Write In Graffiti

When most people think of graffiti, they think of outdoor murals and tags created with spray paint. While the street is the most popular place to write graffiti, the truth is that writing in graffiti can be done with virtually any writing utensil and blank canvas.

Before graffiti artists start bombing the streets, they typically learn how to write graffiti with pencil and paper. The following steps are intended to be an introduction to writing in graffiti.

Step1 Choose a word to write in graffiti. Many graffiti artists use their name or pseudonym.

Step2 Choose a graffiti style. There are dozens of unique styles for writing in graffiti. You might consider becoming familiar with different styles by taking note of professional pieces of graffiti in your city or online. One of the most popular graffiti styles for beginners is bubble letters.

Step3 Once you have found your graffiti style of choice, keep an example of it on hand for reference. Put your pencil to paper and make light strokes to mimic the style of your example. Erase and rewrite as necessary until you are satisfied with your pencil drawing.

Step4 Add details such as shading or graphics. Use your creativity. Keep it relatively simple until you grow comfortable writing more complex graffiti.

Step5 Use trace paper or a photo copier to make a copy of your completed pencil drawing. This will make it easy to start over in case you make a mistake in the next step.

Step6 Use a marker or pen to darken the pencil marks. Make them permanent. Use colored markers or crayons to fill in your letters and compete your graffiti writing.

Step7 Keep practicing and experimenting with graffiti to develop a unique style you can call your own.

Excellently Executed - The Secret Drawings of Graffiti Writers

The Secret Drawings of Graffiti Writers has successfully compiled a who's who of writer's writers in a format that looks so legit, you'd swear you could feel the grooves in the pages left by pencils and pens... as authentic and realistic as possible, there are even a few blank sheets to get up yourself! I even tried to peel the sticker off the inside cover!

Way before there were all these electronic networks, there was piecebooks. And within the confines of the book's covers, writers explored styles and studied up on the art. With that in mind, Sacha "SHR" Jenkins and David "Chino" Villorente have compiled dazzling pages from the real sketchbooks of graf legends like Zephyr, Lady Pink, Dondi and Sane for Piecebook: The Secret Drawings of Graffiti Writers (Prestel).

"Piecebooks are also used to collect work from other writers we respect/admire," says Villorente. "There are very few items a writer might buy at 14 years old that they'll still be purchasing and passing around at 41." Through close attention to design detail--simulated duct taped spine, illustration proportions and texture over 200-plus pages--the two have triumphed, where most have failed, in capturing graf's authenticity in book format. --Mass Appeal, Issue # 51

Before it hits the wall, graffiti is often painstakingly planned out in a sketchbook or piece book. Well-worn and dog-eared, these books are passed along from artist to artist as a way of sharing ideas and offering instruction. Here hundreds of drawings, most of them never before published, are reproduced on uncoated paper to resemble the pages of an authentic piecebook. Bold and beautiful works from graffiti history s most important sources or seeds Zephyr, Dondi, Daze, CRASH, Lady Pink, T-Kid, CAP and Ghost, among others represent a dizzying array of techniques.

The authors, former graffiti practitioners themselves, offer biographies of the artists and an introductory essay on why piecebooks have become such valuable historical records. Fans of graffiti will find this an irresistible inside look at how their favorite artists perfected their talents.

No Graffiti But You Must To See - My Redeemer Lives

A son says to his father: 'Dad, would you be willingly to run a marathon with me?'

The father, despite his age and a heart disease, says 'YES'.

And they run that marathon, together.

The son asks: 'Dad, can you run another marathon with me?' Again father says 'YES'.

They run another marathon, together.

One day the son asks his father: 'Dad, would please do the Iron Man with me?'

Now just in case you wouldn't know, 'The Iron Man' is the toughest triatlon in existance; 4km swimming, then 180 km by bike, and finaly another 42 km running, in one stroke.

Again father says 'YES'

Maybe this doesn't 'touch' you yet by heart ... until you see this movie (put on sound!):

Graffiti Breaks Free From Wall

The Hip-hop theatre pioneer Jonzi D explores the issue of whether graffiti really is an artform or merely vandalism. He directs a team of six of the UK's best break- dancers and body-poppers, who become "physical calligraphy" alongside specially commissioned graffiti "sculptures" and on-stage video animations.

The dancers, representing paints and colours, move within large, sculpted graffiti-style letters made of wood, steel and upholstery, all created by the British graffiti artist Prime, of Sculptural Graffiti. The dance theatre piece, set to a score by DJ Pogo that combines hip-hop break-beats and scratch patterns, charts the story of an obsessive graffiti writer.

"We're not trying to define whether graffiti art is a crime or not: we know that it is," Jonzi D says. "But it is also an artform. We are having a creative discussion on the vandalism and the criminality and the artistry of the form."

The graffiti artist is played by John Berkavitch, a performance poet and breakdancer who is also a graffiti artist. "Like a puppet master, he shapes the bodies of the dancers with an imaginary graffiti wand into images that come to life," Jonzi D says. "He is exorcising his personal and creative demons in the only way he knows how."

Since graduating from the London Contemporary Dance School in 1993, Jonzi D has dedicated himself to hip-hop theatre, creating Lyrikal Fearta in 1995 and Aeroplane Man in 1999. He was an associate artist at The Place, London, and has performed dance theatre all over the world. He is also the creator and host of Breakin' Convention, the annual hip-hop festival at Sadler's Wells in London.

Ximending Graffiti Art Exhibit

Something is going on in Taipei on 12/12 in Ximending. It involves the best graffiti artists in Taiwan, so if you've got free time, get up there and get yer culture on!

Graffiti Law Tagged Out

A LAWSUIT spurred by the fashion and video game designer Mark Ecko has at least temporarily won back for young New Yorkers (ages 18 to 21) the right to purchase spray paint and broad-tipped markers.

Some stern adults in the city are certain that the only reason any youngster would want to possess such art supplies is to add to New York's graffiti. The law, spearheaded by City Councilman Peter Vallone Jr., went into effect in January and was suspended in early May by a judge pending the outcome of Ecko's lawsuit. The ban still applies to New Yorkers under 18.

For Vallone and other fans of the law, such as Mayor Michael Bloomberg, it's part of their war on the classic image of New York as a gritty, filthy playground for the lawless. The young plaintiffs in the Ecko-funded lawsuit argue that such restrictions on artistic tools, which do not distinguish between legal and illegal uses, are pre-emptive assaults on the right to free speech.

Writing Graffiti Style

You see it everywhere these days, from the fronts of T-shirts to the underside of bridges. You can buy coffee table books on the subject and even download fonts for your computer that attempt to emulate it. Graffiti art is everywhere, and there are as many different styles as there are individuals who use a can of spray paint and the side of a building as their medium. But there are some basic tag styles that can be emulated if you are trying to learn how to write graffiti style.

The most basic style of graffiti writing is also the simplest and most unornamented. The letters are usually shaped much like you would write them with a pen in a Roman type font where the letters don’t touch each other. This kind of work is commonly seen in long written works or as a signature on a larger piece of graffiti. It is the perfect place to start when learning graffiti writing, though, because anyone can do it.

The next step up in difficulty would be “throw-up” style, which incorporates the outlines of letters into the design.

This kind of tag can be done very quickly with practice because the letters can be squished together such that you can form a whole word with one fluid line. (It is probably best to practice on paper with a pen or pencil before getting out your airbrush gun.) A commonly appearing form of this style is the bubble style (which you’ve probably seen if you’ve ever known a teenaged girl who doodled in her notebooks), where the outlines are large and look like bubbles, much curvier than a standard outline. Sometimes bubble style takes a little longer than other outline forms, and it can be more ornate than other types of outlining.

Once you have mastered these basics, you’re ready to move on to “semi-wild” style. This is where the fun of graffiti writing comes in, where you can really show off your personality in your designs. This is a style where the letters begin to get squished, stretched, tilted or twisted. There is a lot more ornamentation (arrows, bars, starbursts, etc.) surrounding (and as part of) these letters than in the more simple styles. The letters are usually still readable in semi-wild style, even for people who are not well-versed in graffiti writing.

If you want to try semi-wild out for yourself, pick a simple word (like your name). Write out the letters as you normally would (not in cursive, just in block letters or a plain style). Write it again in an outline or bubble style. You may want to try several different kinds of lettering, from big and bubbly to straight and blocky. As you do this, think about how the letters fit together, or how they might be made to fit together. How would it look if you tilted the first letter out and laid it on top of the second letter, then put the third letter a little higher on the page but just touching the second? Then you could place the fourth letter under the third on its side, just sliding into that hole you made.

Maybe you could break up the letters (if you want to see how this could work and aren’t sure you can draw it, take simple outlines of the letters and cut them up, arranging them in different ways running in and out of the other letters. Maybe you could add an arrow to the end of the last letter of your name, or a starburst instead of the dot over one of the letters. You can embellish any way you want, that’s part of the fun.

From “semi-wild” style the classification moves to wild style, which is similar to semi-wild only with even more ornamentation and twisting of the letters. This style of tagging can be hard to read and looks more like a random, wrecked pile of letters than an easily distinguishable word. These pieces skirt the line between words used for the purpose of communication and letters (or the basic building blocks of letters, anyway) used more as art. (Of course art itself is a means of communication, but a different, less direct level.)

Obviously it takes a lot of practice to be able to do graffiti art with any skill, but once you get the basics down there are all sorts of variations and designs you can add to make a simple word into something a lot more beautiful. We already talked about using stars to dot letters. They can also be seen inside circles as a stand-in for an O or as part of the decoration. Hearts can also be used in place of O’s, and crosses in place of T’s. Serifs (or “tails” on the letters) can be exaggerated by being made into arrows, daggers, airplanes or other simple shapes.

You can draw shapes that look like holes or “chips” in the graffiti to make it look like it’s been chipped off or destroyed somehow. You can put different symbols inside the letters, or put the word inside a larger symbol or design. And of course when you outline the letters you can use different colors and patterns to fill in the letters. There is no end to the creativity and interesting forms you can express when working with graffiti writing.

On the streets you will find many different variations on these themes (though we don’t recommend you practice your new skills on public property). Depending on where you live, you are likely to see a dominant style. Whole books have been written about different styles such as the Latino “Old School Cholo” style of upper case, square letters, which has been popular in the Los Angeles area since the 1930s. New York’s style is bubbly like Broadway (said to be result of lax supervision), which Philadelphia’s is scratchy and rushed (because cops cracked down on taggers in the old days).

Whenever you visit a new city you will likely see some different kinds of graffiti. Many cities are less concerned with covering up graffiti these days and instead view it as a kind of public art (and a kind of museum art, in some places). As you practice you will develop your own style, certain embellishments you like and perhaps a whole new way of thinking about those simple letters and words that are all around us. Give graffiti writing a try and see if it doesn’t change the way you think about those who would choose to express themselves this way.

Amazingly Enduring Street Artist

This is a snapshot of an amazingly enduring street artist known as Above and his travels across North America and Europe. This guy gets up in mad quantities and with the most unique styles.

Street artists such as Banksy, D*Face, , Swoon, Twist, 108, Ellis Gallagher, Neck face , and Os Gemeos have earned international attention for their work and in turn migrated the showing of their works to the museum or gallery setting as well as the street. It is also not uncommon for street artists to achieve commercial success Shepard Fairey, Faile, WK Interact, Kaws and Buff Monster doing graphics for other companies or starting their own merchandising lines.

Graffiti Alphabet of the Palm Pilot

One of the more compelling features of the Palm is its ability to recognize script from a stylus (or pen). Although the Palm is not yet smart enough to recognize your handwriting, it does have a script of its own which will allow you to enter data quickly into any Palm application. Such "graffiti" writing occurs on the lower third of the Palm (between the icons mentioned in the previous section). Note that this area is divided by two bold arrows into two unequal parts.

If you wish to write alphabetic characters, you must do so on the left section of the graffiti area; numeric characters are entered on the right section. This distinction is noted on your Palm by the icons in the lower corners of the graffiti area. These icons, however, perform a function of their own.

By tapping either of these icons a keyboard will appear on the bottom of the digital viewing area of the Palm. You can then tap on the virtual keys with the stylus like a regular keyboard. So the Palm gives you a choice: you can learn the graffiti strokes or just pull up the keyboard. Ultimately you'll probably want to do most of your data entry from your PC keyboard anyway; though both Palm options have a low learning curve, they are not nearly as fast or perfected as the PC keyboard itself.



Note that there are some unique graffiti strokes that allow you to manipulate text instead of just creating letters and numbers. If you want to erase the last character, you can use a right-to-left stroke in either the alphabetic or the numeric section of the graffiti display (see the bottom-right of the above graphic). You can capitalize any character by first using a bottom-to-top vertical stroke in the alphabetic side of the graffiti display.

These are just a couple of the special characters available in the graffiti display area; many more can be accessed via special keystrokes. Some of the special keystrokes are shown here. A comprehensive list of these secondary characters can be found in the Palm manual and on the special reference sticker that came with your Palm.

Create The Graffiti Sketches

Graffiti like anything else. Usually requires plenty of practice to be any good. It can also be helped along with preparation, planning and perfecting your next piece of graffiti art before you even pick up that can of spray paint. You can work on perfecting your work when you create graffiti sketches.

Photo By keusta.net

A few simple steps and plenty of imagination are all you need to create graffiti sketches. Oh, a pen and paper might help, too.

Step1 Decide where you want this graffiti to be. You don’t have to know the exact location, such as under the bridge next to the tree by the bend in the road, but you should have some idea of the size and shape of your concrete or other canvas. A sketch that covers a large, solid area is going to differ from one that is meant to be put along the border of an overpass.

Step2 Sketch out your canvas. Draw the borders of the area you plan to conquer. A large wall will be represented by a rectangle or square, or you can choose any other shape you want to fill with your work.

Step3 Pick your subject. The world is yours. Keep in mind, however, a generic subject, such as a wrestler or snake, is going to be easier to reproduce than a specific subject, such as Hulk Hogan or a Western Diamondback Rattler with exactly seven teeth, forked tongue and colors exactly matching the species. But then again, you are preparing in advance, so you have time and the tools to pretty much perfect anything you want.

Step4 Keep lines fat and bold for easy viewing. Remember that you are working on a large scale, much larger than the piece of paper in front of you. You may want to practice the outlines with a thick marker that will give you a better idea of the work’s bold outlines necessary.

Step5 Fill the space entirely. Some of the best graffiti work includes shading, designs and shadows in the background. Once you have your main subject down pat, work on creating a background for the subject that can also be perfected.

Step6 Decide on colors. Too many colors will look too busy, so keep it simple but make sure the colors that are side by side are different enough to stand out from each other. For instance, do not place a bluish green directly next to a greenish blue and expect people to tell the difference from a distance. You can practice the colors by shading and adding hues with colored pencils.