Learning to Spraypaint
In the dying days June this year, after I had just recovered from the How Far Will Your Ticket Take You mural at Euston, I started out on a whole new art adventure. The Lewisham School of Muralism class took a trip down to Ladywell for an introduction to spray painting with Lionel Stanhope.
Under the watchful eyes of Lionel and LSoM tutor Patricio Forrester I grappled with a torn out page of Nat Geo, of a reconstructed face of a prehistoric skull nonetheless. With a little encouragement and reassurance I thought, maybe this spray thing is for me after all.
Safe to say I haven’t looked back since, (and my bank balance hasn’t really recovered either).
Luckily, Ciarán and I have a wall to practice on in the back garden. I bought a starter pack from Graff City and a tub of white emulsion from Wickes and attempted to write our names. That was swiftly followed by the ‘cute animal’ stage where my dragon head was out-shined by Hickey’s fox.
Things really kicked off on the day of the Euro 2020 finals, when fellow LSoM students Eli King, Alicia Alfonso and Sophia Longman dropped by for a group session, where we really pushed each other’s work.. It meant stocking up on supplies too with a trip to Chrome and Black in Bethnal Green where I started figured out the different types of cans and got introduced to the world of caps!
Since then I’ve been out practicing in the garden, with a little help from the Graffiti Cookbook , working on control, style and just having fun!
I’ve also been really lucky to be invited to the WOM Collective 2nd Anniversary jam at Allen Gardens and the Save OneSpace Community Day in Kidbrooke. I loved being out in the ‘real’ world, painting alongside (and stealing tips and tricks from) some really talented street artists and writers I admire. Shout out to Carleen de Sözer and Simon down at OneSpace for the invites. This is a real departure from the kind of work I’m used to doing, but I’m excited about adding spraypainting to my mural practice and finding out where it takes me.
