Tag: cool

Colorful artwork at Golden Hill fire station!

I love this colorful, very unique public artwork near the entrance of San Diego Fire-Rescue Department Station 11 in Golden Hill!

The title of this piece is Signifire. It was created in 1997 by San Diego artist Nina Karavasiles. For outdoor art that’s nearly a quarter century old, it still looks shiny and new!

Signifire, which depicts a fire hose coiled around brilliant flames, is composed of bronze, chrome and glass mosaic. At night the water blue hose nozzle lights up!

Nina Karavasiles has created a variety of other works around San Diego and Southern California. Six years ago I took photographs of her very cool “Recipe for Friendship” at Amici Park in Little Italy. See those photos here!

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I live in downtown San Diego and love to walk around with my camera! You can follow Cool San Diego Sights via Facebook or Twitter!

You can easily explore Cool San Diego Sights by using the search box on my blog’s sidebar. Or click a tag! There are thousands upon thousands of photos for you to enjoy!

The very cool Nite Owl mural!

Here is one very cool mural!

You can see it in Pacific Beach as you drive east on Garnet Avenue past the Nite Owl Cocktail Lounge.

The artist is Hanna of Hanna’s Murals. You can see another one of her murals here.

I briefly spoke to Hanna perhaps a year ago when she was doing some painting at the entrance to a La Jolla office. I asked what her favorite creation was. She specifically mentioned the Nite Owl mural.

I finally checked it out!

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I live in downtown San Diego and love to walk around with my camera! You can follow Cool San Diego Sights via Facebook or Twitter!

You can easily explore Cool San Diego Sights by using the search box on my blog’s sidebar. Or click a tag! There are thousands upon thousands of photos for you to enjoy!

Comic-Con Museum helps you create comics!

I’m no graphic artist. I can barely draw a stick figure.

But check out some news I learned today in an email blast from the Comic-Con Museum!

The fun Comic-Con Museum@Home web page has begun an online series where a variety of comics layouts can be downloaded by anyone and everyone!

The first PDF file they’ve released contains six pages of blank, ready-to-use comics layouts. You can print them out and create your own cool comic strip or comic book!

Here’s an example of one dynamic layout:

When I read this email I had a sudden silly idea. Using a few of my photos of cosplay (mostly from past San Diego Comic-Cons) and the graphic editing software GIMP, I’d create my own thrilling comics page! (My creative efforts were limited to applying the “cartoon” filter to cropped photos.)

Mind you, I did this as a rank amateur, merely goofing around this evening by cutting and pasting some images on my computer. As you can see, I obviously did not use the Comic-Con Museum layouts.

You can surely do better than me!

You’re artistic efforts will instantly surpass my own if you download the Comic-Con Museum’s first set of professional comics layouts here!

Hey, Cool San Diego Sights is mostly about enjoying life, learning new things and having some creative fun, right?

Four cool murals in Pacific Beach!

Here come photographs of four cool murals in Pacific Beach! Until a recent random walk through PB, I hadn’t seen any of this artwork.

I believe the first three murals are relatively new, but the fourth, which is quite faded, appears to have been painted years ago.

First up is a colorful interpretation of a Volkswagen Bus with surfboards, which was painted in front of the Pueblo restaurant by artist Katie Gaines.

(I photographed a mermaid mural by this artist on the back of the same building last year. That was during a fun Pacific Beach guided mural tour, which you can revisit here. The great Quetzalcoatl mural in that blog post is also at the rear of Pueblo.)

I’m pretty sure the next mural, on the front of Funhouse Tattoo, is by the artist Maxx Moses. But I’m not absolutely certain…

At the entrance to Brazilian Bowls you’ll find a mural by @TarsoRibas…

And, finally, check out some fun street art near the corner of Hornblend and Ingraham. Life is a Beach in PB was created by Dana S. Owens (DanaToon)…

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I live in downtown San Diego and love to walk around with my camera! You can follow Cool San Diego Sights via Facebook or Twitter!

You can easily explore Cool San Diego Sights by using the search box on my blog’s sidebar. Or click a tag! There are thousands upon thousands of photos for you to enjoy!

Beach Castles protect lifeguard station!

A row of Beach Castles protects the South Mission Beach Lifeguard Tower from surging water and other Pacific Ocean invaders!

This public artwork, which is indeed titled Beach Castles, was created out of concrete by San Diego artist Roman de Salvo in 2019. The “sandcastles” resemble Mission Beach’s long line of beachfront homes and condos, which I assume was the humorous intention.

Sadly, as you can see in some photographs, this playful art outside the lifeguard station has been defaced by graffiti.

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I live in downtown San Diego and love to walk around with my camera! You can follow Cool San Diego Sights via Facebook or Twitter!

You can easily explore Cool San Diego Sights by using the search box on my blog’s sidebar. Or click a tag! There are thousands upon thousands of photos for you to enjoy!

Lowrider art outside Esquina in National City.

Check out these three cool works of art painted on the outside of Esquina Vintage and Coffee in National City!

This unique coffee shop has a lowrider, cruising theme that fits with its South Bay setting. In addition to more ordinary coffee shop offerings, Esquina serves up a variety of Mexican specialties.

According to this article, the owners are part of the local lowrider group Viejitos Car Club.

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I live in downtown San Diego and love to walk around with my camera! You can follow Cool San Diego Sights via Facebook or Twitter!

Big colorful engine welcomes to National City.

Do you know anything about this huge colorfully painted engine?

The very unique public artwork sits near a welcome to the city sign at the north end of National City Boulevard, by Division Street. I believe it was placed here outside the National City Auto Center about a year ago.

I took these photos yesterday as I walked past. What kind of engine is this? Where did it come from?

Please leave a comment if you know anything!

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I live in downtown San Diego and love to walk around with my camera! You can follow Cool San Diego Sights via Facebook or Twitter!

Cool photo memories from January 2016.

2021 has finally arrived!

Hopefully we’ll eventually return to a more normal state of affairs, once vaccines are widely distributed and the devastating COVID-19 pandemic has subsided. The past year has been extremely difficult.

What was going on back in 2016?

Plenty!

It’s time to look back at photographs that I took five years ago…

Click the following links to see some of the photographs I shared on Cool San Diego Sights in January 2016!

Pianos placed around San Diego for public to play!

Amazing public art is a hidden San Diego gem.

Photos of Chinese New Year celebration in Balboa Park.

Amazing art in San Diego: Classic paintings of ships!

Photos of Mormon Battalion Commemoration in Old Town.

Photos of Love Your Wetlands Day in Mission Bay.

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This blog now features thousands of photos around San Diego! Are you curious? There’s lots of cool stuff to check out!

Here’s the Cool San Diego Sights main page, where you can read the most current blog posts.  If you’re using a phone or small mobile device, click those three parallel lines up at the top–that opens up my website’s sidebar, where you’ll see the most popular posts, a search box, and more!

To enjoy future posts, you can also “like” Cool San Diego Sights on Facebook or follow me on Twitter.

More fascinating doors around San Diego!

Here’s another batch of fascinating door photographs!

I have a little extra time indoors this wintry morning, so I’m going through some old photos in my computer. These images were collected in the past month or so during walks all around San Diego.

You might notice many of the ornate wooden doors are in a Mexican style that is popular in Southern California.

The unmistakable front doors of the iconic California Building in Balboa Park, home of the Museum of Us.
Huge door to the downtown power substation that was designed by famed architect Richard Requa.

If you want to learn more about the above building, which sort of resembles a castle, click here.

Strange service door on curved side of the Portside Pier restaurants on the Embarcadero.
Unique door to El Chingon in the Gaslamp Quarter.
Unusual door I spotted during a walk somewhere.

The next four doors were all observed on Congress Street in Old Town. I really like these…

Finally, the last two doors can be found among the International Cottages in Balboa Park…

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I live in downtown San Diego and love to walk around with my camera! You can follow Cool San Diego Sights via Facebook or Twitter!

Squares, circles, rectangles on a pier!

If you’ve followed Cool San Diego Sights for a few years, you probably know I love to walk out on the G Street Pier. One can take fantastic photos of downtown San Diego, Coronado, and sailboats passing across the sparkling water. But my favorite thing to photograph is the pier’s crazy clutter!

Along one edge of the G Street Pier one can always find stacked lobster traps, colorful floats, tangled ropes, and piles of weathered objects used on commercial fishing boats.

Today as I walked along the Embarcadero I noticed the G Street Pier was open. So I walked out on it.

Look at all the squares, circles and rectangles my camera found! (Some triangles and a starfish, too!)

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I live in downtown San Diego and love to walk around with my camera! You can follow Cool San Diego Sights via Facebook or Twitter!