So Clever (8 Photos)

September 28, 2026

By Vidar

Eight clever ideas, big and small

A golden retriever stretches up to the Doggie Stick Library, where branches hang on pegs like books waiting to be borrowed. The ideas that follow are just as simple, whether they are drawn in chalk, painted on a gate or laid out in beach stones.

More: This Is Clever (75 Photos)

🐕 Doggie Stick Library

The visitor already knows what to do. With its yellow frame, paw-print sign and neatly arranged sticks, this is a neighborhood book exchange for a very enthusiastic new audience.

⛏️ Wendell and Terry — By David Zinn

Two tiny workers seem to have opened a room beneath the sidewalk. David Zinn uses the broken edge as their doorway, then adds tools, paws and a dark interior. The Ann Arbor, Michigan, artist describes his street drawings as made entirely of chalk, charcoal and found objects, and always improvised on location.

More: David Zinn’s Magical Chalk Art: 11 Whimsical Creations That Spark Joy

🔗 Follow David Zinn on Instagram

🐺 Guard Dog — By ROO in Kingston upon Thames, UK 🇬🇧

A red gate gets a resident guard dog, complete with its own painted shadow. The pointed ears, heavy eyebrows and spiked collar do most of the talking. On her website, the artist describes her work as fun, humorous animal characters in spray paint and digital form.

More: Guard dog 🐺 by ROO in Kingston upon Thames, UK

🔗 Follow ROO on Instagram

🪨 Dissicio Quadratum — By Jon Foreman at Freshwater West, Wales, UK 🇬🇧

Rows of upright pebbles shrink and grow across a square of sand. Jon Foreman separates the colors into diagonal bands, letting the changes in size give the pattern a rippling surface. The Wales-based artist works with found stones, leaves and sand, and his pieces last only a short time before wind or tide takes them.

💡 Place Fact: Freshwater West was a filming location for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 1 and Part 2. Shell Cottage was built at the foot of the dunes for the films, and the National Trust allowed Dobby’s grave to remain on the beach.

More: Stone By Stone (20 Photos)

🔗 Follow Jon Foreman on Instagram

🐦 Free Bird Seed — By E.LEE in Chicago, Illinois, USA 🇺🇸

Follow the sign, turn the corner, meet the coyote. E.LEE uses the building itself to delay the punchline, spreading a familiar cartoon trap across two corners.

The artist’s account of the project places it on the two front corners of Soho House Chicago at 113–125 N Green Street in June 2017, as part of a monthly artist rotation curated by Lance Curran of Threadless. E.LEE designed it digitally, cut stencils from paper prints, and finished the walls with spray paint, acrylics and paint markers.

💡 Pop Culture Fact: Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner were created for Warner Bros. Cartoons in 1948 by Chuck Jones and writer Michael Maltese. The pair first appeared on screen in Fast and Furry-ous on September 17, 1949.

More: Free Bird Seed

🔗 Follow E.LEE on Instagram

🕷️ Be Careful When You Drink — By Odeith

An enormous chrome faucet appears to project from the wall, with a spider hanging underneath. These two views show how much Odeith stretches the painting to make it come together from the right spot. The shine and the shadow are painted too. Larger-than-life insects are a recurring subject for the Portuguese artist, and Colossal has featured a series of them lurking around abandoned buildings.

More: 3D Art by Odeith (25 Photos)

🔗 Follow Odeith on Instagram

🌍 Aloha Globe — By Tom Bob

A hanging buoy is now a globe, held by a smiling character in an Aloha cap. In the before-and-after views, the buoy already has the shape and depth. The New Bedford-born, New York-based artist told The New Bedford Light that he sketches each idea, cuts a stencil and finishes the piece with spray paint.

More: Creative Genius Tom Bob (33 Photos)

🔗 Follow Tom Bob on Instagram

🕶️ Life Imitates Art — By Floyd Mendoza in Bushwick, New York City, USA 🇺🇸

Pink sunglasses, dark nails and a raised hand fill the wall, while the person walking past below shows the scale. Floyd Mendoza leaves plenty to find inside the portrait: rings, small drawings and the words “Life Imitates Art” across the hand.

The model is visual artist Maria Montoya; Mendoza shared the mural in his Bushwick project post. The phrase is Montoya’s own: she named “Life imitates art” as one of her mottos in an interview with Tattoo Life. BK Reader’s coverage of the 2026 Bushwick Collective Block Party also includes a new mural by Mendoza.

💡 History Fact: The Bushwick Collective was started in 2012 by Joe Ficalora, who was born and raised in Bushwick and runs his family’s steel business on Troutman Street. The collective’s block party was first held that same year and has since become an annual event.

🔗 Follow Floyd Mendoza on Instagram