Tag: street art

Imperial Beach water mural depicts sea life.

People driving west down Palm Avenue through Imperial Beach will probably spot several murals depicting local sea life. One fantastic mural painted this year can be found on the side of the California American Water building.

This beautiful public art features a sea turtle, several rays, leopard sharks and a sea lion swimming inside a watery kelp forest. It was painted by San Diego artist Carly Ealey.

Does that leopard shark coming straight toward you seem familiar? It’s on the San Diego Zoo kids website here!

You can enjoy photographs of a similar mural in Imperial Beach by the same artist 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!

A huge collection of street art images!

Do you love to discover new art?

Do you love to turn a street corner and suddenly find an amazing, unexpected mural splashed on a city wall or in a back alley? Or a small creative work painted on an electrical box by a neighborhood artist?

Cool San Diego Sights is now over seven years old. During my walks through San Diego’s diverse communities I’ve taken thousands of photographs of street art. I’ve recorded so many examples that’s it’s difficult to find them all in one place. Unless you visit my street art Pinterest page!

Even if you don’t ordinarily use Pinterest, click here and you’ll see (as of this moment) over 600 selected images of San Diego street art. Click any one of the “pinned” images and you will be presented with a link to my particular blog post featuring that art.

If you are a regular user of Pinterest, you can follow my boards and discover fun new things in San Diego as I walk around taking photos!

The general Pinterest page for Cool San Diego Sights can be found here.

If you simply want to see lots of great street art, click 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!

Escondido community paints street barriers on Grand!

The community of Escondido has come together in the past few weeks to paint about a hundred concrete barriers along Grand Avenue with beautiful, inspiring artwork!

During the COVID-19 pandemic, eateries along Grand Avenue in historic downtown Escondido have been allowed to open outdoor patios on the sidewalk and street. To keep lanes of traffic safely separated from diners, ugly gray concrete barriers were placed along the avenue. But those who love to create art saw numerous blank canvases!

The Beautify Escondido mural project has resulted in numerous colorful works of art that promote love, hope, friendship and community, not to mention businesses along Grand Avenue. I see the Escondido Art Association has been instrumental in coordinating this very cool project.

I must admit, when I last visited Escondido on a Sunday and took photos of the Maple Street Plaza, my brief look at Grand Avenue didn’t do it justice. To my eyes Grand Avenue had appeared quiet, deserted. But had I walked a block or two east into the heart of Escondido’s historic downtown, I would’ve seen many people eating, walking, looking in the windows of antique stores, and enjoying life.

I took additional photos of my adventure on Grand Avenue yesterday, and will share them shortly!

Okay, ready to see lots and lots of awesome artwork?

Here we go!

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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!

More samples of street art in Normal Heights!

A couple weekends ago, as I walked east down Adams Avenue through the heart of Normal Heights, I took photographs of cool street art that I haven’t previously recorded.

Some of the artwork is newer, some older. What a person might discover in Normal Heights–or any dynamic community–is constantly changing. New art appears in front of your eyes one day, then fades or vanishes.

Cool San Diego Sights now features over 32,000 photographs, and it’s getting harder and harder to remember everything my camera has captured! But I believe the artwork you see here is new to my blog.

So just imagine you’re walking down the sidewalk on another sunny San Diego day, finding more and more colorful street art, making endless discoveries in the city…

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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!

Huge butterflies swarm corner in Normal Heights!

A swarm of gigantic butterflies has descended on a street corner in Normal Heights! They’ve perched upon three electrical boxes!

Those who walk down the sidewalk past the Adams Recreation Center can see enormous Monarch butterflies, Western Tiger Swallowtails and Painted Ladies.

Painted might be the perfect word, because all of these huge butterflies were painted this year. I see this very colorful street art is sponsored by Normal Heights Urban Arts.

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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!

Let’s Live, Let’s Love in Lincoln Park!

Lots of fantastic street art can be enjoyed in San Diego’s Lincoln Park community. On Saturday I walked along Imperial Avenue between Euclid Avenue and 49th Street and took photos of colorful artwork painted by many artists.

I saw faded old art and brand new art. All of it contains positive imagery, summed up by the message Let’s Live, Let’s Love. That saying was painted in several places.

As you can see from the photos, there are a variety of artist signatures.

I believe some of the newer street art was created by the Southeast Art Team. (I posted photos of two wonderful murals they recently painted near Imperial and Euclid here.)

The murals showing African American civil rights icons painted on two low walls by Gentry’s Beauty and Barber Headquarters I believe were created in 2016 by William Salas.

The blue painting of people rowing a boat under stars at Imperial Ave Auto Service is by Michael Rosenblatt. When I saw it, I immediately recalled how he showed me a super cool painting of Tony Gwynn during a past Earth Day event in Balboa Park. You can see that (and more) here.

The big fun mural near the end of my photos can be seen at the Community Gathering Place community garden.

Lincoln Park is fortunate to be touched by the hands of many talented creative people–artists who have a hopeful vision of the world, filled with heart. Who encourage us all with the simple but powerful words: Let’s Live, Let’s Love.

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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!

Southeast Art Team beautifies Lincoln Park!

The Southeast Art Team, a group of artists who reside in southeastern San Diego, recently painted very colorful murals in Lincoln Park!

The boarded up old Pete Mayo’s Original Waffleburgers building near the corner of Euclid Avenue and Imperial Avenue has new life–entirely due to the efforts of positive people who love their community.

I walked through the neighborhood today and checked out two cheerful murals on two sides of the now vacant building. (I also spotted more of the team’s street art along Imperial Avenue. Photos to come!)

The President of the Southeast Art Team is Kim Phillips-Pea. She’s a super positive, energetic community leader whom I met this summer while the team was helping Mario Torero restore his important Civil Rights mural at 32nd Street and Imperial Avenue. You can see photos of that mural being restored here.

If you want to learn more about the Southeast Art Team, and perhaps help them out, check out their website 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!

Cool new mural painted in Hillcrest!

A cool new mural was painted recently in Hillcrest! You can find it at the corner of Sixth Avenue and Pennsylvania Avenue.

Check it out!

The muralist is @dropdead.grace, an artist who is new to me.

This wall use to be the “canvas” for some great artwork painted back in 2017 for the now defunct Ion Theatre, which was located steps away. The Broken Heart Tattoo studio now operates where the small experimental Hillcrest theatre introduced many edgy, original plays.

I learned that the old Ion Theatre mural was badly defaced. If you want to see photos of that mural being created over a period of days, click here!

Here are two more pics of this new mural…

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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!

Graffiti removed, scrambled, reassembled!

Check out these strange photographs!

Earlier this year, sheets of plywood protecting certain downtown San Diego windows had been spray painted with colorful graffiti. A few days ago the same boards were reused and placed over windows again.

The original graffiti artwork has been scrambled and randomly reassembled in a bizarre but visually fascinating way!

REAL STREET ART!! (Turned upside down.)

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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!

The unique, authentic life of street art.

A painting is hung on the wall of a home or museum and endures for generations. Street art–from an alley’s sudden bold graffiti to the most elaborately constructed mural–is born, sees the sunlight, greets countless passing eyes, ages quickly, fades, is ruined, vanishes. And where it once lived, often new art springs up.

In a sense, street art is like our own lives. Authentic. Something we all appreciate. That speaks from the heart, confidently. That is temporary.

During my walk through City Heights yesterday I saw how a uniquely beautiful mural painted outside a coffee shop has vanished. I enjoyed a look at it in August. But its gone in October. Its life was short. It was badly defaced, I’m told. And now this carefully made street art is gone forever, painted over.

Summer soon becomes autumn, then winter.

Cherish every moment in life.

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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!