Street Art in Taipei

While visiting Taipei we went to the Wanhua district, famous for its amazing street art. It is located in Taipei’s oldest district and is surrounded by history, great food and shopping. While San Francisco, CA has a great collection of murals, we were not prepared for how unique, large, and pristine the street art was in Taipei. In New York and San Francisco there is often layers upon layers of graffiti often obscuring one another in a jumble of imagery. In Taipei, most of the street art was unstructured making you feel like you were walking through a museum rather than an alley. We would see often time see people slowly walking doing an alley as if strolling a museum, pausing at a piece of street art that caught their imagination. Below is a collection of our favorites. 

This is a view of the alley call America Street in the Wanhua district where we found most of the art. It is a fun art focused district to visit.

This four-eyed creature in an Elmo costume. We saw three different versions of this image throughout the city. 

Painted by De_24, this amazing bunny is also frequently seen throughout Taipei. You can check out more of De_24 here


This creative flying cat is painted by Psoman.

This 3-eyed creature is painted by Binzilla

The artist is unknown.

The artist is unknown.

The artist is unknown.

The artist is unknown.The artist is unknown.

The artist is unknown.

Street art made by Alex Face near a park in Taipei.

Monster: Lin the Dragon

 steampunk, monster, woodcraft
Lin the Dragon

Born from one of our favorite bushes and a failed costume, Lin the dragon was our most complex monster at that time. Lin is made from wood from our own garden, making her unique.

Steampunk wooden monster
Flying free!

Lin has posable legs, tail and wings. The legs can barely support her so we decided to hang her from the ceiling to watch over us as we craft.

Steampunk wooden monster
Side view

Close up of wooden wing
Close up of a wing joint

The wings are from a dragon costume we were building that proved to be too heavy. The tail is made by repeatedly cutting the log and threading a steal wire through them to secure it.

Happy crafting!

Monster: Hummingbird

 steampunk, monster, woodcraft
The Hummingbird Monster

The hummingbird monster was made from a branch too weak to be used for other projects. We decided to make it into a hummingbird because it already had a long beak, and the body was already shaped like a bird. After lots of trimming, sanding, and bees wax, we added felt and wire wings.

 steampunk, monster, woodcraft
Bottom view

Hung from the ceiling, the humming bird monster comes to life.

Wooden Monster, Kid-made, bird

Happy Creating!

Monster: Anteater

 steampunk, monster, woodcraft
Coming through your window!

We call this monster the Anteater.  The Anteater monster was a wonderful branch that was too split to make a good wand or use in other projects. After we stabilized the splitting and cut out all the rotted wood, we sanded her and coated her heavily in bees wax.

 steampunk, monster, woodcraft
Side view

At first we thought of mounting Anteater on the wall as if she was a trophy, but then the Sister’s team thought of having her appear to climb out of the wall.  We then used a picture frame we were working on and created a fake window using the picture frame, paint, and plexiglass for her to climb out of. With a window as a mount, she made a great addition to our living room.

Wooden Monster on table
Side view

Wooden Monster on a table

Happy Creating!

Wooden Monster: Allie

The HipMonsters team does not like trees going to waste, so whenever we stumble upon a piece of wood too rotten or misshapen to be used for our projects, we create a wooden monster!

 steampunk, monster, woodcraft
Allie!

Born from a dead branch of a juniper bush, this monster is built to protect a child’s room. It is very possessive and will only allow one monster in the room at a time. Perfect for making sure human children have a restful nighttime sleep.

Wooden Monster, kid-made, front view
Allie from the front.

We made Allie’s eyes out of two styrofoam balls.

Wooden monster kid-made- rearview
Allie from the rear.

Allie was one of our first monsters and is at the front of our house very Halloween!

Happy Creating!