Summer Fun (9 Photos)

From vibrant walls in the Netherlands to cute creatures chalked onto sidewalks, these playful artworks scream summer!

This collection brings together cheerful murals and incredible beach carvings. You will also find nature-sized sculptures and mind-bending surreal street art. We are traveling from Milan to Wyoming and beyond!

More: Clever Spring Signs (10 Photos)

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💦 1. Joyful Explosion — By Rosalie de Graaf in Zwolle, Netherlands 🇳🇱

A massive mural of four laughing children covers the side of a residential high-rise. They are painted in vivid technicolor. Splashes of paint, bubbles, and sea creatures swirl around them. The whole scene bursts with joyful movement and energy.

💡 Nerd Fact: Rosalie called this her highest artwork so far: a 32-meter mural in a multicultural Zwolle neighborhood where each child is tied to a different color, meant to show cultures blending as they play. She is also the founder of the first street art school in the Netherlands.

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🏖️ 2. Wile E. Coyote — By PUFFERFISH on the Beach 🌍

This amazing artwork is carved directly into the sand. It shows Looney Tunes’ Wile E. Coyote flattened underground. The character is sculpted to perfectly mimic classic cartoon slapstick. It sits beautifully on a wide, empty beach under the bright summer sun.

💡 Nerd Fact: This sand joke comes with serious cartoon history: Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner debuted in 1949’s Fast and Furry-ous, and Chuck Jones later said the coyote was shaped by Mark Twain’s description of a hungry, unlucky western coyote. That makes PUFFERFISH’s “flattened” version feel like a love letter to one of animation’s oldest running gags.

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🌺 3. Flowers for West Town — By Ouizi (Louise Jones) in Chicago, USA 🇺🇸

Bright yellow daisies and pink peonies tower over a Chicago brick building. A red admiral butterfly joins the stunning floral mural. The artist painted it to look like flowers are growing straight from the sidewalk. It fills the entire wall with breathtaking color and texture.

💡 Nerd Fact: On her official mural page, Ouizi lists this wall as “West Town in Bloom”. Local coverage notes that she planned a bouquet of camellias, daisies, apple blossoms, and a peony, and intentionally left parts of the brick visible so the building itself stayed inside the composition.

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🫙 4. Sluggo in a Jar — By David Zinn in Michigan, USA 🇺🇸

David Zinn’s adorable character Sluggo is trapped in a transparent jar. The artist chalked the jar directly around a street manhole. Sluggo’s eyes peek out nervously while wearing cute little flippers. This clever 3D illusion perfectly uses the manhole cover as the jar’s lid. More: Happy Art by David Zinn! (15 Photos)

💡 Nerd Fact: Sluggo was born by accident. Zinn says he first tried to draw a dancing child on a stain-marked sidewalk, but the head came out “eggplant-shaped,” so he finally put the eyes above the head and realized he had created Sluggo. On his own site, Zinn still calls Sluggo one of his most enduring characters.

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👻 5. Ghost Sculpture — By Visitors in Varenna, Italy 🇮🇹

A spooky gauze ghost figure draped over a bench overlooks Lake Como. Visitors to the Castle of Vezio create these chalk-dusted specters by hand every single summer. They turn the beautiful grounds into a silent gathering of seated spirits. More photos and about the sculptures: Haunting Ghost Sculptures Overlook Lake Como at Castle of Vezio

💡 Nerd Fact: These white figures echo a much older local legend: tourism sources around Vezio say Queen Teodolinda’s ghost is said to roam the castle. Even better, the hilltop also hosts a falconry center and a Lariosaurus fossil display, so the site mixes medieval legend, live birds of prey, and prehistoric lake reptiles in one stop.

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🧺 6. Laundry Day — By Golsa Golchini in Milan, Italy 🇮🇹

This tiny miniature mural shows a painted woman reaching out of a real window. She is hanging white laundry onto a peeling section of the wall. The peeling paint has been cleverly transformed into drying sheets. This street art beautifully blends reality and illusion. More by Golsa Golchini: You Might Walk Past These—But They’re Tiny Masterpieces in Disguise

💡 Nerd Fact: Golsa Golchini is an Iran-born, Milan-based visual artist trained at the Accademia di Brera. That cross-medium background—painting, photography, sculpture, even affresco—helps explain why her tiny wall scenes feel less like doodles and more like miniature stage sets.

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🧌 7. Mama Mimi the Troll — By Thomas Dambo in Wilson, USA 🇺🇸

This giant wooden troll reclines comfortably in the water at Rendezvous Park. She is crafted entirely from scrap wood. She rests her head on her hand and extends her massive legs across a bridge. This is part of Dambo’s amazing mission to build magical trolls in public spaces using recycled materials. More by Thomas Dambo: 10 Giant Trolls Hiding in Forests, Lakes and Ruins

💡 Nerd Fact: Jackson Hole Public Art says Mama Mimi was built from recycled wood, steel, and driftwood sourced locally, and she is the 80th troll in Thomas Dambo’s wider fairy-tale universe. Dambo’s own studio describes those trolls as works where folklore, environmentalism, and community participation all meet.

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👧 8. A Swing in the Summer Light — By ATTORREP in Belsito, Italy 🇮🇹

A girl in a white dress swings out from a beautifully painted window. The stunning mural sits right between two old buildings. Her view overlooks gorgeous mountains and rooftops. An older man even watches from another window above. This street art scene brilliantly plays with perspective and playful movement.

💡 Nerd Fact: ATTORREP did not frame this as a simple childhood scene. He wrote that the swing is “the best metaphor of life”, with the present pushing toward the future while the past shivers back into view. He is also the founder and artistic curator of the OSA Festival.

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☀️ 9. Border Hammock — By Murat Gök in Mardin, Turkey 🇹🇷

A man lounges comfortably in a highly unusual hammock. It is actually fashioned from a section of chain-link border fence. The fence is stretched between two concrete posts in a dry open field. This conceptual street art cleverly subverts the idea of separation. It turns a harsh border into a peaceful symbol of rest and freedom under the summer sky.

💡 Nerd Fact: This image is often reposted with the wrong city, but the Institute for Public Art documents it as Murat Gök’s Border (2010), a performance photograph made in Mardin on the Turkey–Syria border. That context matters: the hammock is not only a visual joke, but a temporary act of rest carved directly into a militarized line.

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Which one is your favorite?