DO-IT-MONDAY

Let’s keep it simple this Monday and surrender to some pre-made designs online. We cut them out, spray them on all kind of surfaces around us and pronto! Is it really that simple? Well… we get very often frustrated by this cutting already  ; ) But still… let’s check out one of those more used techniques in the world of graffiti to do it ourselves:

STENCIL GRAFFITI

The easiest and fastest way to spread your message all over the city is preparing your homework, going to the streets with your cut-out-paper and ofcourse the spraycan to mark your design on the citywalls. You can add different colours, different layers, and different patterns depending on the space provided and the design in mind. All of this combined in the technique of stencilling your way !

Stencil art became attractive to a wide variety of political and social activists using those pre-made examples to bomb their cities and beyond with feminist, anti-consumerist, anarchist as well as many anti-war messages out there. Nowadays you have all kind of portraits, designs, and messages displayed on all kind of surfaces, being reused several times to draw the attention and recognition to what is created.

Big names everybody must know are the English Banksy, the Colombian Juega Siempre, the French Jef Aerosol, the American Shephard Fairey… and so many more.

So if you plan to start trying out some stencils yourself, take the next steps into account:

• collect a thin sheet of material (fe. paper, carton, strong plastic, wood…)
• create your figure and/or text to cut out
• hold the stencil flat against the spray-zone (some tape to keep the paper flat against the wall might help you)
• apply the spray on the cut-out zones of the material
• and with the words of do-it-yourself-in-going-out-there-Obey «Spray at your own risk!»

For those not creative in designing their own, you can google easily free downloads for pre-made ones. Plus if you plan to use different details, photoshop as well as a laserprinter can help you with those cutting edges !

Share your results and/or tips & tricks on our (#yesyoucanspray) facebookpage !