There's an elephant on the loose!

What is this I see before me?


If I didn't know any better I'd think it was an elephant.

Isn't he lovely?! And happy.


The Montmartre Elephant lives lived in Rue Gabrielle,  Paris 18th.

A week later I went to see if the elephant was still there. This is what I found. Sigh.

Fence Art

I've been spending a few days in the UK. Yesterday I came across a long wooden fence. Somebody had been painstakingly sanding off graffiti tags that another person had carelessly painted on. 

In Paris you never see a wooden fence and graffiti is dealt with by painting over the offending tag. The end result is a beige wall, where the paint is sometimes so thick it starts to peel off in big crusty flakes.

The Oxford fence with its' sanded patches caught my eye from the other side of the street. It looked lovely I thought, with the subtle abstract pattern of lighter and darker patches.

So there you go, I've fallen for a fence.

GAZ"ART, confetti and a pink skeleton

There is a series of graffiti in our neighbourhood (Montmartre) which always bring a smile to my face - GAZ"ART. The artist, whoever they are, uses gas pavement manholes to create humorous works of art. Here is one of the simplest oeuvre I've seen, in black...

...and white.


Here's are some more complex ones (and in my view less effective), in yellow...

...and red.


HELP!

I have a small collection of non GAZ"ART manhole cover photos as well. This combination of manhole and confetti I saw last summer was lovely. 

Our daughter spotted this one the other day by her school. A pink skeleton. It's my personal favourite. 

Has anybody seen any GAZ"ART graffiti in other Paris arrondissements?

Noughts and Crosses

A while back I wrote a post which I entitled 'delectable decay'. The photographs aimed to show the beauty to be found in our worn and weathered built environment, including peeling paint, rusty drain pipes, and weathered wood. I took one photo of a very dilapidated building I had seen in rue Lepic, Montmartre. This one.

Well, imagine my surprise (and delight!), when I walked past this building the other day.

A ladder would definitely have been involved as those are first and 2nd floor windows..

I have seen this artist's work before at the Marché aux Puces de St Ouen. I really like it.

Artful Faces

Anybody who has walked round Paris will know there are a huge number of underground street artists. Elaborate works of art pop up and disappear on a daily basis. Recently I've been noticing that there seem to be more Ville de Paris men dressed in green, painting over graffiti on the walls around the city. I did a quick Internet search and they do seem to have a lutte contre les graffiti campaign. This man is painting over some tags. Some of the walls around here have so many coats of paint on them you fear the whole lot will peel off in a giant crusty flake.

As I went through my photos I realised I had a quite a collection of street art photos, too many to put in one post. I've tried to organise them into groups. The first collection I've put together is 'artful faces.' 

There are of course Gregos Faces which can be found all over Paris. I liked this one, on rue Durantin, which had been tampered with, rather appropriately, by a passerby.

More recently I've noticed some of his faces where the painting extends onto the wall.

Sometimes two artists have their work side by side.

I barely noticed this one discreetly stenciled onto a rue Cortot up behind the Sacré Cœur.

This one is simple but effective.

And this one? Well this poor man lost his head...

...and then fell in love.

Bloomin' Pink

Paris is full of pink.

You can even find pink leaves.

Not to mention pink tree trunks.

Pink wire.

Pink street art.

Pink leather.

Pink decorations.

Pink lighting. Between you and me, I think I would get tired of lighting like this in about 3.5 seconds.

And, of course, anybody who has had a daughter will know that pink rules!

Red? What's not to like?

Here's a little colour to brighten up these grey, grey days. 

Here's a portrait of me, drawn by the 6yo, when he was 5. 

More red can be found here (thumbnails) and here (slideshow)