Graffiti for Beginners

History Quickly explained

The Graffiti we know now was first used in the early 70s in New York City by famous Writers (People that spray Graffiti) like for example futura 2000, Seen, LEE which was all documented by a photographer known as Martha Cooper. During the time when people began spraying graffiti they used cheap krylon cans to write their initials, street names or characters onto walls. Of course that was and still is illegal!!! Slowly the writers started developing a style to make simple letters look more creative and experimental.

(1. Black Can

2. Chrome/ Silver Can

3. Optional Color Can

4. Water resistant wall paint)

5. Old Clothing

6. Sketch

7. Gloves

8. Caps (the plastic pieces put onto the top of spray can)

I am not supporting any illegal graffiti’s, painting on unpermitted walls is illegal and can have major consequences for the people doing it. DO NOT SPRAY ILLEGAL GRAFFITI!!! Graffiti can be just as fun on legal plains (places that one is permitted to use for self expression with spray paint).

Before you go to your local art / graffiti store I would recommend you to make a couple of rough sketches. Clearly knowing what you want can be very helpful and saves time. To start of you should try making simple block letters. Block letters are the simplest elements that can be used when spraying graffiti. For this instructable I will personally use a more complex style, but I will explain the simple elements of a graffiti clearly by demonstrating it using examples.

Even professional graffiti artists sketch a lot, so that they can get a perfect outcome for their final wall piece. Experimenting with letters and shapes before using the spray paint can be very helpful and might be just as fun as spraying graffiti. There are a couple of important rules and elements that are important and even mandatory when spraying graffiti in the community. At legal plains there are sometimes very complex and high end graffitis that professionals spent a lot of time on, try to not overpaint the more complex graffitis. Especially for the first time that you spray graffiti, don’t overestimate yourself and start spraying at a small wall for the beginning. Another important rule for your sake is to do the fill in (the paint inside the letters) first, it saves time, paint and money. I also recomend you to wear old clothes that you don't care about, it is not unlikely to get paint over your clothes when painting.

1. Fill in (paint inside the graffiti)

2. Background

3. Outline

4. Blocks & Shadow

5. Second Outline (outline outside of the outline with different color)

6. Highlights (white shining effects, stars and fading) For this graffiti I used the Water resistant wall paint as displayed above.

I myself was a beginner a couple of years ago, What really helped me get into graffiti and into style writing were graffiti alphabets. For the beginning one can always copy the style, after a while everybody developes the flow and creates their own letters.

All good graffitis use opposite colors. For people that do not know what colors to use, a color wheel might come in handy since that helps choosing colors that will have a nice effect/ outcome on your final product of creativity.

There are a hundred types of caps that is why I am only going to display the 3 most common caps found in a art / graffiti supply store. The most common types of caps are the skinny and fat caps. Skinny caps make thin lines and save paint. Fat caps make thick lines and they are not very economical. Skinny caps are good for beginners since they make thin lines and they are easier to use than fat caps. A very popular cap and my personal favorite, the new york fat cap is the cap that most people would think of when hearing the word graffiti cap.

1. The green cap is the skinny cap

2. The black cap is the common fat cap

3. the white cap is the new york fat cap

The first thing I did was pick a legal wall that did not look very nice, then I started sketching where I wanted my graffiti to be. I looked at the proportions, and they where right, so I continued by coloring the inside of the graffiti with chrome/silver and blue. After that a roughly painted the background. Then I added my graffiti blocks (the black paint). Then I completed the background. Next I added the outline. For this graffiti I did not use a second outline since I allready had a background. After I was done with the outline I added yellow highlights that are unfortunetely not very visible on the images diplayed. Then I made the visible cracks inside the letters by using black paint and cutting it with the fill in color chrome.

Sometimes the caps are clogged after a long use, you can either throw them away or get the paint of with turpentine. After taking the cap of you can stick another cap onto the can and you are ready to go. Incase no color exits the spray can after exchanging the cap I recomend to breaking the can by using a sharp object, that will release all the paint that is left in the graffiti can. Warning !!! Incase you have to break the can watch out that the paint does not get into your eye or all over your clothes, One will not be able to control where the paint goes when the can has a hole in it.

I hope that this information awakened your interest or atleast extended your knowledge about graffiti and street art. If this instructable helped you out improving your graffiti skills you know what to do, if you think that this could need improvement and you did not learn a lot out of it please leave a constructive comment that will help me improve my future instructables. :)