How to create a Piece Part 1

The word Piece comes from 'Master Piece' and was the original term used by graffiti writers for doing their name in a more elaborate way then say bubble letters (throw-up) or a signature (tag). There are many ways to create a piece (good & bad) and of course there are many, many styles within graffiti hip hop culture.

Here are some simple steps toward creating a piece: Start with the line-up. This is a basic outline of what your design looks like. The better artists will use a light colour (white) for their first sketch and then improve on it with a secondary line up colour (Blue in this case) to make it perfect.


The 3D: Pick your colours and fill in the 3D drop down or block shadow section. This give a 3 dimensional effect as the name suggests. There are many ways to fill in the 3D, it can be simple or complicated and is usually a contrasting colour to the letters. You can see that the beginning of the background (black) has also been added here after the 3D is completed.


The Fill: Next post will continue the project with the next elements, the base & detail fills, outlines and more.

How to create a Piece Part 2

Base Fill: So after doing the line up and finishing the 3D, we move onto the base fill. With this part of the piece the options are limitless. Some artists try to cram as much crazy into their fills as possible, whilst other keep them very simple. There are as many reasons as there are styles as to how you would do your fill. Essentially, the fill is done to create or 'fill in' the letters and usually a contrasting colour to the other elements is used. In this case greens and browns are used to bounce of the pinks in the 3D. A series of fades are done to blend the colours in a rough way to each other. As you can see the fill starts giving some body to the overall piece and it becomes more visible.



Detail Fill & Background: From here we can add extra detail elements to the fill, they could be fine lines, dots, bubbles, stars and almost anything else you can think of. Again this is a time for considerations, too much detail can ruin the overall visibility of the piece. There is often a big temptation to cram as much into the piece as possible, this is usually not a good thing.

After the details in the fill is complete, you can move onto the background, this allows for keeping a very sharp edge around the overall lettering and helps to make the outline easier and better to do. In this case complimentary colours to the 3D are used which is a nice tie in and offers some balance. As you can see the 3 yellow crowns are also filled and outlined, while a black bottom bubble is finished.

How to create a Piece Part 3

The Outline: So after working on our line up, fill and background, we come to the final part, the outline. It's the outline that defines the letters and brings the whole piece together, so it's pretty important to get right!

There are many ways of doing the out line, from fine lines with can control, to cutting back or just using a one stroke outline with a slightly fatter nozzle on the can. Each technique has it's own merit and skill involved (which goes beyond this post). Essentially, you want to pick a colour that will give good contrast and bring the whole piece together. The outline goes around the letters & the 3D.


After the outline, you can put a key-line around it (blue) and add some highlights & sparkles to give it some bounce (white shiners). Once that's done, you can add any other messages or shout outs and your finished!


Sign it off & don't forget to take a photo.

This process of creating a quality piece of Aerosol Art is what HYPED Edutainment does to help young people at Schools, Community Groups and with Councils all over Australia. If you think you might gain some extra knowledge or skill by participating in one of our workshops or if you know someone that might, then please drop us an email.

It's all about positive engagement, breaking down stereotypes and being creative. It could be a one on mentoring program, a group workshop & exhibition or a large scale public mural project, HYPED Edutainment is here to help bring about meaningful outcomes for young and emerging artists and connecting with the community in a positive may.

Creating something legal in San Fran.

By BOBBY WHITE

SAN FRANCISCO—This city has for years taken a tough stance on graffiti, doling out stiff fines and sometimes jail time to discourage spray-painting vandals. While the effort has had some success, graffiti remains rampant across the city.

Now city officials are trying something different. San Francisco is partnering with street artists—who ply their wall-painting skills legally—paying them to paint buildings.

Fighting Blight with Art

Ariel Zambelich for The Wall Street Journal

The program, called StreetSmARTS, commissions well-regarded street artists in San Francisco to create large-scale murals for private property owners struggling with graffiti. Program coordinators say the artists' credibility within the street-art community operates as a deterrent to graffiti vandals. The higher the artists' profile is, the theory goes, the less likely vandals will deface their murals.

"The opportunists, the guys who want to slap their names up almost anywhere, leave our walls alone out of respect for the artists that create the murals," says Luis Cancel, director of Cultural Affairs for the San Francisco Arts Commission, who helped put the program together.

One mural the program commissioned, at the Rose Food Mart at the corner of Potrero Avenue and 22nd Street, depicts an Aztec dancer in full headdress alongside the Mexican coat of arms. The images are imposed over the green, white and red colors of the Mexican flag. The mural, painted by arts consultant and former architect Max Ehrman, stands about 15 feet tall and 38 feet wide.

StreetSmARTS, begun as a pilot in January, was created by the Department of Public Works and the San Francisco Arts Commission. Last month, coordinators decided to expand the program, tripling funding to $150,000.

The city of San Francisco's StreetSmARTS program commissions local artists to paint murals in graffiti-prone areas. In the Mission District neighborhood, buildings, and alleys serve as impromptu galleries for public art. WSJ's Nick Burns reports.

The program is patterned after similar efforts in New York, Washington, D.C. and Philadelphia. Philadelphia's program, for example, began as an anti-graffiti campaign in 1984 and has created about 3,000 murals. "We have been able to profoundly change what was seen as a social epidemic in Philadelphia," says Jane Golden, executive director of Philadelphia's Mural Arts program.

Mr. Cancel says that, so far, the San Francisco program's artists have painted 10 murals and the city expects to add about 15 more in coming months. He says the cost of paint materials and stipends are split between the city and the property owners; after the murals are completed, the artist is responsible for keeping the mural graffiti free.

Despite the program's early achievements, law-enforcement officials say it is too limited to conquer the city's vast graffiti problem.

"It's a step, but not the solution," says Christopher Putz, who heads San Francisco Police Department's Graffiti Task Force. Mr. Putz says vandals target such a diverse array of public and private property, including parking signs, fire hydrants, park benches and monuments—that commissioned murals can only make a small dent. Some legally painted murals, he notes, have had to be taken down after being tagged with graffiti.

Still, for some San Francisco property owners, StreetSmARTS is a vital element in fighting blight.

Filipe Riley, a Port of Oakland longshoreman, says he signed up for the program to stop the escalating graffiti on buildings his family owns in the Bayview neighborhood.

The new mural at Mr. Riley's building, at the corner of 3rd Street and Palou Avenue, depicts a woman holding a basket of fruit, vegetables and flowers, standing before a large green hill with a child in the background watering the grassy hill. It was painted by Bryana Fleming, a resident of the Mission District.

"It's a real pain to have to go out over and over again and paint over the ugly scribbling some of the guys put up," says Mr. Riley. "It's just a lot easier to have a mural up. That way people will leave your building alone."

While official estimates aren't available, city administrators often cite a 2002 San Francisco grand-jury report that estimates annual graffiti-cleanup costs at $22 million. Mohammed Nuru, deputy director of the Department of Public Works, says the number is low and doesn't include cleanup costs for private companies, residents and Bay Area Rapid Transit. Nathaniel Ford, executive director of San Francisco MUNI Transportation Agency, says the agency spends about $11 million annually on graffiti cleanup.

Residents' graffiti complaints rose 136% to about 30,000 in 2009 from 2006, according to the Department of Public Works, "This city is spending millions of dollars to fight this problem, and we all know that money could be put to better use," says Mr. Nuru.

Mr. Nuru says most StreetSmARTS murals are in designated graffiti hot spots in neighborhoods such as the Mission District, Chinatown and Bayview. Mr. Nuru says the new funding will let the program expand to more of the about 100 hot spots.

Francisco Aquino, a well-known graffiti painter who has turned to legal painting and goes by the name Twick One, says StreetSmARTS has helped draw a more defined line between vandals and artists in the street-art community. Many graffiti vandals are teenagers and prefer to mark up buildings illegally, he says, while older, more-established street artists view graffiti as art and want to persuade the younger artists to join their ranks and create legal murals.

"When you are young you don't think about how much damage you are causing. All you really care about is street cred, putting your name on as many walls as you can find," says Mr. Aquino, a San Francisco native.

"But as you get older you realize this is art and it deserves to be treated that way."