_ | \ | \ | | \ __ | |\ \ __ _____________ _/_/ | | \ \ _/_/ _____________ | ___________ _/_/ | | \ \ _/_/ ___________ | | | _/_/_____ | | > > _/_/_____ | | | | /________/ | | / / /________/ | | | | | | / / | | | | | |/ / | | | | | | / | | | | | / | | | | |_/ | | | | | | | | c o m m u n i c a t i o n s | | | |________________________________________________________________| | |____________________________________________________________________| ...presents... Streetart Ninjutsu by elliot.pank __//////\ -cDc- CULT OF THE DEAD COW -cDc- /\\\\\\__ __ Grand Imperial Dynasty __ Est. 1984 \\\\\\/ cDc paramedia: texXxt 402-01/07/2006 \////// Est. 1984 ___ _ _ ___ _ _ ___ _ _ ___ _ _ __ |___heal_the_sick___raise_the_dead___cleanse_the_lepers___cast_out_demons__| ______/==========//- BACKGROUND INFORMATION -\\===========\______ \==========\\- start at the beginning -//===========/ "You call that art? That's just ugly and stupid. Don't be proud of yourself for that rubbish." Those were roughly the words my father used when he saw my first decorations with a self-made marker. As a fifteen year old graffiti kid full of adrenaline, I had tagged the door of a power station near our house. I liked the tag; plain bold red letters. Not really art, but it was a nice mark on my small town. Things then got a bit out of control. I had an assignment at my school to paint a long wall with some friends. We had a sponsor, he bought us approximately $200 in spray paint. We used a third of them and took the rest home. My Mum began to worry when she saw the 30 cans of spray paint I had stacked in the basement. One week later, I made a great deal with a spray paint company and they sent me some laboratory cans (cans with slightly wrong colour tones) for a very good price. Have you ever seen a box with 70 spray paint cans? *That* makes parents worry. I had to do something about it. So I became a legal graffiti artist. I painted canvases for everybody: my parents, other family members, friends, and every stupid person who wanted to pay for it. That stopped them from worrying -- for a while. But painting canvases during daylight in the garden with some funky tunes on the mp3 player cannot make up for the feeling of doing a fast bombing in the middle of the night. Running through the dark with your gear. The fear and the adrenaline. If criminal activities were not such a great drug, no one would do them... During the first summer of the U.S. occupation in Iraq, I got into a new form of streetart. My friends and I took part in the protests against the war and, before going out, we always took some postal labels and painted them with anti-war messages. I remember entering a house and sticking some big messages onto the outside of the third floor's balcony during a labor union rally. The cops took a photo of me and one of them approached me when we came down again. He thought that I had painted something, but as I explained that these were "only stickers" he let me go. This form of defacement of public property suited me. I enjoyed creating a piece of art at home and putting it up during the day, directly under the eyes of law enforcement personnel. I took the idea of my stickers further. I moved away from political messages and developed some stencils to print more complex designs on the postal stickers. This form of post-graffiti is not new. The scene is impressive and its documentation is very professional; authors like Tristan Manco and Christian Hundertmark are doing a great job with their books on streetart. For neophytes in the field, I recommend the stickernation.net gallery. It is organized chronologically, but you can get random selections out of the 32235 pictures in database: http://stickernation.net/seenrandom.asp I assume you have already noticed the vast amount of streetart in your city. I further assume that you have been eager to try street art for yourself and the only thing you need now is... ______/==========//- THE NSF DIY GUIDE TO STREETART -\\===========\______ \==========\\- this ain't your dad's graffiti -//===========/ NOTE: This file does not tell you what sorts of messages to convey. Use your creativity and find something you want to tell the world. If that is too much for you, please proceed to point 4 and produce a cDc stencil and put it up everywhere. -/- table of contents -\- 1. STICKERS 2. POSTERS 3. DEBRIS 4. STENCILS -\---------------------/- 1. Do not paint postal stickers. Sorry, this is over and you missed out. Only do this if you have absolutely no budget. That is the only advantage of postal stickers: they are free at your PO and they stick like hell. But if you have no budget, you would still need some markers to paint... Let's assume you really want to do stickers and you are willing to spend a small amount of money. Get some white sticker labels at any store (e.g. office supply stores, Kinko's, etc.) and produce your design at the copy shop, or with your home laser printer or with some markers. Do not use alcohol-based markers; they will wash out in the rain. I recommend using a nice computer-generated design and getting 1,000 stickers printed at some web-based sticker print shop. The prices are not that high. Sticker production is no big deal, but here are some good tips for actually sticking them up. It is good to have the stickers already stuck to the inside of your jacket, if the jacket has a smooth polyester surface. Then, you can just reach inside your jacket and you will not have to peel the sticker off of its transfer medium before sticking it. Another idea is to buy a sticker album (come on, you know you had one when you were a kid -- you probably still do) and keep the stickers in it. Do not waste time separating the sticker from its backing; you have to be fast. Remember what I said about how little the cops show interest in people putting up stickers? Well, that was several years ago. By now, shop owners and cops will be on the lookout for people putting up stickers. This does not mean that you should stick at night; daylight action is far more inconspicuous. 2. Posters are a far more interesting medium. They are cheap and you can really go big. My favorite copy shop has a plotter and I can copy my stuff up to a 2 meter size. With posters, you need glue or paste. You can find good wheatpaste recipes on the web or buy some good wallpaper paste. I recommend weather-resistant TERROR PASTE. ***** OFFICIAL cDc/NSF TERROR PASTE ***** You will need: * powder of pounded glass * wood glue * wallpaper paste Mix the wallpaper paste according to the package's instructions, but use double the amount of powder. Let it set for half an hour. Mix a small amount of wood glue into the paste and add the pounded glass. (It has to be really fine pounded glass, no shards.) Use the paste immediately, this stuff gets ugly in storage. ***** ----- ***** --+-- ***** ----- ***** Tips for postering: get some supermarket bags and put your stuff into them. First, prepare the surface and the poster with your TERROR PASTE. After you have applied the poster to the wall, put more TERROR PASTE over it. This will help with weather resistance. 3. "Debris" is a form of street art where you take what you can find and form sculptures from it. Tip: use polyurethane foam (fitting foam glue), that is funny stuff. 4. Stencils are a great medium for mass reproduction of one image. The process is easy, you create a black and white image, put it on an acetate sheet and cut out the black areas. Then, put it on a surface and paint it with a spray can. Ta-da, perfect graffito. Some basic and advanced tips should be observed: -< Basic >- The resulting image should not contain "islands," areas of white that are not connected. Use a sharp knife (an art design scalpel It is necessary to cut the stencil out of acetate, as paper will form waves when it dries. It is good to stick chicken wire to the inside of a folder to transport the stencil, so it will not stick to itself. Others have proposed transporting stencils in pizza boxes as camouflage; this could work as well. -< Advanced >- Use spray glue to attach the stencil to the surface before printing. This will give you sharper lines. Attach a border of paper to the sides of your stencil to avoid overspray. ______/==========//- WORDS OF WARNING FROM ME TO YOU -\\===========\______ \==========\\- a nickel's worth of free advice -//===========/ It is illegal in most countries to paint on property that you do not own. Sticking paper to other people's property is a crime in some countries, as well, though it is legal in some locales. Please be discreet and cautious. And have fun. Do not get caught; if you do, you are on your own. ___________ BLATTA---NON EST---VACCA ___________ \ / \ \_ _/ / \ / |A G L A| \ \ / / |A G L A| ||\/X\/|| \ EST_ _EST / ||\/X\/|| || \./ || \ \ / / || \./ || |\ ||_3 4_|| /|NON cDc NON|\ ||_3 4_|| /| | -------._((___))_.------- |EST | EST| -------._((___))_.------- | |\/)(\/\ [ x x ] /\/)(\/| \ | / |\/)(\/\ [ x x ] /\/)(\/| |(YHVH) >A \ / O< (AHIH)| \ EST / |(YHVH) >A \ / O< (AHIH)| |/\)(/\/ _ (' ') _ \/\)(/\| \ | / |/\)(/\/ _ (' ') _ \/\)(/\| | -------' ) (U) ( '------- | \ | / | -------' ) (U) ( '------- | |/ || . || \| DAEMONSEMEN |/ || . || \| || / \ || ELIGERE || / \ || ||/\X/\|| ||/\X/\|| |A D N I| the original e-zine |A D N I| /_________\ - today, tomorrow - /_________\ xXx DYNASTY xXx FOREVER xXx DYNASTY xXx _ Oooo xXx / RULE BOVINIA \ xXx / ) __ /)(\ ( . \ / ( / \ \__/ ) / Copyright (c) 2006 cDc communications and the author. \ . ) \)(/ (_/ CULT OF THE DEAD COW is a registered trademark of oooO cDc communications, 1369 Madison Ave. #423, NY, NY 10128, USA _ oooO All rights left. Edited by Myles Long. __ ( \ / . ) /)(\ / \ ) \ \ ( \__/ Save yourself! Go outside! Do something! \)(/ ( . / \_) xXx BOW to the COW xXx Oooo .ooM