What on earth is Wildstyle graffiti?

How to draw Wildstyle graffiti is a question most difficult to answer perhaps the name gives us some indication as to it’s demeanor, the character of Wildstyle is that of being a secret message of the street but more so a message of the artist.

Each reputable artist has their own nuances distinct from each other.

Take your name/handle or what ever you care to call it but take as far as it can go and just that little bit more because you can. Arrows play a major role in all graffiti styles because they point and without trying to be smart that is the point. Graffiti is an extreme form of forced advertising a counter force rebellion against conformity and control from the media giants, the masters of a brainwash plan, conform or be executed for resistance.

Our social masters do not want us to be free and scream anarchy if we try to push the envelope beyond the norm, conform, you must conform saying it’s rubbish because we can’t read it as if it was ever meant to be read. Words and letters are deformed beyond recognition into the secret language known as Wildstyle stretched and misconstrued into the words of an anti social song, I am me, have it.

The media moguls conspire in secret but the Wildstyle writer secretly stands alone like a warrior on the edge of time forcing his message on an unsuspecting world, I am me, have it.

Long live the king the king is dead.

An example of Wildsyle Graffiti with plenty of traditional arrows for good mesure.

Above is a quick example of how to draw Wildstyle graffiti with heavy play on arrows and black outline, I am sure you could do better so please do if you want to write Wildstyle.

Study other writers in the same way old school fine artists study the masters such as Leonardo Da Vinci, Michael Angelo, Rembrandt to name only a few, this preparatory work informs your further development. Copy the Wildstyles of other writers in order to understand them, this will enable you to mix and match when drafting your own secret codes of resistance and form your own style.

Always start out with basic everyday readable letters then keep working them into oblivion, distorting them into the unrecognizable entangled mass’s known as Wildstyle, then do it all over again because you can. It pays to revel in your obsession I do digress for reason because that is how to draw Wildstyle graffiti by getting way off the subject but keeping the tiniest thread of whence it came.

• They are painted in strong vibrant colors that often clash.

• They are intended to be attention grabbing.

• They are often emotive concepts that question the norm.

• They often contain 3D lettering.

• They often contain lettering that overlaps.

The heavy bold 3D lettering is very apparent in the majority of graffiti art images and is usually the starting point for most potential artists as it most often starts with your name, tag or handle. Many of the same distinctive bold style lettering’s used in advertising to create impact are also used by the graffiti artist so are a good place to look for ideas. It most often reflects and resembles the branding or advertising art world in many ways but chiefly as a counter alternative, usually with a strong social political massage that the artist is passionate about.

• The pictures or pieces of work themselves will contain sharp hard hitting  contrasts.

• They will be painted in stark vivid colors.

• They will be well defined with strong shadows and outlines.

The best way to start your piece of graffiti art is by drawing smaller ideas and outlines that you can later scale up to any size, this will help you to understand the problems you might face when attempting to create something bigger. Scaling your ideas is a simple task once you have a smaller drawing or painting to work from. There is an endless supply of ideas online if you need them for fonts to use in your graffiti as well as examples of graffiti created by others to feast your eyes upon and incorporate into your own work.

The tools to use for your designs or ideas are pencils, felt tipped or marker pens and fine line drawing pens all of these come in a very wide range of distinctive and vivid colors that make them an ideal choice for graffiti artists.  If you need ideas for a graffiti font to use, there are plenty of sites online that have examples for you to copy.

Outlines can be created with a graphite pencil and or any permanent black ink pen but fine line and wide chisel or bullet tipped markers are a preferred choice of many. Shading around the letters you’ve outlined with a range of different colors will enhance the 3D effects of your lettering to make it more distinctive.

Make your own graffiti art because it is really easy if you use these methods and it is not as difficult as you might think.

Yes I know that there are many who would not consider this graffiti but I say “make money not trouble”.

When you are ready to paint your outline drawings and ideas onto canvases or bigger surfaces you can use the grid reference method by marking out a grid over the top of the drawing you want to enlarge. You then recreate this grid onto the area you want to redraw your original drawing and then use it to measure where everything goes by comparing grids. Very large areas can be marked out with string by impregnating it with chalk or charcoal by simply rubbing it into the fibers, when the string is in this condition you stretch it out tightly across the area that you want to mark out. Then you pull it out from the middle and let it go so it then snaps back against the surface of the new drawing area leaving a mark imprinted on to it.

You can then use the chalk or charcoal to redraw the outlines onto your new drawing area. Spray paint the main outlines with a similar color to the background but a couple of shades lighter or darker so it will cover more easily if you need to change anything later, allow this to dry before continuing.

Then you can begin to fill in the details and your areas of color with spray paint in much the same way by starting with the lightest colors first and the largest areas then putting in the details. Finally you can carefully fill out the black outlines with your spray paints adding highlights and finishing touches at the same time, you can even use a brush to do your very fine details. Once again let me say make your own graffiti art because it’s not as difficult as you might think it is really easy if you use these methods and it is not as difficult as you might think.

Now take a sheet of paper and write your name or handle on it with a pencil the way you would normally write it and have a look at how you write it. Write it again only this time make it all capitals letters with plenty of space between them now try writing it in as many different ways as you can think of and don’t worry about the end results it is only the start of a process.

Please see my example ideas design sheet below.

3D graffiti design sheet of ideas drawn with a 3B graphite pencil, cool anybody can do this.

As you can see I have used different types of letters, curved ones, square linear type letters, boxed three dimensional letters and some that are hardly readable as letters at all, the more you create the better. If you find yourself stuck after only drawing a few then look for some ideas in the news paper, a comic, magazine or anywhere you might find ideas for lettering.

When you are happy that you have generated enough ideas then you can look over them and pick out one or two that you like for further development it can be as many as you like not just one or two if you like them. Now redraw these out on their own in the center of a clean piece of paper, try to fill the paper as much as you can and make these drawings more accurate correcting or altering anything that needs it as you go. Try to keep your lines faint and not too heavy because they will be harder to cover later.

You can also look online for lettering and graffiti art because there is an abundance of it even videos that show some fantastic work with it all being a great source of ideas and inspiration.

You can create block lettering easy by just redrawing your letters over the top of each other again but out of line like in the example below.

You could trace your name or handle and then move it a little to the left or right, up or down and retrace it over the top then fill in the area where you can still see the first letter outline in black to create the illusion of shadow.

You can also overlap letters so the second is hiding slightly behind the first and the third behind the second to create the illusion of one being in front of the other, this overlapping is a very common feature in graffiti art.

Please see the example below to understand this a little bit more in a visual context.

An example of 3d box lettering using outlines over the top of one and other.

Notice the black shadowing created by moving the letters up and the black outline around all the letter shapes you can also see that the colors have been added any old how but are sill effective because of the well defined black outlines.

Now you can take some of your original ideas and try some of this with them below you will find some of my designs taken from the first sheet of simple pencil drawings.

3D lettering example of how to use letters doubled over the top of each other to make box letters.

I have added color and black outlines which is something you should now be trying with your own designs you could try many different combinations of color or black outlines you could even try colored outlines.

Now you can further develop one idea and try it as many different ways as you can think of or combinations or color, see the examples below for further development of ideas.

Some of the earlier examples that have been further developed.

Examples of further development with graffiti letter ideas.

The tools I use:

Paper or drawing pad A4 printer paper is good and not very expensive but pads are better you can carry them around with you if they are not too big.

Soft graphite pencils preferably mechanical pop a point type pencils, 0.5, 3B.

Fine line permanent ink pens, 0.5 and biros in different colours.

Permanent marker pens the more colours the better.

Water soluble felt tip pens the more colours the better.

Coloured pencils in various colours.

Quarter inch flat brush and water.

learning how to draw graffiti is not difficult or hard and you can get very good very quickly if you put a little effort in to it, honest.

The graffiti starting point is the creation of a handle, what is a handle you might ask, it is a name, alias, nickname, code name, tag, moniker and soubriquet yes it is all of these but it is not your real name so the first task for you to do is get a handle.

Graffiti writers have always used false names or handles as they are called but not their real or own name for obvious reasons because graffiti is illegal when done on other people’s property it is considered to be vandalism. I don’t put graffiti on other people’s property but I do have a handle. You don’t have to use a handle you can use your name if you want but in order to get into the whole concept of being a writer then why not give yourself a handle. A handle works really well in all areas of art, writers often write under pen names which are alias’s so why can’t you also have one?

Get your handle right.

To do this you could take the first letter of your first name and add other letters to it, for example, Peter could be poP, toP, stoP, floP or you could use your initials, perhaps your initials make a word like LOB, Lindsay Ogden Bradshaw, aim for something attention grabbing like boG if your name starts with the letter G, something off the wall so to speak.

This is where you can be what ever you want like a piG, just a little side note on this: it was discovered that in the burial chamber of an Egyptian emperor there was a statement about him being a fat pig. This is now regarded as graffiti and a form of political expression of it’s time which of course much graffiti is because would you allow yourself to be called a fat pig let alone an Egyptian emperor doing so.

Graffiti on other peoples property is illegal it is a crime punishable with imprisonment in some cases in other cases it has been punishable with death, many young and older people have died in pursuit of this lust for self actualization. I will not tell you that you must not to do it because I do not think people take notice but I will say this much, there is far more to be gained elsewhere without risking your freedom or your life.

Do not take my word for it take a look below.

Make money not trouble, pimp you art not you freedom.

Yes you can make money from doing this especially if you get good at it; the design processes for graffiti are not much different from any other design process that could be graphic design or illustration.

The handle is your own personal graffiti art logo starting point, people get paid lots of money for creating these, examples of this are the Nike tick or the Mc Donald’s M, your aim is to personalize your own unique handle so as to do this you need to get one. My advice when creating a handle is to keep it short about three to four letters like, zit, xon, Lxxx or xxx the possibilities are endless.

So get yourself a handle as the starting point for your graffiti art as an example I decided to use is the name BoG but I wouldn’t use Banksy, it’s too big. Big usually means time and the bigger it is the longer it takes to create, time is money.

Graffiti style art makes money for many artists not just me it has also been the starting point and tool that has enabled many artists to progress so it is not worthless vandalism unless you make it that way by doing it on other peoples property.

Now I have got my handle I will show you examples of ways you can learn how to improve your own skills and develop your own designs enabling you to become a graffiti creator .