Things You'll Need:
- Paint, marker or stencil
-
Step 1
Respect your elders. There are maestros of the graffiti art form who proceed you. After all, graffiti has been around since the days of cave painting, though it hit its zenith in the 1970s. One of the big names in tagging is StayHigh 149 who specialized in two-tone midi tags. LSD3 employed urban style that predates the hip hop graffiti letterers of today. Try your hand at their signatures and don't sweat the originality quotient. Copying graffiti masters will build your skills.
-
Step 2
Choose your message. It can be love, hate or heartbreak. Race, politics and class are other hot topics. Remember that most graffiti artists sign their names to their works, typically in a very stylized manner or as a logo, so that the tag is instantly attributable to them. You can start simple by tagging your name. Another popular form is blockbuster, where the artist uses large block letters. Throw-ups or throwies are quickie messages done in a few colors. Bubble letters have rounded edges.
-
Step 3
Pick your medium. Punk rock and political graffiti artists love stencils because they can create multiple images at a breakneck speed. Wide-tipped markers are the old-school way to get your message up on a wall. Then there's the classic: aerosol. Spray paint gets you a lot of bang for the buck, covers fast and comes in bright colors. Start with the background and then outline your letters. Create a three-dimensional effect by adding thin lines along the edges of the letters. Fill in all gaps with color.
-
Step 4
Stalk your canvas. Is that abandoned warehouse monitored by dogs at night? Is there a video camera at the side of that storefront? The dream of every nascent graf artist is known as the heaven spot, the place that seems impossible to reach, much less to paint. Rooftops and highway signs qualify. While you're hitting that tree trunk, airplane, poster or brick wall, watch your back. Whether or not you consider graffiti a crime, the police do. Vandalism can land you in jail for the night.
-
Step 5
Sell out. All right, not everyone reaches this level, but you can't deny that graffiti has hit everything from the tattoo parlor to corporate packaging. Business owners hire graf artists to decorate their buildings. Cereal companies sell their sugar bombs with images of graffiti bombs on the box. Galleries and auction houses aren't immune to the lure of graffiti. Bansky's work has made him bank. His "Space Girl Bird" netted him $575,000. The mainstreaming of street art is nothing new. Keith Haring, Jean Dubuffet and Jean-Michel Basquiat spent time tagging as well as using graffiti lettering in their artwork.
