Recently I'd been working on a portrait for my girlfriend- it's 11x14" on canvas. It's definitely the most ambitious stencil design that I've put together thus far. Ten total layers were used to create the piece! I realized that I haven't taken pictures with each step on any of the stencils I've made so far. Ah well, I forget because I get so wrapped up in the process...but I'll make an attempt to do that the next time I work on something that has a lot of layers going on.
In this piece, I experimented with bits of intentional overspray and drips for the first time. It's sort of a convention of stenciling and graffiti, but it's rather hard to get it to turn out right and look good. It's also fairly easy to destroy a piece by doing it poorly. The trick is to get these seemingly unintentional sprays and drips exactly where you want them in a really balanced way. Though they look random, they're anything but. The drip / spray accents can be seen above her head to the right and directly to her left at the bottom of the canvas. Overall, I really like he feel of this piece. Reminds me of pictures I've seen of downtown Tokyo, that sorta feel- almost like a big neon sign or something. Oh yeah, the Japanese kanji is her name.
Posted at 9:09 PM on Thursday, July 29, 2004
On Sundays I was working the door at a bar and it was usually pretty slow so I'd read and sketch. Here's three of those sketches done with a reg'lar 'ol ballpoint pen- about 3.5x5 inches each. 
The woman's sketch [center] was done from a customer sitting at a table near me- she was quite monkey-lookin'. Have to be quick and can't really look for too long- don't want the customers to think you're a creepy stalker or something! The dress was hanging in a shop window across the street and the skull-head...I dunno...
The woman's sketch [center] was done from a customer sitting at a table near me- she was quite monkey-lookin'. Have to be quick and can't really look for too long- don't want the customers to think you're a creepy stalker or something! The dress was hanging in a shop window across the street and the skull-head...I dunno...
Posted at 12:03 AM on Friday, July 23, 2004
This was a quick two-layer stenciled sticker I put together. After trimming the extra sticker paper away from the Clockwork Orange stickers I'd made, I had a long rectangle piece of orange sticker paper left over from each. So in this case, I came up with a design based on the shape of the paper I had to work with. First, I quickly / loosely sprayed some black paint over the sticker rectangles for a background color. I experimented with a few different color combos and with spraying wet-into-wet to see what type of mix I'd get.
In case you forgot where you've seen these guys before: Space Invaders (duh). Ah, the era of classic arcade games...my favorite. The text is from a game that was made for the Sega Genesis system called Zero Wing. Sure that's a bit after the era of the classic arcade upright, but still in the era of classic home systems. "All Your Base Are Belong To Us" grew into an incorrectly translated phrase of mythic proportions. I remember there was a techno mix that used the digital voice as its main loop back in the mid-nineties and now there are numerous websites dedicated to the famous poorly translated game text.
Go and watch the the original flash animation from the game here:
All Your Base Are Belong To Us
There's a pretty excellent photo montage after it with the techno song as its soundtrack.
Oh yeah...when I originally posted this image to Stencil Revolution, someone left me a comment stating that, "It's a cool stencil...it's too bad about the messed up text." That gave me a good laugh...I pointed him in the direction of the All Your Base website of course.
This was a quick two-layer stenciled sticker I put together. After trimming the extra sticker paper away from the Clockwork Orange stickers I'd made, I had a long rectangle piece of orange sticker paper left over from each. So in this case, I came up with a design based on the shape of the paper I had to work with. First, I quickly / loosely sprayed some black paint over the sticker rectangles for a background color. I experimented with a few different color combos and with spraying wet-into-wet to see what type of mix I'd get.
In case you forgot where you've seen these guys before: Space Invaders (duh). Ah, the era of classic arcade games...my favorite. The text is from a game that was made for the Sega Genesis system called Zero Wing. Sure that's a bit after the era of the classic arcade upright, but still in the era of classic home systems. "All Your Base Are Belong To Us" grew into an incorrectly translated phrase of mythic proportions. I remember there was a techno mix that used the digital voice as its main loop back in the mid-nineties and now there are numerous websites dedicated to the famous poorly translated game text.
Go and watch the the original flash animation from the game here:
All Your Base Are Belong To Us
There's a pretty excellent photo montage after it with the techno song as its soundtrack.
Oh yeah...when I originally posted this image to Stencil Revolution, someone left me a comment stating that, "It's a cool stencil...it's too bad about the messed up text." That gave me a good laugh...I pointed him in the direction of the All Your Base website of course.
Posted at 9:01 PM on Friday, July 16, 2004
More stenciling this week. This is a portrait of a friend of mine, Andy (on vinyl again). It was done with four layers plus an additional stencil for the text.
Andy is probably the most universally positive and cheery person that I know. Though not in a sickly-sweet, repulsive sort of way, but in a genuinely charming way. So for those bad days what can be more uplifting than a smiling Andy looking back at you from somewhere in your house?? Here's a detail.
What did Andy say when he saw the first record? "Aw shiiit... yeaaaaaah."
More stenciling this week. This is a portrait of a friend of mine, Andy (on vinyl again). It was done with four layers plus an additional stencil for the text.
Andy is probably the most universally positive and cheery person that I know. Though not in a sickly-sweet, repulsive sort of way, but in a genuinely charming way. So for those bad days what can be more uplifting than a smiling Andy looking back at you from somewhere in your house?? Here's a detail.
What did Andy say when he saw the first record? "Aw shiiit... yeaaaaaah."
Posted at 9:08 PM on Thursday, July 08, 2004
Getting back to stencils... Here's the second of them. Binary Bot was painted as a series of five LPs and also produced as stickers. The stencil was done with three layers plus an additional stencil for the background numbers. On these first two designs, I've left the edge of the LP bare. Sort of borrowing from my background as a painter and incorporating the idea of leaving some of the "bare canvas" visible I suppose. A mask is obviously needed to protect that edge of the LP while painting it over with the fill color. Though I wouldn't necessarily call that a layer.
After the stencils are cut, I mount them within a cardboard frame (using artist's tape on the back of the frame). The point of using a frame is to mask off your canvas (or in this case, an LP) and protect it from overspray. You'll also notice within that picture of the framed stencil that I indicated where the registration marks are located. [I use two small squares to the left and right of my images.] When you're working with multiple layers, you need to make sure that they're lined up correctly on top of each other before they're sprayed. Some stencilers like to 'eyeball it' and skip using reg. marks, but at this point, I'm not convinced that that's the way to go.
Getting back to stencils... Here's the second of them. Binary Bot was painted as a series of five LPs and also produced as stickers. The stencil was done with three layers plus an additional stencil for the background numbers. On these first two designs, I've left the edge of the LP bare. Sort of borrowing from my background as a painter and incorporating the idea of leaving some of the "bare canvas" visible I suppose. A mask is obviously needed to protect that edge of the LP while painting it over with the fill color. Though I wouldn't necessarily call that a layer.
After the stencils are cut, I mount them within a cardboard frame (using artist's tape on the back of the frame). The point of using a frame is to mask off your canvas (or in this case, an LP) and protect it from overspray. You'll also notice within that picture of the framed stencil that I indicated where the registration marks are located. [I use two small squares to the left and right of my images.] When you're working with multiple layers, you need to make sure that they're lined up correctly on top of each other before they're sprayed. Some stencilers like to 'eyeball it' and skip using reg. marks, but at this point, I'm not convinced that that's the way to go.