Design Ideas to Color Graffiti
To some people, graffiti is a blight on inner city streets, where “vandals” mark up the territory with their spray-painted designs. Others appreciate graffiti for its colorful, intricate images and consider it artwork, created by talented “tagging” artists. Even if you’re not going to leave your mark permanently on a brick or concrete wall, you’ll find a variety of ways to color graffiti. Never paint in spaces where you don't have permission.
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Graffiti Fanatic
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Combine your enjoyment of painting with your love of a certain sports team by coloring in your graffiti with your team’s traditional colors. Whether you’re spraying a design with the team’s logo or not, you can still boast team pride when selecting paints. If you’ve got pride in your entire state, your graffiti can feature the different colors of all of the teams representing your area. Don’t forget to consider college colors, too.
Digital Designs
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While a computer may seem like the furthest thing from a can of aerosol paint, your mouse and keyboard are an ideal way to create some truly intricate, one-of-a-kind graffiti. Graphics software programs such as Photoshop (part of the Adobe Creative Suite package) and Paint (installed with all Windows computers) offer the tools to create onscreen graffiti. Start off with some thick lines of paint, resembling the hard outlines graffiti often uses, then fill it in with your choice of colors. A computer lets you achieve something with your graffiti you won’t be able to do with crayons or markers--transparency. When you see graffiti outside, you can see the brick lines or cement wall showing underneath the paint. With computer controls, you can reduce the opacity of your drawing to recreate this effect. Consider coloring graffiti on the computer a way to practice for the real thing or as your main outlet for creativity.
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Color Outside the Lines
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Contrary to what you may have been told in elementary school, you do not have to color inside the lines when doing graffiti. In fact, if you look at graffiti, you’ll notice that although most graffiti has thick outlines containing its letters and shapes, often to add flare, the graffiti artist will draw outside the lines with a light color. This adds a bit of glow or, when using a darker color, a shadow, to make the design jump off the wall (or in coloring cases, off the page). Graffiti’s lack of hard and fast rules may be one of the things that attract people to the art form. Let your creativity run free as you select your colors for your graffiti design, then allow your hands to lead the way and color wherever they see fit.
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References
Resources
- Photo Credit graffiti 5 image by jeanphilippe delisle from Fotolia.com
