Maine-based Robert Dowling Jr. creates wonderfully whimsical stories with a slightly surreal touch. The self-taught artist, who works primarily in acrylics and oils, often paints characters with their faces covered or turned away. Love art like this that both children and adults can enjoy in their own unique way.

A picture composed by the French street artist JR is plastered to a wall under a highway as part of a community project called “Through A Mother's Eyes”, which involves members of the economically distressed neighborhood of Hunts Point in images taken by and of themselves on June 30, 2011 in New York City. JR, a recent TED prize winner, has staged similar projects around the world that look to transform high crime and impoverished neighborhoods into spaces for street art combined with the celebration of community. (Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images)

A Penarth dance hall has banned chewing gum on the premises because dancers have complained that their feet keep sticking to the floor. (Photo by Richards/Fox Photos/Getty Images). 16th July 1936

A man walks beside a “Wrinkles Of The City” creation near the Berlin cathedral in Berlin April 19, 2013. (Photo by Fabrizio Bensch/Reuters)

A sculptural artwork depicting former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet and headless presidents shot by a hooded high school student (not pictured) is seen at the Contemporary Art Museum in Santiago, December 2, 2014. The artwork, part of the “El ladrillo angular” (The angular brick) exhibition, portrays a student fighting against the ongoing continuity of dictatorship because of a political and economic system which has been impossible to destroy, according to “Papas Fritas” the artwork's creator. (Photo by Ivan Alvarado/Reuters)

To produce the images that convey his fatalistic and ironic approach to life, tinged with hope, he needed the environment and knowledge of Mother Russia, oiled with a bit of bribery to certain circus trainers. Enter the Great Russian Bear, the personification of Russia for the last several centuries, onto center stage and into his studio. The bear is recognized as both brutish and cute – Misha was the mascot for the 1980 Olympic Games – and has remained a symbol of Russia since Tsarist times. In 2009 it is the symbol of the United Russia Party.

“Residents in a small town littered with giant potholes may be ready to “crack” the art world – after turning their massively damaged roads into hilarious masterpieces. Fun-natured drivers from Scranton, Pennsylvania have been challenged by an arts group to turn the ugly craters in their neighborhood into pothole art”. – Caters News. Photo: Cereal bowl pothole. (Photo by Caters News)