We are spraying. All walls have to be painted colorful!
My very first graffiti piece (a creative workshop)
This workshop was for kids, who painted their very first graffiti piece! In collaboration with Kriksschool, we organized a graffiti and stencil workshop for schoolchildren in Berlin. About 15 participants aged between five and ten years painted with the street artist Ostap in Berlin-Mauerpark.
The Program: Part 1 (An Introduction to the Street Art World)
The theory came as an introduction to the workshop. We taught the participants about street art and graffiti phenomenon. Then we talked about how people become graffiti artists and educated the students about different street art techniques.
Spraying with heavenly stencil
The exciting questions
Then the artist leading the workshop Ostap (Ost.Up) answered all the questions posed by the participants, such as:
What is urban culture and what are its goals? Or how do artists “conquer” their “territory” in cities? What does “tagging” mean and what does a “tag” represent? Or with what special kind of creative energy is this kind of street art technique charged? Or how does a stencil graffiti differ from freehand graffiti? Why do graffiti artists paint at night? Or why are trains or walls that are so high and practically unreachable preferred by artists? What types of tricks are used?
Gradually all their questions were answered. Everyone was looking forward to the exciting creative process! So we switched over to the practical part.
Schoolchildren spray their first graffiti
Part 2: The Exercise with spray cans (Practice)
In the second part of the workshop, the participants and Ostap discussed the sketch for their graffiti piece and produced the stencils. They practiced spraying lines of different widths and lengths. The artist showed them how a motif can be transferred from an A4 paper sheet to an 80 by 240-inch wall.
“BERLIN” graffiti lettering: The kids have made it
Spraying the piece:
After all the talks and exercises were over, everyone armed ourselves with spray cans and began to paint!
Four hours later the two by six meters wall was completely painted. Since the event was actually a GRAFFITI workshop, the lettering “B E R L I N” was chosen as a motive for the wall art.
A short video about the workshop follows below. Please do not forget to subscribe to our YouTube channel;) Thanks a lot!
This workshop was run in collaboration with KRIKSschool.
PS: Some information on “stenciling” technique
Stencil printing or stencils, as we know it today, is more craft than science or art. The history of stencil printing is an interesting story regarding the development of printed media and information through drawing, writing, and reproduction. A stencil is the sum of all the achievements of human thought. The millennial experience of human civilization, which unites many arts and sciences, focuses on the transfer of pigments through a primitive stencil.
The first handprints in the cave Cueva de las Manos Argentina (Photo by Marian Ocecowski)
This printing process is considered one of the oldest methods for transferring a depiction! Since ancient times, the principle is used by people with different levels of cultural development everywhere and at any time. The same principle applies to the screen printing process.
