Most Loved (9 Photos vol. 6)

A path of stone mushrooms, a kraken gripping a plastic bottle, and a ghost in the road.

These nine reader favorites use beach stones, cracked pavement, road markings, leaves, walls, and living plants.

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🐙 “The Kraken” — By Tyler Toews in Vancouver, Canada 🇨🇦

Created for the 2018 Vancouver Mural Festival, The Kraken was painted on a wall near Watson Street and East 15th Avenue. A ship sits inside a plastic bottle while an enormous octopus wraps its arms around the container.

💡 Artist’s Note: In his 2018 statement, Toews says the conquistadors’ ship represents humanity and is tied to both the cause and effect of complex global problems such as ocean pollution. The bottle represents a trap humanity made for itself. The Kraken stands for the complexity and intelligence of the natural world, while its figure-eight shape signifies infinity and life without end.

More: The Kraken by Tyler Toews

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🌿 “Nadine and the Vertical Commute” — By David Zinn in Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA 🇺🇸

When Zinn shared Nadine and the Vertical Commute on June 7, 2021, he tagged the location as Ann Arbor. Nadine clings to a chalk-drawn stem that appears to connect to a real plant growing through the cracked pavement, with a blue chalk opening beneath her.

💡 Nerd Fact: Zinn lists Nadine among his most enduring characters and calls her “a mouse of adventure.” His temporary street drawings are improvised on location using chalk, charcoal, and found objects.

More: Nadine and the Vertical Commute

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🍄 “Mushroom Path” — By Jon Foreman at Druidston Haven, Wales 🇬🇧

Foreman created Mushroom Path at Druidston Haven in Pembrokeshire in 2024. Flat beach stones balance on slim upright supports in a winding line across the wet sand.

💡 Geology Fact: The Pembrokeshire Coast National Park Authority says Quaternary deposits form the entire cliff at Druidston Haven rather than merely covering its top. They include till, solifluction flow deposits, frost-shattered scree, wind-blown sand, and loess.

More: Land and Beach Art by Jon Foreman

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🧚 Fairy and Flower — Artist and Location Unconfirmed

A small purple fairy stencil leans toward a living flower at the foot of a wall. Painted stars run between the fairy and the flower.

💡 Botany Fact: A survey of 13 sidewalk routes in Chiang Mai, totaling 33.24 kilometres recorded 63 non-tree vascular plant species from 24 families. The plants predominantly colonized pavement gaps, cracks, and curbside cracks.

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👻 Crosswalk Intervention — By Oakoak and the Créateurs de Bonheurs in Auchel, France 🇫🇷

Festival Les Petits Bonheurs credits this 2019 work to its Créateurs de Bonheurs and Oakoak. Five crosswalk stripes have cartoon faces. A sixth is painted as a hovering white ghost, with a dark shadow beneath it.

💡 Festival Fact: For the 2019 festival, Béthune-Bruay’s tourism office described more than 500 people with disabilities taking part as “Créateurs de Bonheurs” and developing works with invited artists they admired.

More: Street Interventions by Oakoak

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🍂 Land Art — By James Brunt and Seven Young Syrian Collaborators — Location Unconfirmed

In a Facebook post dated September 1, 2021, Brunt credited seven young Syrian men with making this land-art arrangement with him. They shared little spoken language, but worked together to arrange yellow leaves, greenery, and sticks around the tree’s exposed roots.

💡 Practice Fact: Brunt says his community sessions encourage participants to spend time in nature, slow down, and notice more of their surroundings.

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🗄️ Straight Line Family — By Judson Beaumont — Display Location Unconfirmed

Straight Line Designs identifies this photograph as “New arrivals and Vern.” In its introduction to Judson Beaumont’s Straight Line Family, the studio presents Vern with the smaller cabinets it calls “the babies.” The post announced that the group would appear at IDS West at the Vancouver Convention Centre from September 19–22, 2013.

💡 Nerd Fact: Beaumont completed his art studies in Vancouver, graduating from the 3D department in 1985, and founded Straight Line Designs that same year. He said his early work began with minimalist forms and developed into functional furniture as his construction skills grew.

More: Furniture by Judson Beaumont

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🔥 “Prometheus” — By David Popa on Crete, Greece 🇬🇷

Popa created this 2021 ephemeral earth fresco on Crete’s rocky coast using natural pigments and water. Designed to fade with the elements, the portrait spans a fissured rock face and comes together as a complete image in the aerial view.

💡 Process Fact: Popa said the pigments included coconut charcoal, oyster-shell white, black from magnetite, and white from rutile, all mixed with water. His oyster-shell white was gofun, a Japanese white pigment now made from oyster shells left outdoors for 10–15 years before being cleaned and ground. For Fragments of Prometheus, Thaddaeus Andreades used photogrammetry to build a 3D sculpture from more than 400 frames extracted from drone footage of the painted rock face.

More: Prometheus by David Popa

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🌼 Tiny Gardener — By Pappas Pärlor — Installation Location Unconfirmed

Johan Karlgren, working as Pappas Pärlor, creates street installations from fuse beads. Here, Nintendo’s Toad leans through a pixel-art window and tips a watering can toward a real dandelion growing below.

💡 Nerd Fact: Karlgren’s bead practice began at home. Swedish public broadcaster SVT reports that he began making fuse-bead designs with his daughter. He said crafting with his children was a way to show them that they did not have to be confined by gender roles.

More: Street Art by Pappas Pärlor