Tag Archives: free art

Happy Christmas, Maybe

Here is how a few street artists have wished yuletide greetings to anyone who tears their eyes away from the bright lights and window displays to observe their seasonal street art.

I’m sure many of us emphasise with Benjamin Irritant’s swipe at excessive Christmas consumption’

Benjamin Irritant – Hysterical Mass Consumerism

Inkteractive has gone a little bit robust with the fond felicitations, lets hope the weather is a good as captured in the instamatic polaroid pic.

Inkteraktiv MERRY FCKN XMAS

Inkteraktiv MERRY FCKN XMAS AGAIN YOU FCKRS

The MisFortuneTeller has a new business line selling Christmas Unicorns as the healthy alternative to Turkey, bloody GM research!

The MisFortuneTeller – Have A Unicorn For Christmas

Some artist really entered into the Christmas spirit by placing free art out on the streets as lovely stocking fillers for the eagle eyed. On Christmas Eve a lovely Sean Worrall piece found a new home, this one seemed to be some kind of “re-issue” or a rare “number error” piece, the Sean Worrall equivalent of a Penny Black!

Inkteractiv also left a lovely framed piece on the street which Santa should now be conveying to North Car

to a nice home, from Inkteraktiv

Inkteractiv also left a lovely framed Xmas gift on the street which Santa should now be conveying to North Carolina if all goes to plan.

Finally, all that remains is to wish all a Happy Christmas or Seasonal Greetings as appropriate and best wishes to all for the New Year.

Dave

LINKS:

Benjamin Irritant instagram

Inkteraktiv instagram

The MisFortuneTeller Instagram

Sean Worrall website

all photos: Dave Stuart

Half Term – No Half Measures

Spring half term holiday has just finished in the UK and Shoreditch Street Art tours was busy. On Monday as a group admired the work in the car park behind the old Seven Stars Pub a car screeched into the yard and, like some kind of artist tardis, a dark door opened and out came a street artist and a load of working materials, Fanakapan spent the week progressing a massive dual aspect mural outside Magna on Brick Lane.

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On Saturday, our tour guest Alicia managed to get a wonderful souvenir, a Fan tag on her shoulder bag.

London, Shoreditch, Street art, street artists, school break, half term, halfterm, holidays, Broccoli Man, Adrian Boswell, Fanakapan, ThisOne, Mr Cenz

Fan of Fanakapan!

Among other artists busy creating new artworks that we had the pleasure of encountering were Mr Cenz and ThisOne.

Artist in The Crowd – Mr Cenz

Mr Cenz work in progress

ThisOne – freshly finished and signed

Several pieces of Free Art were found, firstly this lovely framed art drop by Sean Worral was discovered in a wall in Shoreditch.

#365ArtDrop 18, Free Art from Sean Worrall 16/365

#365ArtDrop 18 found!

Then at the end of the week, two Free Art Friday art pieces by Ninja Grl were discovered at basically the same location.

Free Art Friday – Ninja Grl

At the start of the week Adrian Boswell, the Broccoli Man, put up a new four piece broccoli rainbow installation. As the week started chilly and as the broccoli aged, the florets started to wilt and open. Then some strange interventions took place as the broccoli moved around like some strange game of chess was underway before being chopped into smaller pieces.

Maturing Broccoli – Adrian Boswell

Broccoli Man Adrian Boswell

Adrian Boswell’s Broccoli

More about the broccoli street art on this recent blog post.

Life Is Beautiful’s Dark Wings photo opportunity, covered earlier in the week HERE, gradually decayed over the week as more and more tags accumulated but guests persevered, making the best of the opportunity to photograph some nice interactions with the work.

London, Shoreditch, Street art, street artists, school break, half term, halfterm, holidays, Broccoli Man, Adrian Boswell, Fanakapan, ThisOne, Mr Cenz

Then on Sunday morning, boom! Still smelling of fresh paint we found that the dark wings had been restored, as Life Is Beautiful noted they had nine lives.

Dark Wings, Nine Lives

Half term flew past with lots of fun and a load of great street art in Shoreditch as usual, thanks to all the guests and all the artists who make it such a wonderful week.

Links:

Fanakapan: Instagram

Mr Cenz: Website

ThisOne: Instagram

Sean Worrall: Website

Ninja Grl: Website

Adrian Boswell: Website

Life Is Beautiful: Instagram

All photos: Dave Stuart

Tour Group Finds Free Art On Streets

It was a gorgeous sunny day in Shoreditch today and a very special bunch of flowers came into bloom. Artist Sean Worrall is renown for his generous distribution of free art in various parts of London and indeed occasionally even further afield.

Sean Worrall, Free Art, Found Art, #365artdrops, leaf, Shoreditch, Street Art,

#169

A leaf bloomed against a backdrop of art by ThisOne and came into the possession of the delightful Josephine. Josephine was the youngest member of our tour party this morning and she was delighted to collect leaf #169 of 365.

Josephine

The next garden delight I didn’t even see myself, apparently I was babbling on a bit at the time but eagle eyed Amelia spotted #165 of 365.

Amelia

Amelia with #165/365 painted 14th June 2017

As we walked through the Wheler Street Tunnel Jean, who gallantly surrendered the first leaf to Josephine on account of him being a gentleman had his virtue rewarded when he found this gem, simply marked #43artdrop.

Jean

The fourth leaf to yield itself to the tour group was spied by Clare whilst I was busy preventing guests throwing themselves in front of cars and bikes on Bethnal Green Road.

Clare

It is a wonderfully beautiful gesture by Sean Worrall to place these free pieces art out on the street to await their fate and we are delighted to report that this cluster of four have all gone to very appreciative homes.

The numbering of some of the works of art found today is interesting as in 2015 Sean Worrall embarked on a project to place 365 pieces of art on the street, one for each day of the year. At the successful conclusion of that mission he wrote about his purpose in that project and this beautiful and moving story by Sean showed how it touched people’s lives, definitely worth a read.

This Sunday (9th July 2017) Sean will have one hundred pieces, one hundred paintings on recycled cardboard, each to be sold at a price of £1 at the 2017 Art Car Boot Fair in Vauxhaul, one of many great reasons to head over there.

We have posted about previous free art drop by Sean HERE

Links:

Sean Worrall’s Website

Free Art on Shoreditch Street Art Tours

All photos: Dave Stuart

Free Art – Finding Sean Worrall

An unprecedented event occurred on the Shoreditch Street Art Tour at the end of last week, we found a piece of free art which no one in the group wanted to take home with them. We will spare the blushes of the artist and not put up an image of the artwork.

Free Art is art left out on the streets by artists, usually street artists, which is intended to be found by a lucky person who is allowed to take the art home. This morning normality was restored when the tour came across a beautiful piece of free art left as a gift by the artist Sean Worrall.

London, Shoreditch, Street Art, Tours, Free Art, Found Art, Sean Worrall, Louisa, #ArtDrop

With the number of people in the tour group there always a dilemma as to who should take home the piece of free art, so it was very sweet that the group agreed this morning that the youngest person on the tour should take home the free art, which is how the delightful and very excited Louisa became the proud owner of one of the finest works I have seen Sean drop on the streets.

London, Shoreditch, Street Art, Tours, Free Art, Found Art, Sean Worrall, Louisa, #ArtDrop

Louisa said that she couldn’t wait to hang it on her bedroom door, so it will be her own personal original piece of art.

London, Shoreditch, Street Art, Tours, Free Art, Found Art, Sean Worrall, Louisa, #ArtDrop

“Please Take” #ArtDrop

Sean has left many items of Free Street art on the streets, he famously ran a project last year called #365artdrops, a piece of free art for every day of the year and several guests on the Shoreditch Street Art Tour went home as delighted owners of a piece of Sean’s work. You can read more about those in the link below but the best story about the purpose of Sean’s project and how it touched on people’s lives is in this beautiful and moving story Sean published in January this year.

Links:

Sean’s blog post about this piece

Sean Worrall’s Website

Free Art on Shoreditch Street Art Tours

All photos: Dave Stuart

Heavens Rejects Free Art Not Rejected

Finding Free Art is a frequent occurrence on the Shoreditch Street Art Tour and today we came across a lovely plate by Heavens Rejects with a hand painted demonic worm asking the open ended question “Why Not?”.

Street Art, London, Shoreditch, Shoreditch Street Art Tour, Free Art, Found Art, Heavenly Rejects, Dee One

Heavens Rejects Free Art, 27 Feb 2016

Why not indeed thought birthday girl Ellie as she pounced on Heavens Reject’s gift to the fans of street art.

Ellie does not reject the Free Art

Ellie was celebrating a very very special event, it is her 21^st birthday today, congratulations Ellie. Her celebration with family and friends included a tour with the Shoreditch Street Art Tour and is if that wasn’t enough excitement, a special day became truly great when she became the proud and lucky owner of Heavens Reject’s Free Art gift.

In case you weren’t aware, Free Art is art left on the streets by street artists which they intend some lucky person to take home with them.

“Enjoy Heavens Rejects”

Heavens Reject had evidently been busy, we located several stickers and at least two kinetic spring mounted pieces of art all added to the streets since yesterday afternoon.

Street Art, London, Shoreditch, Shoreditch Street Art Tour, Heavenly Rejects, Dee One

Feb 2106 (aka last night!)

Heavenly rejects has been placing interesting one of pieces of art around Shoreditch for quite a while, although I couldn’t photograph all of them (I was guiding guests on a street art tour after all!), here is a small selection of art pieces with his trademark devil character created in the past by Heavens Rejects.

Street Art, London, Shoreditch, Shoreditch Street Art Tour, Heavenly Rejects, Dee One

Heavens Rejects/D7606 Collaboration

Street Art, London, Shoreditch, Shoreditch Street Art Tour, Heavenly Rejects, Dee One

Just over two years ago a Heavens Rejects Free Art piece was found on the tour the tour by Jonathon:

Jonathan with Heavens Rejects Free Art, August 2014

Facebook: Heavens Rejects

All photos: Dave Stuart aka NoLionsInEngland

Free Art by Sean Worrall #43 Project

Artist and gallerist Sean Worrall devoted a huge amount of energy in 2015 to a project he called #365ArtDrops, leaving painted art on found materials on the streets for people to find, keep and treasure. Quite a number of guests over the year had the good fortune to finish the tour clutching a chance find piece of Sean’s art. Today we had an echo of that joy.

London, Shoreditch, Street Art, Tour, Guests, art, artist, free art, found art, #43

#43 No 1/43 by Sean Worrall

Sean has a new project #43. Sean’s information page says: “#43 will be a new piece from Sean Worrall consisting of 43 parts and revealed somewhere in London on the 43rd day of 2016.”. The 43^rd day of 2016 was last Friday, Ingrid and Raja spotted this free art on Brick Lane today, they knew a good thing when they saw it and claimed it immediately.

Ingrid and her #43

How nice that their piece is number 1 of the 43.

London, Shoreditch, Street Art, Tour, Guests, art, artist, free art, found art, #43

Please Take!

We hoped that Sean would share something of the impact that last year’s #365ArtDrops and in the middle of January Sean wrote the beautiful, moving tale of #365ArtDrops piece 348/365. In his writing Sean speaks of the stories that came back to him of the fate of the artworks, the connections established through email and social media. This taps into a particularly awesome power of street art and is well worth reading

The Moving Tale of The 365ArtDrops Piece Left At Moor Street Railway Station Birmingham

As guests on the Shoreditch Street Art Tour collected Sean’s free art over the passage of the year Sean’s project featured quite often here on the blog, you can share in our reminiscences on those older stories HERE.

all photos: Dave Stuart aka NoLionsInEngland

New Years Day New Free Art by Sean Worrall

Last night I was picking photos and writing words to go in a review of 2015 street art that had caught my eye when I saw on Sean Worrall’s facebook page that he had been out hanging a few pieces of free street art, also known as found art or art that the artist does intend you take home and treasure in Shoreditch. I am going to have to re-write what I wrote last night because on the Shoreditch Street Art Tour today we found several pieces of Sean’s #365artdrops project.

London, Shoreditch, street art, tours, walks, found art, free art, #365artdrops, Sean Worrall

#365artdrops number 239

#365artdrops is a project that Sean has run throughout 2015 and a number of the free pieces of street art he has left on the street have gone home with guests of Shoreditch Street Art Tours.

#365artdrops 258

The two pieces above are both going to a new home in Sydney, Australia. This next piece was destined to decorate family premises in Spain.

#365artdrops 357

An interesting aspect of Sean’s project is that he has no control over what happens to his #365artdrops once he steps away from it. Some of it may end up in skips, one piece I know of found a home hanging in the toilet of a Shoreditch café and a number have actually ended up travelling the world, a long way from their original liberation from skips and bins on the streets of London.

#365artdrops 357

Sean has just published a blog post about the completion of his #365artdrops project and promises a more comprehensive review of the project soon, it will be fascinating to get his insight into what impacts the project has had on him as a person and an artist. Well done Sean Worrall for keeping up that project throughout 2015, we will miss the excitement of these chance discoveries.

Sean updates his Facebook page and a photo album with the latest news on his #365artdrops project here: https://www.facebook.com/sean.worrall1

For previous works of art from Sean’s project which were found, photographed and written about on blog posts, click here

All photos: Dave Stuart aka NoLionsInEngland

So Porno Street Art Tour

It must be Christmas and a mood of festive generosity is welling up within street artists. Mr. Farenheit, a perennial tour favourite left a couple of sticker packs out on the walls which tour guests found today.

London, Shoreditch, street art, found art, free art, Mr.Farenheit, Mr Farenheit, tour, guests, group

Mr.Farenheit sticker pack found art

The main photo above is a novel group photograph of Shoreditch Street Art Tour guests, there must be a collective noun, “pride” perhaps and why are they beaming? Apart from the obvious enjoyment of a lovely and unexpectedly dry street art tour, each one has a little gift from Mr.Farenheit.

no caption required

While stickers are a staple in the world of street art, a door handle “You’re So Porno Baby” door hanger is rather a unusual but very practical piece of free art.

Who doesn’t need a door hanger?

Timothy went home with a rich collection of spoils as he later found a piece of free art by Sean Worrall, part of the #365ArtDrops project which Sean has diligently kept up throughout 2015.

off to San Francisco!

This San Francisco bound piece is unusual as we haven’t found a piece of the #365artdrops artwork painted around all four sides like this one.

#365artdrops number 339 by Sean Worrall

By coincidence, on a tour last Friday we also came across another product of Sean Worrall’s project and this now has a happy home with another Shoreditch Street Art Tour guest:

322 of 365 #365artdrops

In between, on Saturday while cycling around and not actually on a tour another piece of Sean’s art was discovered and this made it back to HQ.

London, Shoreditch, street art, found art, free art, Sean Worrall, #365artdrops

329/365, now at Shoreditch Street Art Tours HQ

Postscript: Sean Worrall has written an interesting note on his blog about this art drop yesterday, the two pieces reported here being part of that “drop”. The coincidence of him discovering that one of the locations where he placed is named worrrall’s Yard is amazing and makes a very interesting read HERE. (note that the pic labelled 340 on Sean’s blog post is in fact the 339 photographed above – oh its all gone a bit topsy turvy!)

Mr.Farenheit can be reached via the Steck and Dose gallery

Sean Worrall’s Facebook page is HERE:

All photos: Dave Stuart aka NoLionsInEngland

Born 2 B Mild

This beautiful piece of Free Art by HNGR Art finds itself a new home with the delighted Nastasja from Holland. “Born 2 be mild” says the cute canvas, you can’t go wrong with pussy cat art.

Free Art is art left out on the streets to be collected and many pieces of free art have been given a new home by guests taking the Shoreditch Street Art Tour.

London, Shoreditch, Street art, Free Art, Found Art, HNGR, Cat, pussy cat, canvas

Delighted Nastasja

Nastasja deserved this lovely Free Art find for dressing warm and thoroughly enjoying Saturday’s chilly tour.

HNGR Art says on Facebook “abandoned in a London leisure centre car park over the summer”, poor kitten. Sounds like the art has an interesting history already.

FREE ART- from HNGR

Links:

Stories about some of the Free Art collected by Shoreditch Street Art Tour guests: HERE

HNGR’s Facebook page: HERE

All photos by Dave Stuart aka NoLionsInEngland