Carlsbad Art and Culture

The downtown Encinitas streets scampered with wide eyes and busy hands as groups of children and adults participated in an art hunt on Sunday, July 10th, titled ‘Hide and Go Seek Doodle: Encinitas’ organized by Bryan Snyder.

The local community was invited to visit the E Street Cafe where they were greeted by over 40 paintings by Snyder, as well as 120 miniature Doodle reproductions pasted on wood blocks and hung from an 8ft. canvas, also painted with Snyder’s signature Doodle character.

Each wood block reproduction included a clue on the back side which potentially led art hunt participants to an original hand painted Doodle painting hidden in the local streets. 8 total paintings were hidden motivating excited art and community enthusiasts to visit the cafe early in the morning on the opening day of the hunt.

David Cintron of Oceanside and Seán L Ferreiro of Carlsbad were some of the first to find a hidden Doodle. A clue led them to the Small Mall on the highway 101 where they found the Doodle tightly hidden behind the sign of Thrifty Threads.

Gail Corwin of Carmel Valley used the hunt as a way to spend quality time with her two daughters, one from Cardiff and another visiting from Sacramento, and her 3 grandchildren. She also enjoyed how the hunt encouraged her to see things in the community she normally overlooked. “I found new retail shops at the Pacific Station that I had no idea were there,” she explains. “It’s a great way to promote local shops.”

Downtown Encinitas guests were directed to the E Street Cafe all the up until closing. “Groups of people kept coming up to the counter asking about the art hunt flyers they had been seeing in the streets,” an E Street barista said. “They were all so excited.”

Snyder has been developing community based urban art hunts in his home town of Carlsbad for nearly 4 years, but the Doodle hunts are fairly new. “The amount of organization that goes into each one is very consuming,” Snyder explains.” They are still a work in progress, but I am very pleased with how they are turning out.”

Carlsbadcrawl.com, Snyder’s website, explains the goals of the Doodle art hunt is to encourage urban exploration and the development of a more artistic culture within a specific community, promoting local business and to encourage new friendships and conversation.

Visit the E Street Cafe to see the self curated solo show by Snyder!

Click HERE to purchase your own original Doodle painting online!