25 artists working in Britain today. They don’t have to be British but they do have to be resident so visitors from elsewhere who rock up, do an amazing mural and leave, are not included.

If you take a stroll around Redwood City, California, you might get the sense that something isn't quite right. Pay particular attention to the shadows. Notice how they seem to misbehave? Flowers sprout from the shadows of bike racks, mailboxes turn into shadow monsters, and shady monkeys hang around atop parking meters. What's going on?

Kiptoe

Upfest one of the biggest street art festival in Europe and as such attracts artists from all of the country and the world. Applications are taken months in advance and to paint at the festival is the sort of thing that easily finds its way onto the average street artists bucket list.

The LoveLetters crew was founded at the end of 2006 in Sittard, a city in the south of Holland. The crew is a creative collective of eleven European writers from Germany, Switzerland, France and the Netherlands. They started out with 4 members - Tumki, Nash, Chas, Does - and expanded by inviting individual writers to join the crew (Dare, Dater, Ozer, Sean2, Biser, Rusl and Puaks). All the members have evolved from graffiti writers to creative artists. Their current activities include, amongst others: graphic design, web design, tattoo design and photography. Each writer has his own expertise, which makes for a truly unique and diverse crew.

Most schools looks pretty bland, with safe homogeneous colors and uninspired designs, but one hundred graffiti artists have just turned the boring walls of a dormitory in Paris into a stunning celebration of art and creativity.

Spanish street art duo Pichi & Avo collaborated in 2007, for an intriguing blend of traditional graffiti and renderings of mythological figures( influenced by ancient Greek sculpture). The precise shading and color is painted only with spray paint.

Standing on the site where Nazis burned 2,000 books by Jewish and Marxist writers, this Parthenon is not made of marble, but of 100,000 books that have been or remain banned by various governmental entities around the world. The Parthenon of Books by Argentine artist Marta Minujin faithfully recreates the historic Athens landmark in Kassel, Germany with various editions of 170 banned books, all wrapped in plastic and donated by the public. The artist will keep accepting copies of the banned books and adding them to the structure until Documenta ends on August 4th, and then the books will be distributed to anyone who wants them.

Artist Okuda San Miguel recently transformed a 19th-century castle in Château, France in a work titled Skull in the Mirror. After stints as a school and holiday center for children, the castle was abandoned for nearly 30 years.

The Crystal Ship, a contemporary art festival which encouraged artists to adorn the walls of this town.

Once dull and gray, the attractively painted towers are the biggest works of public art in Soweto and they play different roles as exhibition and advertising platforms with one of them working as an advertising signboard another exhibiting the largest mural painting in South Africa.

Ever wondered what hides under that final coat of paint on a wall filled with graffiti? How about a wall that was painted over and over for 30 years?

The giant portraits of the Big Yin have been created in his native Glasgow to mark his 75th birthday.

Graffiti

At a time when graffiti, urban and street art are having a moment, we go back in time to ask: did the spray can influence the artist - or vice versa?

Another joyful two hours. :-)