Boss

Ha ha ha, this is so great!!! Dekoe gets up in the 18b Arts District using Jerry Misko's self-buffed mural as a canvas with great results. After Seattle artist Indian Giver came through town and added one of his 'shopped tattooed Elvis pieces uninvited. Seems like Misko the original artist didn't take to kindly and buffed it himself within a month's time, even going so far to buff his own artwork. But adding the message "THE KING IS DEAD, LONG LIVE THE KING." before he was finished, and we thought that was pretty much the last word on this wall. Oh sure we've seen a few random and amateurish things drawn on the blank head of Elvis, but Dekoe's new and updated version just killed it for us! Spraying his signature character face in purple, blue and yellow aerosol and placed perfectly with in the head, but leaving the top blank to use Elvis's hair to make his own. It makes us laugh every time and we appreciate the cleverness of the artist! Finishing it up by spraying "Say hello to the new boss! Same as the ol' boss..." A line made famous by The Who in their song Won't Get Fooled Again is a great way to announce his takeover, and we hope this piece stays just how it is for awhile. Thank you, thank you very much!

Samo Thing

We saw this smaller paster on the Coolidge building, it was a rather bad print of Jean-Michel Basquiat. Upon closer inspection we saw this was from someone named Tazmatic618, we aren't 100% sure this is a painting though to be honest. It looks exactly like a Photoshop effect we've seen numerous times, and we aren't sure if the artist is trying to pass it off as a painting. We have seen artists like Jerry Misko use Photoshop to their advantage and make stock looking images have an original feel. So like we said, we aren't too sure what is going on here. Well besides like we said, a rather bad print of some artwork with a red rectangle added with artist info. Not the cleanest delivery we've seen, and certainly not the worst but this leads us to this question. With people idolizing past urban artists mostly known for artwork in the street, will we have to see things like Shepard Fairey's face next to Andre the Giant's up huge somewhere on some billboard? Now that would be kind of bizarre, but that is pretty much we are getting here. No? We are sort of interested in seeing more of Tazmatic6087's artwork in the future, just to see what is exactly going on honestly. Found in the 18b Arts District.