STENCILS & SPRAY PAINT
Designing and cutting stencils for spray paint has become a skill that has been used in street art, fine art and everything in between. I teach this unit as a way to introduce art as social commentary, as many modern street artists use stencils and spray paint as ways to express their ideas on political or social topics using irony, humor or simply stated facts. This will be the assignment I propose for this unit, but as usual, if you would like to use these skills in another way, please come speak to me and we will make a plan for you.
Art as Social Commentary:
More Examples: (Click on images to see them better)
Your Assignment:
For this unit, I would like you to choose a topic that pertains to either animal welfare or the environment. (I think these are issues that most of us can agree with). Some examples could be; the horrors of the dairy industry, the importance of adopting rescue animals instead of buying from breeders, or a classic...the anti fur movement. You could also focus on global warming, over population, pollution, blast fishing...anything you feel strongly about. Your purpose with this work will be to either INFORM others about this topic, or PERSUADE them to change their minds or do something about it.
You will:
- Figure out what topic you want to do.
- Research your topic. Take some notes.
- Figure out how you can inform or persuade about the topic with just one image. (You can add words)
- Do some thumbnail sketches to narrow your design to it's simplest and most powerful form.
- Convert the drawing into a stencil. Watch the next videos for the basics on how-to and for some student examples.
Art can also exist to simply change our perspectives. Stencils and spray paint can be used to make us look at everyday things a bit differently. This challenge can be an additional assignment if you want to continue to use spray paint, or it can be done instead of the "art as social commentary" assignment. However it is really important to find something that you can do LEGALLY. Some of the following examples probably don't follow this rule. You could however translate your idea into a mixed media piece, where you draw the sign, or wall you would want to alter, then create a stencil to overlap it. Come talk to me if this is something you are interested in and I can help you figure something out.
Examples: (Click on images to see them better)
