Graffiti Art

Today we did a load of research on Graffiti art and styles.

Graffiti has its roots in cave paintings nearly 32,000 years ago, over time it developed and in Greece the first modern graffiti started. In the 60's urban graffiti was born and in the 70's the style wars started, it was seen as the 'golden age of graffiti' but then security was increased and it started to die out. 

Graffiti artists were influenced to do graffiti on streets and walls because in society it is seen that people like them didn’t have talent and because they came from ghettos and other poor places, which many said were devoid of culture.

Their influences are normally their own life or what is happening on the media. They could also be influenced by other street artists like Banksy, who was influenced by other artists and musicians like Blek le Rat. 

There are many forms of graffiti used around the world. Graffiti artists have to choose carefully between detailed pieces that take lots of time (“wildstyle”), or quick peaces called “throw up’s” or “bombing”. The longer a peace takes the higher the chance of getting caught. 

Graffiti are it very controversial and while some see it as art, other see it as vandalism. Graffiti has made a huge impact on the world of art, probably because of the way there are no rules for it and its always in the public eye. There’s also a sense of freedom about their work as they can draw what they like. 

We also experimented with making our own graffiti on paper using pencils and pens. 

I was proud with my final graffiti piece and I thought it looked good and detailed. But I don't really like the graffiti style and although it was fun to do I don't think I will use it again, if I did I would probably draw it bigger as it was hard doing the blue outline.