Stenciling

The art of stenciling is taking over the graffiti community. It is a quick, easy way to mass-produce your works quickly. A stencil is some type of thin material from which an image or lettering has been cut. With stencil graffiti, the stencil is placed on or taped to (depending on the size) the surface on which the artist wishes to display his/her work. Then, spray paint/rolled paint is put on the stencil, leaving only the cut out areas colored. Multiple layers of stencils can be created in order to add different colors/shading. If a stencil is not very big (smaller than 3 feet), one can create their work in under 3 minutes. This is very convenient if you are tagging in a heavily populated area.

John Fekner's "Wheels over Indian Trails" (1968) was one of the first major public stencil displays.

 Now, Banksy is one of the most well known stencil artists. It is his medium of choice.

Here's a quick how to on stenciling

What You Need:
Cardboard (or some other kind of thin, easily cut material)
Scissors
Exacto Knife
Drawing Tools
Pain & Roller OR Spray Paint


1. Choose a design - You can design an image or font on your own, or you can copy/recreate one that you have found (this is a little frowned upon unless you make it totally original)
  -You can hand draw or photo-shop and image
  - Using a photo-editing program, or taking the time to do this on your own, adjust the contrast and saturation of the image so that it is simple and not too multi-tonal

2. Place the image on your stenciling material and trace.  Use a cutting tool to cut out the areas of your image that you want to me colored.

3. Tape stencil onto desired surface. Spray or roll paint on top. Voilà!

Here's a helpful Video