The Night I Was Introduced to the Joys of Graffiti

It was last night, by the way.  Me and the other members of the LWCC art group donned black hoodies and bandannas to hide our faces and sneaked out to the train yard.  I immediately spotted the train car that I wanted to tag.  My old nemesis had gotten to it before that night, and I was ready to unleash my can of spray paint on top of his [totally lame] designs.  ”%$@#,” I scrawled on top of his work.  That would show him!

Alright, so that’s not really how it went down.  There were over twenty of us who met at the church, and we divided ourselves among the eight primed panels so that there were about three to a panel.   Then Ramon Trevino gave us a brief refresher course on how to achieve different results using two different kinds of nozzles and applying pressure differently to get different lines.

Then we went to work.  I worked with my friend Stephanie Rudisill and a really nice lady named Leslie.  We decided to do a patterned background and paint trees on top of the background.  But somehow it turned into something completely different.

A fish:

It was so fun to walk around and see what everyone was working on.

I remember thinking at one point, “Hey, I think I’ve got the hang of this.”  But all it took was one look at Ramon’s demo piece to realize that, like any other art form, it’s not something that can just be “gotten” in one evening.  Ramon’s work is so crisp, and that is a really tough result to achieve when you’re using spray paint.  I have a whole new respect for this medium.

I seriously had the best time last night (oop, song alert!  ”I’ve…had…the time of my liiiife”), and I don’t think it will be the last for me.  I would love to invest in some quality spray paint and nozzles (not the same as what you can get at the local hardware store).  But, of course, the coolest thing was the community that I experienced last night.  There were plenty of “Run! Cops!” jokes to be heard, and even a “Run!  Pastor Steve!” joke even though what we were doing was fully legal and approved by the church.  I will say that it was probably one of the coolest things ever done at that building.  If you want to see the rest of the pictures from last night including some of the paintings that others were doing, check out my Pigments of Imagination page on Facebook!

11:56pm, It’s Still Wednesday!

Two years ago I graduated from college.  The best thing about college was that I was surrounded by other artists.  I constantly had people around me who cared about art as much as I did.  It was so easy to feed and be fed by the creativity flowing from the fingertips of the people working alongside me when I was in the studio.

When I graduated, I started to feel cut off from that creativity.   I was working alone in my house, and I had lost contact with many of the people that I had gone to school with.  I remember praying that God would give me just one person who shared my love of art.  And tonight I was surrounded by at least twenty other people that feel the same way I do about creating.  I go to Living Word Community Church in Red Lion, PA.  It’s a pretty big church with many classes and programs for people from all walks of life.  But my personal favorite is called The Studio.  It is the fine arts group, and tonight was the first meeting of the school year.  It was amazing.  This month’s topic is urban art.  Ramon Trevino, an accomplished graffiti artist, shared his heart and demonstrated how  to use different techniques with spray paint.

Next week, we’re going to do it ourselves, and I am so excited.  I would love to incorporate spray paint into my oil paintings.  I guess I’d better see if I can even do it first.  It looks tricky, and I have never been good at spray painting things.  If you live in the area and are looking to connect with God and other artists contact deAnn Roe at droe@lwccyork.com or call the church, we’d love to have you!

Oh, and go here to check out some of Ramon’s work!  Do you have any favorites?