City Image of the Day - Layers

Spotted off Brick Lane

Okay at first glance it just looks like a pretty stern face, a large and quite talented rendering but so what... Well this has been made completely from peeling away layers of posters that were once on this wall to create a picture. I know?! The artist has added nothing, but purely by peeling away has managed to create this image... Awesome!

Global Graffitti - Day 9, A Photo(s) That You Took

Whenever I go away somewhere I always look for the local street art. I love the spontaneity and unexpectedness of it. I love how in some cities it feels natural and blends in with the great architecture and dilapidated buildings, having every right to be there. I love the fact that great street art gets imitated by artists and marketers alike, and that it owns the spaces it fills and reflects the people that live there. And so here are a collection of street art pictures that I have taken here in London and on my travels. Hope you like them:

Rad Stencils off Tottenham Court Road

Poodle found astray in Shoreditch

Space Invader in Covent Garden

Roller Pig in Barcelona

Green Lady Paste Up in Berlin

Graffittied Section of the Berlin Wall

Donkey - a symbol of Barcelona

Femme Fatale stencil in Berlin

Elephants on Parade

One of the highlights of this here London summer that we have been having are the herd of elephants that colonised our fair city. Called the Elephant Parade it was a wildlife welfare project to benefit the Asian Elephant, who sadly is very seriously endangered.

Over 250 elephant sculptures, decorated in a variety of ways by everyone from famous designers to children, were displayed around London, outdoors, in areas where Londoners and tourists could actually interact with them. They were richly designed and beautifully decorated and they really became a part of the cityscape. Children climbed on them, at lunch time we sat on their plinths and ate our sandwiches, at time I orientated myself by them, and whenever I was in an unfamiliar area I found myself having a little hunt for a new one I hadn't seen before.

The process was that they were among us for a few months, and then they were removed away to a field and auctioned off to the highest bidder, having raised funds and awareness. And alas now they have been taken off to their new homes and London is left feeling rather forlorn as we wander past the spaces the colourful beasts once filled.

Covent Garden - the Centre of my London

Covent Garden has long been the heart of my particular London. Every time I return to London it is one of the first places I visit to prove to myself that I am back.

There are so many aspects to Covent Garden. I love the street performers, from the folk singers, to magicians, to break dancers - everyday a new audience. The concealed Neal's Yard is like a hippy hideaway, unyeildingly cheerful despite whatever is happening beyond its walls. It harbours a host of hopeful humans who serve hummus and smiles in equal amounts. The streets are home to shops filled with hundreds of harajuku inspired knick knacks and stationary - all covered in kittys, pandas and frogs, and boutiques of beads, and outlets for the sale of Smartie inspired jewellery. DocMarten Mecca is filled with a mixture of floral, embroidered, metallic and patent boots that make my heart all a flutter. The thrift stores, spotted up and down Monmouth street, smell like old people and attics, and crowded on the rails are a multitude of frightening wardrobe throwbacks hiding the few vintage gems.

I have watched Noah and the Whale, through the windows of the closing Lastminute.com shop, and seen the irony of a homeless man dance to 'Streets of London' performed by a busker. At 18 I remember drinking Pina Colladas at the RoadHouse and thinking it was not possible to feel more grown up (and it probably isn't). On this most recent of missions, I happened to look up at the right moment and found a Space Invader, my first in LondonTown. In Neal's Yard we found a meter box covered in Fridge Poetry that anyone can rearrange, and a studio where much of Monty Python was written. Everytime there is something new, and so I will continue to return to the centre of my London.