If you need a break from the concrete jungle in downtown Toronto, you may want to head to a park and stretch out on a bench or work out or play, surrounded by our beautiful trees and carefully maintained flower beds... it's great to have garbage and recycling bins handy on site so these sites don't get polluted with trash, but the bins can be a bit of an eye sore. Fortunately, the StreetARToronto team is tasked with beautifying the city everywhere they can, and so every year they hire artists to paint these bins in a diverse range of styles to bring some colour to waste management. I usually stick to local flora and fauna in my murals... but when I was invited to paint a pair of city bins, I just couldn't stop imagining tentacles reaching around the front toward the unsuspecting visitors... So octopuses it was... octopi? octopodes? octopussies 🐙 I designed four unique looking cephalopods in their bright natural colours, painted wavy seascapes behind them, and went to tentacle heaven painting all their curling, twisting, suckered limbs.

Thanks to Ghazaleh Rastgar, StreetARToronto, the City of Toronto, and all the amazing artists I met while painting. It was really inspiring to see all the different ideas that artists brought to the project -- some of them creating finely detailed little scenes with something new to notice every time you look at them, and others beautiful impressionistic abstracts and floral forms. Lots of humour and joy and creativity on display all around, and we all learn from each other as we work, talking shop, sharing stories, making friends and hoping our paths cross again on our next street art projects.