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how to draw graffiti style.

Make your own graffiti art easy.

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Make your own graffiti art because it’s not as difficult, as you might think, it only takes, a basic knowledge and some practice. There are numerous styles of graffiti, but the most common factors are as follows.

  • 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.Make your own graffiti art, Images of Brynteg, Caia Park Nursery, Gate Hangs High, Chester, Blacon YPP murals on buildings and an installation piece at Caia Park Nursery.

Make your own graffiti art, Images of Brynteg,  Caia Park Nursery,  Gate Hangs High,  Chester,  Blacon YPP murals on buildings and an installation piece at Caia Park Nursery.

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, where 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, simply by 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.

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how to draw graffiti style.

Graffiti creator, graffiti art.

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Graffiti, H is for handle.

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.

Image of some of the money I have made through graffiti type art.
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.