Serbia – the walls of Belgrade

Hi everyone,

Belgrade has a very interesting street art culture. In a middle of several cultural influences the architecture and the size of the streets makes the walls a major art scenery. Like a lot of cities from Eastern Europe war and communism changed a lot the way the city looks. And like discussed in a previous post walls and stencils always been part of people expressions in hard times. Hopefully these days are over but the street art culture remains and lot of empty spaces are available so local artists can express themselves. Politics remaining a very inspiring topic.

Coloring the white city is another documentary I found. The full version is available on Youtube.

A crew going by BUG for Belgrade Underground Geeks did a lot stencils in the city. Here are some of their work:

This is the third documentary I’m referring to. I’m sure after watching them all you’ll start getting a pretty good understanding of this art and like me getting impatient for the sunny days to come so you can improve your skills at doing stencils.

Thanks for reading.

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Source:

http://belgrade-stencil.blogspot.ca

 

Australia – a major street art scene

Hi everyone,

let’s now travel to Australia. Australian are known for their very urban and surfer look so no wonder the street art scene is interesting. It comes with the life style!

For those like me that like watching documentaries about street art check out Rash. An other solid video piece about street arts and stencils. Trailer below:

You’ll get to know the major influencers from Australia such as Sixten that travel the world and spray painted almost everywhere.

You’ll get to know James Dodd work too. Brilliant.

Vexta work is amazing too.

Melbourne seems to be the main street art city in the country. Lots of exhibitions going on and a very living street art community.

Hope you’ll enjoy this show.

Thanks for reading.

 

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Sources and references:

http://www.rashfilm.com/

 

Do Brazil – Alexandre Orion

Hi everyone,

Alexandre Orion is my favourite stencil artist from Brazil. His touch is very meaningful. He uses the environment as a source of inspiration and almost all his stencils are based on random street objects/situations. A very common approach in the genre.

Alexandre started early working in graphic design selling screen printed t-shirts on markets when he was 13.

I’m convinced that all the stencil artists influence each others. Some pieces are incredibly similar.

Alexandre Orion – people in line for the public phone

Banksy – people in line buying t-shirts

 

Thanks for reading

Oh Canada – a small stencil artist scene. Prove me wrong!

Hi everyone,

looking for Canadian stencil artists info online is not easy. The scene is quite small. Being in Toronto myself since a little while now I haven’t seen many of them. There’s a Banksy though. I found it randomly biking around one summer.

I’m not going to tell you where it is. But let’s just say that it’s not far from the Raptors home.

Enough about Banksy. The street art scene in Toronto is solid and alive. There’s plenty along Queen West especially in the famous “Graffiti Alley”.

But what about stencils? Hard to find eh?

So after a few researches I found this guy: Posterchild. Interesting fact: he was himself a bloggger blogging about his work in a very timely manner knowing that he used to post almost everyday. The blog is now offline but an archive is available here. His blog was called Blade Diaries. Pretty cool. Too bad some of the images are not available anymore. Here are some I found for you:

Urban freshener … this one made me laugh. The only info I found was a comment from his blog “I like to keep thing fresh”. I’m guessing this restaurant was probably smelling …

Thanks for reading

American artists – Big bucks and controversy

Hi everyone,

today I wanted to introduce you to 2 different American artists. And just because it’s often how it goes in the US you’ll see that some artists turned their art into a very successful business.

Shepard Fairey is what’s Banksy is to the UK. He’s The stencil artist from the US. His work got viral with his emblematic Andre the Giant in the late 80s.

In the famous documentary Exit from the gift shop we see him we no mask working on his stencils. His work is very political to the point that he did this famous art work posters for Obama’s campaign. One of them ended up being the cover of Time magazine.

Also, Shepard Fairey is know for the famous brand Obey that turned out as a very successful business in the fashion industry. First with t-shirts now the brand has a full line and you cannot walk around any of the major city in the world without seeing the brand on a youngster.

Now let’s talk about the author of the Exit from the gift shop documentary. Mr Brainwash. He became popular due to the story he ended up creating. He wasn’t a stencil artist at first but a passionate of street art. Filming live artists doing their work in the street he got on tape the major influencers of his time and ended up asking Bansky to help him editing his documentary. He learned from the best and started his own work. He’s exhibition in LA was the biggest controversy in street art of all time. Some consider him as a thief, a manipulator. Others as a genius.

Thanks for reading.

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Sources and references:

obeyclothing.ca

www.mrbrainwash.com

UK stencil artists – it’s all about B…

Hi everyone,

sadly, trying to do some research about the UK stencil artists is like checking up who’s does the best ketchup. It’s been a hassle finding just one beside Banksy. So ok ok… let’s talk about Bansky.

Originally from Bristol Bansky has The story. He’s the only stencil artist I know that became so popular with his “marketing” strategy. If he ever had one. I think he’s been actual and good. Especially with his video work. That’s about it. Putting his art illegally in museums and getting caught on tape by video surveillance was hell of a genius move to promote his art. Look…

He helped a lot promoting this art and put it at level that rarely street art ever been. He made it really popular by putting it out of the street like no other.

Last year he went to New-York for a little time and did this amazing video too. Popular? Really?

Enough about this guy now. You’ll find plenty of info about him everywhere anyway. Check out his famous video call Exit from the gift shop, you’ll get to know his work through a very cool story.

Another major artist these days in the UK goes by Bambi. She’s been considered as the “female Bansky”.

Recent artist, she comes from an art school and got successful pretty quickly in the show business world.

Bambi in Grazia magazine

She reminds me a bit of Misstic in her style. Don’t you think.

These two artists are at the head of the graffiti world from UK.

An interesting combo isn’t it?

Thanks for reading.

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Sources and interesting links:

http://www.bambistreetartist.com

http://www.waltonfinearts.com (Bambi’s agent)

banksy.co.uk

First tutorial – Fox and apple

Easiest process I know.

Step by step tutorial for beginners.

Thanks for watching

Get to know the French pioneers – 4 stencil artists from France

Hi everyone,

Let’s talk about other artists than the one you may already know. By that I mean that Banksy and the other folks from “Exit from the gift shop” aren’t the pioneers of this art even though they clearly contributed to make it big outhere.

The rat is a big symbol in the stencil world. Well the first artist I wanted to introduce you to has a lot to do with that. Beside being a urban symbol, the rat is often associated to Paris. Some say there’s more rats than habitants in this town. Anyway Blek le rat contributed to make this symbol popular in the streets. His art work started in the early 80’s in the streets of Paris. He’s considered has one of the most popular artist of the genre.

At the same period of time another French artist started his work in Tours. Jeff Aérosol. This artist spray painted many cities around the world and his really known in the stencil’s/street art world.

Also in the early 80’s Speedy Graphito started his first stencils and graffitis. Painter, this artist has a very colorfull touch.

Finally I wanted to go back to my favorite. Miss Tik. She started her work when I was born. Her work inspired me a lot and her feminine touch proved to the world that graffitis and street art are not an esclusive men club.

Thanks for reading

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References:

http://www.missticinparis.com/

http://blekmyvibe.free.fr/

http://speedygraphito.free.fr/

http://www.jefaerosol.com/

Make it big! How to make a bigger stencil with a simple printer

Hi everyone,

today we’re going to make a huge stencil with the easier technic I found.

First you’ll need a computer (obviously) a picture/stencil ready to go, and a printer.

You can do that almost from anywhere.

You’ll need this little software: PosteRazor. Free for mac and PC.

“You eat my eggs for breakfast and my meat for dinner”

Open your picture with it, enlarge it and divide it in several A4 print-outs and there you go you have a giant stencil.

Some tape, a cuter and a large cardboard and you’re all set!

Oh and yes, this is a Chicken finger.

Vegan will love that one. I have a mighty plan behind that.

Stay tune.

Thanks for reading.

Stencil’s kit for beginners, a small budget

Hi everyone,

when I bought cutters the other day at the art store that were looking like surgery ones the cashier told me joking “perfect gift for a 5yrs old” and he actually made me thinking.

First because English not being my first language I’m usually quite slow at getting jokes but here it was more about the fact that I would have actually enjoyed this gift at 5!

Shinny and sharp this cutter cost me less than $2.

From $1.50 to $5 cutter and knives are super affordable

$1.85 and it does the job

Then I went buy some spray paint. $5 a can.

$5+$1.85 some cardboard and you’re all set

That’s when I actually realized than for less than $10 you can make a kit!

Perfect gift for a 5yrs old?

Thanks for reading