How to Make Graffiti Art

First off, I must give credit where it’s due – Michelle Ward, and her beautiful, spray painted patterns as well as her small tips and tricks – they’ve helped a lot.

I never really considered spray paint and its uses until seeing stenciled images pop-up in art-blog-land. Now, this versatile paint’s uses seem painfully obvious, uses going far beyond that of re-used garage sale signs and colorful rail car masterpieces.

Yes – for me, graffiti, or street art, IS art. On Venice Beach, you’ll be hard pressed to find a palm tree that hasn’t been covered seven feet high with colorful art or the city’s gray cover-all paint. There are even large, concrete slabs set up FOR the artists, who bring along milk crates of colors and spend the day creating.

There’s beauty to the chaos, to thick lines of paint layered by skilled hands. Street art isn’t easy – you can’t just pick up a can and become Van Gogh. Many plan out their designs on paper or even the computer, taking to the street only when they’ve mastered the design with paper and pen. But the preparation doesn’t end there. You need to learn how to hold the can in order to get the lines and coverage you need.

While I will never attempt anything as complicated as street art, there’s something to be learned from those that do. A lot of graffiti comes from experimentation – here are some things I’ve learned from my own little play beside the garage.

\\SUPPLIES:

• While satin paint sounds cool, it doesn’t cover as well on paper, and, when combined with regular (or smooth, depending on the brand), looks faded. Try a can on the surface you’re going to be using before buying the entire store.
  
  
• You can find awesome stencils at art supply stores for cheap. Also, look for wall-décor ones; they’re more expensive but larger and resemble wallpaper.
  
  
• Some papers soak up the paint while others, like wallpaper, don’t. If you want the mixed effect, you want to use a smoother, treated surface, as it takes longer to dry. Plastic, wallpaper – those sorts of things.
  
  
• Masking tape is your friend. Get lots – the wider, the better.
  

\\TECHNIQUE:

• Lay down a base color. This will make things a little less boring as well as prime the surface. Think of it as putting down gesso before painting.
  
  
• Layers! After covering your surface with one stencil, go back and do it again with another in a different color. Don’t stick to a grid – graffiti is about chaos, not uniformity.
  
  
• If you lay down a second coat before the first dries, the colors will blend. This applies when spraying stencils as well.
  
  
• When you’re done with a stencil, instead of cleaning it off with a rag, lay it down on your surface and do a mono-print to add dimension.

\\LAYERING:

• When you’re finished with the spray-paint, let it dry outside overnight, as the fumes aren’t nice to noses and heads. This also gives you some time away from the project, something I believe is key to every piece, be it in your journal or on a canvas.
  
• Once dry, pull out your gel pens, paint markers, even your acrylics. Draw shapes, faces, swirls, doodles, whatever comes to mind.
  
  
• Write words all over the surface. Use different colors, tip widths, etc. Write small. BIG. Wide. Narrow.
  
  
• Cover the entire surface into a chaotic mess.
  
  
• Spray some more paint over this if you’d like. Or, if you hate it, just start over!

Remember, you can spray on anything! Plastic, cardboard, fabric, glass…anything you want! I usually spray on 30x22 poster board or 11x17 sheets of manila folder paper. This way, I can make it even more random by cutting the paper apart and using it as a collage element in all sorts of mixed-media collage. Use it to matt a photo, to add embellishment, to give a background dimension. To see some examples of how I’ve used graffiti art in collage, check out the first issue of Page by Page.