Hail to the Hive!

Yet again I am venturing out into the city streets of Leicester to explore the 'Bring the Paint' Graffiti Festival. It is starting to be a whole lot more than a Street Art celebration as I gave out some maps to the lovely couple that moored their boat next to us. They've never been to Leicester before and apart from seeing the market and shops etc they said that the Graffiti festival was a wonderful way to explore the city as it gave them an agenda to loosely follow as they spent the day wandering around the city centre.

Back in part 1 I posted this photo and caught this artist mid way through his creation.

Revisiting a few days later it is completed and looks absolutely superb. A bland drab brick side of a house has been transformed into a colourful backdrop of the city for folks to enjoy as they pass by in a car, on the bus or on foot.

I was also here a few days ago and there were a couple of works in progress.

As I rounded the corner a few days later I could see they had been completed.

This is clearly a celebration piece of what they do creating beautiful art with spray paint.

Amazing 3D effect as if the hand is coming out of the wall to spraypaint you, the viewer.

The other one was starting to be whitewashed over a few days ago in preparation for a new piece.

And 2 days later this is the replacement.

A great visual effect.

It was also nice to chat to people that were following the festival as we were all swapping tips about which pieces of art we loved and where some were that we may not have seen etc. The art was bringing people together. Strangers were talking in the street. This made me smile the most as it was another positive side effect that this art was not only brightening up the back streets and big central buildings but was also bringing friendliness to the city.

On this day I was wandering around with my sister who moved back to Leicester about 5 years ago. She led me into what I thought was a private building but was actually also part of the festival. An indoor parking area that had transformed it's borderline derelict interior and brought it to life with this work of magical art.

One of my favourites. It felt magical like a spell being cast in the derelict old building.

We then aimlessly wandered around finding many new bits of work that had not been there 2 days earlier.

and there are still may more that I still have not managed to find as there is so much being created.

It's so lovely to see the city I grew up in being brought to life like this. Bringing in and embracing street art rather than keeping it on the fringes. The benefits have been massive. I'll be headed out again today to discover more.

It's thirsty work though so I'll probably have to make a pit stop in the pub to refresh myself 😉