20 Questions with CZRVII

I remember first meeting CZRVII a couple of years ago while he was airbrushing on South Street. He is by far one of the most talented artists I’ve seen in Philadelphia, and as you can tell, a pretty interesting guy. Check out his thoughts on everything from art to the economy here!

P.P: What was your inspiration behind CZRVII?
CZRVII: “The inspiration behind my name started back in high school. I think we were learning about how Julius Caesar conquered the Roman Empire, and America looked like a pretty fucked up empire that I wanted to conquer. So I changed the ‘S’ to ‘Z’, switched a few letters up and that became CAEZAR. CZRVII is just the ‘on the run’, quick version of my tag.

P.P: What got you involved with street art and graffiti in Philadelphia?
CZRVII: “I started doing graffiti because it was something that always intrigued me. I figured out that spray paint and walls were easily accessible. You could ride over the Philly bridges and every rooftop would have massive pieces on them. I always wondered how they got up there without getting caught. Eventually I started figuring it out myself. My friends and I would full-out ninja, with grappeling hooks, rope and crates of paint.

P.P: Favorite movie of all time?
CZRVII: “ ‘Beetlejuice!’ And it keeps getting better every time I see it!”

P.P: What is your favorite medium to work with?

CSRVII: “Airbrush, spray paint, oil paints, pain markers and, of course, the ever-faithful Bic pen.”

P.P: Where is the craziest place CZRVII has appeared?
CZRVII: “I’d say the craziest place I’ve see my artwork was in the video game ‘Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 3’, in the background of Chad Muska’s skate video part. I chilled with that dude quite a bit when I lived in L.A. and he let me paint in the Shorty’s warehouse one night when we were all wasted. I did a R.I.P. piece for a friend, J.R. Neves, that died last year and I just saw that piece in Thrasher magazine. It was also in Jay-Z’s new video ‘Young Forever’.”

P.P: One of my personal favorite Philly questions, Pat’s or Geno’s?
CSVRII: “Real Steak. Pat’s Wit’.” [I have to agree 100%]

P.P: Where is your favorite place to go in Philly?
CZRVII: “FDR Skatepark hands down. It’s a slice of full-fledged anarchy in the city that we’ve put out blood, sweat and ankles into for years. When they paint the park they always go around my artwork. And I really respect that, the locals look out for me a lot. I always help the park out any way I can.”

P.P: What sorts of things inspire you?
CZRVII: “All sorts of people and things inspire me. Mostly people that are in my life and supportive of everything I do creatively, especially friends and family.”

P.P: Describe an average day in your life.
CZRVII: “Well, lately since I just lost my job to this bullshit economy, it’s wake and bake, coffee, orange juice and cigs. Than whatever art project I have planned for the day, my only source of income right now, guitar and computer, then some Hulu and cookies. Turn over, and repeat.”

P.P: What is one thing in your life you can’t live a day without?

CZRVII: “My heart?”

P.P: Describe the Philly street art community in your own words.
CZRVII: “Philly has a street art culture that is just unlike anywhere else I’ve ever been. People really take new meaning to ‘stay the fuck up’ around here. You can’t fuck with East Coast kids because we always do it gnarlier, harder, and scarier than anywhere else.”

P.P: Have you ever gotten caught?
CZRVII: “I’ve been chased tons of times. Yelled at, threatened, but I’ve really been arrested once when I was under 18. I had to repaint the garage door I hit after my art teacher bailed me out. The craziest time was when I was on trains in New Jersey painting drunk as hell. The trains started moving while I was in between them and I hit my head so hard it knocked me out. That was a crazy fucking night. I could have easily fallen off the grates while I was passed out and been crushed under the train.”

P.P: What would you do if you got caught in Philly?
CZRVII: “If it’s not too late, run like hell. Or, if not, be as cooperative as hell. Philly cops are trigger happy, and I’ll be damned if I’m getting shot for running from my artwork.”

P.P: Who is your favorite artist?
CZRVII: “One of the most influential artists to me has always been DaVinci. I have a lot of really old books on him. Also, Alex Grey and VanGogh have always been huge inspirations too.”

P.P: How many tattoos do you have?
CZRVII: “Seven.”

P.P: What would you do with 1 million dollars?
CZRVII: “Truthfully? Not much. A million bucks won’t get you shit these days. Maybe pay some advance rent and hospital bills, then buy whatever expensive art supplies I might need in the next year to make more money to pay rent again. Maybe light my cig with a hundred dollar bill. I’ve always wanted to do that. Then give the rest to my little sister.”

P.P: Favorite band?
CZRVII: “Being a Jersey born kid, the Bouncing Souls have always been my favorite.”

P.P: What is your idea of CZRVII’s personality like?
CZRVII: “Very open-minded, optimistic and sometimes completely dark and alone in a world of closed curtains and minds.

P.P: Where do you see your art going in the future?
CZRVII: “I’ve been airbrushing for ten years now and I’m getting into the automotive side of it. Recently I’ve been doing a lot of murals, t-shirts designs, album covers, concert flyers, all sorts of things. As for my future it looks like a lot of hard work up ahead and some even harder times, but who knows? Maybe in 100 years someone will actually know I was.”

P.P: Where do you see street art going in the future?
CZRVII: “As long as people keep documenting the artwork and supporting our underground culture, street art will always have a future.”

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Poll!!

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More Antiques

Ahhh, the good ol’ days. The days when I used to wander the streets for hours with just a bag full of stickers and markers, through the freezing cold and insanely hot temperatures that Philly is so prone to having.

This picture is from a friend in the spring of 2006, when I was about 16 years-old. I had only been drawing Budas for about a month or so by than, and if I remember correctly I was terrified when I saw this picture pop up online. Obviously confidentiality is important in street art, because there are plenty of people with handcuffs and badges that are not too happy to see colorful little characters all over the streets of Philadelphia. I remember many nights of lost sleep, imagining a policeman busting down the door of my tiny little South Jersey bedroom and carrying me off to certain death.

Buda blocking my picture back in 2007

I feel safe posting pictures of what I used to do online along with my name now, because I am 200 percent sure that Buda is no longer running around Philly’s streets three years after I stopped. But there are plenty of established street artists that are risking their lives, their freedoms, and their careers to make the art they love. In fact, I read an article this summer about an old street artist, El Toro, that had his place of business by police in search of street art.

Seems pretty crazy to me. I can understand how people could be offended by the concept of graffiti. All you have to do is walk into a public bathroom or look around the Septa to see why: curses, dirty drawings, horrible insults, they’re everywhere. But I could never understand how a character like my Buda, who I modeled after one of the strongest examples of peace and love on the planet, could be offensive to a person. Offensive enough to involve the police, high-tech cameras and organizations aimed at catching street artists in the act. It just doesn’t make sense. After all, I love Philadelphia more than any city in the world, and I think a lot of the artists feel just as passionately about Philly as I do. Why harm it?

Increase the Peace!

I hope that street art is experiencing a real movement right now, that all the art shows and new art and artists all over the world will begin to open up the public’s eyes. Street art can be a lot of fun from a viewer’s perspective. Just look at me, I don’t draw anymore but I still can’t get enough.

So, if you are one of those street art skeptics, maybe you can give it a try. The next time you walk past a sticker on an Auto Shopper news box, try really looking at it. Or maybe stop by the Friends with Benefits art show coming up and see what the community is all about. You could end up like me, pleasantly surprised.

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Nostalgia

So I am back in my hometown of Mount Laurel for spring break for the next week and some change. It feels good to be here when I’m not in the middle of working or running around to one place or the next. I’m prepared to use these next ten days to see my friends, use my parents’ quesadilla maker to its fullest potential, and, most importantly, spend all day in my pajamas drifting in and out of naps while listening to Ricky Gervais’ podcasts.

A day full of monsoon winds and pouring rain landed me back in my room, digging through old pictures and boxes that I haven’t looked at since I went away to college. Besides finding my beloved childhood stuffed animal, Sparkles (I know the name is weird. I’m writing a blog about vandalism in Philadelphia, did you expect anything else?) I also stumbled on a whole handful of street art memories.

This. Is. Awesome.

These stickers, and the two buttons in the right corner, have to be at least three years old. We have here Ticky, UWP and Bob Will Reign stickers from back when I used to do sticker art back and Pluto was still a planet.

Ticky’s are, of course, the spazy little miniature stickers jumping all over the place in the picture. When Ticky made those she decided to be funny and stick them all over my parents’ basement when I wasn’t around. There is still one hiding there on a shelf that makes me laugh every time I see it.

UWP’s is the dark faces at the top of the photo. I think that one might be one of the first stickers he gave me. I know it was my job to stick them up whenever I was given them, but I was new at this, and so jealous of the quality and emotion that shone through in each piece. That sticker will always be one of my favorites

I remember when UWP gave me the Bob sticker in the left corner. I was in complete awe. When I drew, Ticky and UWP welcomed me in with open arms, but I never had the chance to meet the other greats, like Bob. Bob Will Reign was and still might be the most popular street artist in Philadelphia, so receiving one of his stickers was like getting a handshake from Paul McCartney in my book.

This scan was a gift from UWP for my seventeenth birthday. It’s a scan of a canvas he created, and it hung on my wall for years until my parents decided to renovate the house. It’s amazing how much drawing changes through the years. Many people wouldn’t be able to tell this was UWP if they looked at it today. Ya know, its just from my vintage art collection… don’t mean to brag or nothin’.

The sticker on the left was one I decided to leave out of my description. With good reason.

Ladies and gentleman, I would like to introduce you to Buda.

Buda was my own precious little character. If you can’t tell where I got the concept of him than you can just stop reading. I’ve collected Buddha statues for the last couple years and I just loved him and his little t-shirt.

This is a collab with UWP. He was clever enough to draw out Buda’s little hat and everything. It’s amazing how much more detailed and concise UWP is compared to Buda. At that time I had just started out, and was just drawing something to get out there and be seen. I actually took this collab and used it as a drawing guide for myself.

Here we have a color collab with an old school Ticky, Buda, and a friend of ours, Mousse. I don’t think Mousse still draws anymore, but he was just starting out around the same time I was. I wish the picture wasn’t so blurry, because I think this collab is completely hilarious. It reminds me of an old cartoon I used to watch on Friday nights when I was a kid: So wacky, colorful, and weird that you can’t help but find it adorable and interesting.

I think that’s another reason I love street art so much. How can you not look at these characters over and over again and not feel some sort of emotional attachment? Each character represents the artists personality so clearly, even if they aren’t trying to do that. It’s one of the most real art forms out there.

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Want to see some of Philly’s finest?

If you wanna catch a glimpse at Philly street art off the street and in person then stop by the “Friends With Benefits” show on April 3.

Sponsored by Stickyricks and Junobo Paint “Friends With Benefits” starts at 7 pm that Saturday night and runs til 11. Stop by the Rarebreed gallery in South Philly and check out art from some of my favorites: Ticky, Under Water Pirates, Question Josh?, El Toro and Bob Will Reign.

This is your opportunity to check out art when its taken off the street and put onto canvas. While there are the obvious similarities in canvas art and street art, there are major differences as well. Canvas art gives the artists like the ones seen at “Friends with Benefits” the opportunity to really go crazy. There’s more time, more space, and many more possibilities.

Rarebreed, on 1624 South Broad Street, has always been a place for Philly hopefuls to showcase and sell their art, and has been one of the most popular haunts of street artists for years. All the art in the “Friends with Benefits” show will be for sale to the public, and any art that doesn’t sell will be up on the Rarebreed website afterwards.

So, even if you can’t make it, you can still get a piece of the action.

This can be yours!

More than canvases, visitors can buy collectors box sets, featuring the t-shirt shown here, a print, and a pack of stickers with all five artists work, packaged in a hand-made silk screened box. All this stuff was made by the artists creating this show, meaning each one of them sat for who knows how many hours drawing and painting and cutting and spraying and coming up with idea after idea.

I’ve always been amazed seeing real art like that, because I know how long even one piece takes. When Buda was still around I used to sit at my desk and draw for what seemed like forever, only to end up covered in paint and about ten or twelve little stickers. Trust me, this stuff is far from easy.

The artists will feature more than collabs in the show. Collabs are collaborative paintings including all five of them working towards one theme. For “Friends with Benefits”, some of the themes you can see would be Tetris, “Alice in Wonderland”, Dr. Suess and “Where the Wild Things Are”.

Personally, I’m psyched. I feel like these artists and the paintings that they make are so relatable. That’s why I love street art: it’s not too serious. It’s wacky, it’s colorful, and it’s pretty funny. I never saw the point in taking life seriously, and I know “Friends with Benefits” will be like a big giant fun house of art and craziness. I can’t wait!!!!

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20 Questions with Under Water Pirates

I recently got to play a little 20 questions with one of the greatest street artists in Philadelphia, Under Water Pirates. We caught up on street art, Philadelphia, and life in general.

P.P: Where did Under Water Pirates come from?
UWP: “The concept, in all honesty, is my disgust for life: society, health, government and everything in between. My characters are gloomy and weird, a reflection of myself, I think. The name came from something I heard on TV if I remember correctly. But let’s say Ashton Kutcher gave me the name. Do the kids these days still like that dude?”

P.P: How did you start with street art?
UWP: “I started in late 2005 doing stencils. For me ‘street art’ came out of necessity of something to be good at. I got hurt skateboarding, and permanently fucked up my feet. I always drew, so I just started drawing again while I sat around. Ticky, who wasn’t Ticky yet, gave me labels and said I should draw on them and stick them up. Drawing little monsters was way more fun than stencils to me. It was the best idea I’ve ever heard.”

Photo courtesy: Winston Yuan

P.P. Where else should people look for Under Water Pirates?
UWP: “I had a goal to get stickers in all the states. The only one I still don’t have yet is Alaska. Then I wanted them overseas. I have traded stickers with a lot of people over the years so I understand that they will pop up places, but it’s always fun to see a new picture.”

P.P: Who is your favorite superhero?
UWP: “I don’t like superheroes; I always like the bad guys. Super-villains or whatever, like Scarecrow and the Joker.”

P.P: Who are some of the artists that inspire you?
UWP: “A lot of my friends are artists. All my friends either play music or draw and paint. That inspires me a lot. Everyone is so supportive of each other.”

P.P: What types of media do you use for art?
UWP: “Anything really. Pretty much paint markers and labels are standard operating equipment.”

P.P: What are you doing at this exact moment?
UWP: “Right now I’m smoking a cig and drinking a cold cup of coffee. First cup I have drank in 3 months. I gave it up but it smelled so good this morning.”

P.P: Who are some of the other Philly street artists that you mesh well with?
UWP: “The usual suspects: Ticky, El Toro, BoB Will Reign, CZRVII, Soma, WTF & Dash. I chill with Goest Face a lot now which is awesome.”

P.P: Pat’s or Geno’s?
UWP: “Neither. I think they both suck and I ain’t about to stand in the street to pay for that crap.”

P.P: How do you think you became so popular in street art?
UWP: “When my feet are good I get a ton up, and I think my art has been progressing since I started. It could be my good looks and charming demeanor but I doubt it.”

Photo courtesy: Winston Yuan

P.P: What does the “33” in your art stand for?
UWP: “That’s the date I hurt myself skating, March 3rd. That day basically ruined me. I started writing it on my stickers, then Ticky, Soma, and CZRVII did too. Since then I have asked more people to be down with it. That number haunts me. I see it everywhere, it’s a curse.”

P.P: How many tattoos do you have?
UWP: “Nine. I want more, I enjoy them a lot. The whole process is great.”

P.P: Have you ever gotten caught? What happened?
UWP: “Never been caught. Don’t plan on it. I’ve had close calls, but nothing major.”

P.P: What is the last thing you bought?
UWP: “A Red Bull, orange juice, and a pack of Camels. I don’t buy much stuff, I’d rather just have the stuff I can use or need. I like my things to look old and fucked up. Some fool walking down the street in fresh gear and a new haircut or something, that looks pathetic to me.”

P.P: How do you choose where to put street art in Philly?
UWP: “I’ll put shit up wherever I go, it doesn’t matter to me. i like popular places though. It’s hard to walk by an empty sign and not put something on it. Jersey is cool too though. I figure even if the shit gets buffed off quick a lot of people will still get to see it.”

P.P: What is the craziest thing that has happened to UWP?
UWP: “Ticky and me were invited to paint on a rooftop in New York for a show over the summer. I thought that was crazy cool. I didn’t start doing any of this crap to get anything you know? So being offered to do shows and everything, it’s awesome. It’s a good feeling.”

UWP's tag

P.P: Favorite movie of all time?
UWP: “Oh man, that’s a tough one. I go through movie phases. Right now I watch “What’s Eating Gilbert Grape” every night when I go to bed. “Edward Scissorhands”, I like Tim Burton a lot. I’d like to hang out in his imagination for awhile.”

P.P: What would you do with 1 million dollars?
UWP: “A million bucks… Man, I’d buy an apartment and chill. I wouldn’t buy any furniture, so if anybody wanted to come over they would have to be chill with sitting on the floor. I’d get someone to build a website for me, get mad stickers printed, get a spot to have a gallery. That would be real tight. I would rent billboards and put random shit on them all the time. Huge Under Water Pirates and pictures of my friends all drunk or picking their noses.”

P.P: What is the typical day in the life of UWP like?
UWP: “Lately I’m kind of in a recluse state. Basically I’m up until like 5 or 6 in the morning drawing and watching rubbish on TV. Then I get up and have a Red Bull and a few cigs and draw stickers. The rest of the day is a constant vortex of e-mails, painting, and hanging out with my dogs Oscar and Ernie. Sometimes I go to Ticky’s or Goest Face’s and chill. I have a show coming up that I’m working really hard on, so I have a lot to get done by April 3rd.”

P.P: Where do you see street art, and UWP, going in the future?
UWP: “I think the future of ‘street art’ is a mystery. Sticker art though has gotten so popular that a lot of people have forgotten the main purpose of them. They are treated like baseball cards to collect and trade. Trading should come second to sticking them up. It’s all supposed to be fun though, so whatever. As long as people have fun it’s all good. I’d like to get my art on skateboards, actually. I want to keep doing shows and sticking shit up when I get out. I get a lot of enjoyment out of the fact that half the public like stickers, and half don’t. They think you’re making a mess or something, like you have no business doing that shit. I love that about the whole thing.”

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Banksy’s New Film

If anyone has read this blog for the last several weeks, it is clear that one of my favorite artists is the UK Street Artist Banksy. I have been following him pretty steadily for several years, and he always manages to impress.

Recently I was talking with the Philly street artist Under Water Pirates, and he told me that Banksy had made a movie.

What!? A street art movie!? It couldn’t be true!

With a little bit of research I found that it was true, and it had just hit UK cinemas
this weekend. “Exit Through the Gift Shop” is Banksy’s “secret” film about street art and various street artists all over the world. It was raised eyebrows at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival.

I can’t wait until I have the chance to see Banksy’s film. When I watched the trailer (found below) and it looks just like a day in the life of Banksy. Let’s hope its everything it appears to be!

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How to Make a Stencil

Since I have been intrigued by stencils all week, I decided to make my own stencil, and show how it’s done.
A good stencil is done when there is no wind and when it is warm out. Cold weather freezes spray paint, and wind blows the spray paint away from whatever canvas you are working on. I got lucky with the sunny 50 degree weather today, but I was cursed when it came to the wind.

The first thing you have to worry about when it comes to stencils is supplies. The important things are spray paint, your stencil of choice, and your canvas. For this project I opted to buy a cheap, store brand spray paint from K-Mart that works on interior and exterior projects. Most street artists would not have to worry about interior paint, but because I was not working on brick, cement or wood, I needed something that would stick differently. For my canvas I chose a giant shoe box that I had in my room that was going to waste.

For my project I chose to do most of my work with store bought letter stencils. I have not made a stencil in years, and the last time I worked with an X-Acto knife I ended up with a pretty terrible gash in my leg, so I was a little hesitant to try my hand at anything detailed right away. I did, however draw a partial stencil, just for an example. The trickiest part to stencils, in my opinion, is perfecting the hollow or empty parts of letters and images. For example, when I drew my “P” stencil, I left a tail so that the center of the “P” wasn’t closed up when I cut it. Because it was so windy, I knew any center stencil I would have placed down would have blown away.

Hand-drawn stencils are similar to negative photographs. When drawing a stencil, the artist draws out all of the negative parts of their image, and cuts out the part that they want to paint. With multi-colored stencils, and artist has to layer their colors, and layer their drawings so that they all fit into each other. It’s almost like an artist’s puzzle piece.

It’s also important, when drawing a stencil, to make sure your lines are crisp and completely perfect. Any jumps or rough edges will show up on your project, and if you make a mistake when cutting out the stencil it is very difficult to fix.

My shoebox “canvas” needed to be prepped for the stencil. Street artists don’t have to worry about this step of their process, because the spray paint clings easily to brick, cement, concrete, wood, basically any outdoor surface. When working with a glossy surface, or a textured surface like a paint canvas, it important to prep your surface so that the stencil’s paint has something to cling to. If this step is skipped on indoor spray painting, an artist’s final work can bead up, or bleed, and look sloppy.

Once the white paint that I sprayed on the shoebox dried completely, it was time for me to start the stencils. My first mistake with this project was choosing the wrong medium to carve my stencil out of. A good stencil should be carved into a stiff surface, like cardboard or even wood, or it should have some sort of adhesive backing. Because I used flimsy cardstock, my stencil continued to raise off of the canvas. This results in spray paint blowing underneath the stencil and onto the white canvas. It didn’t help that the wind was blowing everything all over the place anyway.

When I raised my handmade stencil, it was a little sloppy, but not as bad as I would have thought. I did a bad job raising the stencil, however, and my nail scratched the top of the “P” leaving a bit white scratch. It’s nearly impossible for someone like me, who has had very little experience with stencils, to go back and fix a mistake like that, so I left it alone. I had also done a poor job of cutting a straight line along the outside of the letter, and I didn’t do the best of job at aiming the paint away from the stencil’s edges. But for an amateur in a very windy front yard, I think I did a pretty good job.

Once my first stencil dried I was set with the task of placing down my final letters. It is important to make sure the letters are placed evenly, with equal space in between each letter. One thing that is easy to miss is all the space between each letter, and if this is ignored your pictures or words can be spaced too far apart and not look cohesive. Like I said before, it is good for stencils to have an adhesive backing, so I used standard duct tape to stick my letters down onto the canvas. This also helped make sure everything was balanced before I sprayed them. After I layed down the letters, I also covered all of the white space with scraps of paper, so that the paint wouldn’t get into any blank spaces I didn’t want it to touch.

When everything was laid down and covered, I began spraying my black paint. When I spray paint, I make sure that I keep my hand about a foot away from the canvas. If not, the paint will come out too close to the canvas and make giant paint spots, which will run and look too dark. When spraying, I go evenly back and forth, with one consistent spray the whole time. If the paint is sprayed in little spots and not consistently the outcome will appear inconsistent. Once the whole thing is sprayed, I like to leave stencil on until the paint is dried. That way, if the paint is too heavy in certain places there are less of a chance that it will bleed out of the lines.

When peeling the stencil off of the dried canvas, it is important that you be careful of getting the adhesive stuck on the canvas, or ripping the canvas in anyway. If your tape or adhesive is too sticky it can pull off the base paint, like my white paint in my project. After all your hard work, that is the last thing you want to happen.

I peeled off all of the letters and…

Tada! I think it turned out pretty great, if I do say so myself. Considering the fact that the wind was making it almost impossible to get the paint to touch anything, and that I haven’t made a stencil in almost five years, I’m pretty proud.

I really love stencil art. The technique and planning it takes is really the most genius part about it, and I have to give some serious credit to any artist that can master such a difficult task.

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Stenciling

One of my favorite forms of street art is stencil art, or stencil graffiti. Stenciling usually involves a detailed, hand-cut stencil and spray paint.  A lot of great stencil artists, like Banksy and Above have mastered putting stencil art in ironic situations to really enhance their pieces. In fact, the reason I became such a huge Banksy fan in the first place was his stencils.

Above's "Help Thy Neighbor"

This is a piece taken from the street artist, Above’s website. It was created as part of the artist’s donation contributions to Haiti relief.

In this piece, the artist went Above (get it?) and beyond the average stencil to create a multi-colored stencil. Personally, I’ve never tried a multi-colored stencil piece, because they are probably one of the most tedious forms of street art out there, and I barely have the patience to make a regular stencil. Each individual color in the piece requires its own hand-made stencil. So, technically, when Above made the decision to make this an 8 color piece, he also made the very-devoted decision to create 8 full pieces of art to benefit this one piece.

The time and energy it takes to master stencil graffiti is extreme, but so are the results. If the artist

Mircea Cantor's "I am Still Alive" at the Philadelphia Museum of Art

can’t control the stencil or doesn’t have the right cuts in their stencil, than a whole piece can be ruined. And fixing designs can be nearly impossible, especially when an artist is out in the street with only a couple cans of spray paint and one oversized stencil.

This photo, called “I am Still Alive” by Mircea Cantor, is spray painted directly on the wall of the Modern Exhibit in the Philadelphia Museum of Art. I have to say, as far as stencils go, this one is really lacking. Cantor did a bad job making the paint even across the whole piece, so there are darker spots in several spots of the hair. Usually heavier spray paint spots can lead to dripping, which ruins all of the white in the rest of the piece. Cantor’s piece also has blurred lines, which usually happens when the stencil isn’t flat against the painted surface. The spray paint will fly underneath the stencil and create the blurs like you see in the right shoulder and in the top part of the hair.

Stencils are always fun to try, but not easy to master. When you do catch a good one, however, they stick in your brain.

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