The Edison Project Item #78 – Learn to Graffiti

Those who follow me on Instagram (@nicholasmoon85) will have noticed my appreciation of graffiti/street art. I am not talking about those tags where someone has simply scrawled their name within a restricted area, or wrote in Biro on the back of a toilet door. My interest lies with the type of street art that makes you stop and think. It demonstrates another dimension to what you initially see.

The first graffiti artist I really started to take notice off is no real surprise – Banksy. My mum bought me his book ‘Banksy Wall and Piece’ for Christmas. My interest was heightened from here, and I started to research into the artists I came across. Invader, Eine, Jimmy C, Stik, Nathan Bowen and most recently Clet. It was the latter one that was the inspiration for this item.

One day on my lunch break, I headed to Daddy Donkey on Leather Lane (they do some of the best burrito’s in London) and I noticed the stop sign outside had been manipulated to include a stick figure. Over the next few weeks I started to notice more and more of these manipulated stop signs stretching from Shoreditch to Kings Cross. It got to the point where I started altering my journey into work each day with the hope of finding a new Clet piece.

Interested to know more, I eventually landed on the website for Graffik Gallery. They are a contemporary art gallery on Portobello Road. To my surprise, they specialised in some of my favourite street artists (all of which I could not afford – there was a Banksy in the region of £40,000). However, there was one thing that grabbed my attention on their website. They ran graffiti workshops. This was an experience I was not going to miss, and all my stars aligned when I spotted the workshop listed on Groupon.

One Sunday morning, I got the train down to the Graffik Gallery on Portobello Road. The workshop lasted two hours and was a very good introductory session to stencil art. This is the same technique used by many of the most popular street artists around. The technique involves using stencils to apply multiple layers of colour to form a unified piece. The class began with our teacher Jezz showing us around the gallery and explaining the techniques used by different artists. He then demonstrated how to create a stencil, and how to apply different layers to produce a number of effects. We were then led through the creation and application process ourselves to create a canvas for us to take home.

Although my canvas was not the most adventurous, I was very happy with the outcome and thoroughly enjoyed the workshop. My recommendations for anyone else considering the workshop at the Graffik Gallery:

Make sure you leave time either before or after your workshop to walk around the gallery and see the pieces they have on display. There are some really impressive pieces by some of the most famous street artists in the business.
Go to the workshop with some idea of what you would like to create on your canvas. In our session there were a few people who struggled for an idea, and for all I know, they are still there contemplating.
Since you are on Portobello Road and the Graffik Gallery is on the same block as a Banksy, go and see it. Simply turn left on leaving the gallery and it is on the first corner you come to on your left.

Whilst I am unlikely to be applying stencils to train carriages or selling my pieces in galleries for millions, the experience was really a lot of fun and is a hobby I could see myself pursuing (on the right side of the law that is).

On that note, I will sign off. Look out for my next post in the coming week. I ticked off another item only yesterday with a spontaneous trip to Warwick.