On Studio

I bought this because I've had the urge to deface books lately and this one is asking for it. It has a bunch of stencils by well known graffiti artists. My daughter and I started in on one by Ben Frost. A short little biographical blurb about him reads:

Australian Ben Frost describes his work as 'that moment when the sexy young nurse leans over to assist the dentist in pulling out the first of all your teeth, and you can just manage to see down the front of her blouse at her generous cleavage.'

Confrontational and controversial, Ben's imagery examines attraction and repulsion we experience everyday in our consumer based...

Blahblahblah. Whatever. Ben Frost sounds like a self-absorbed douche and his blurb is warmed-over pap. But his stencil made my kid laugh. Here's the original.



Here's what we did with it. (Mind, I only have the pastels from the chalk collection of a six-year-old to use.)

Step 1. Find a suitable place for the stencil. Backyards work best because, what with this being our first time stenciling, we didn't want our possible mistakes to be fodder for the neighbors. (Please don't be distracted by the manly feet in the lower left corner.)



Step 2. Place stencil. (Manly feet receding.)



Step 3. Color stencil. (Again, pastels; what do you want from me? This is a cooperative project.)



Step 4. Remove stencil and enjoy.



Ok. It doesn't look so great, but that's why we did it in the backyard. NEXT.

Alexandre Orion.

Grew up on the crowded, lively streets of Sao Paulo. As a child he was immersed in the heaving sidewalks and 24/7 traffic of the city's streets. He executed his first grafitti at the age of fourteen. Since 2000, he has developed an intense interest in the theories of Roland Barthes, W.E.B. DuBois and Jacques Aumont. This has evolved into a practice where he throws up a stenciled piece on a wall, and then waits with a camera to photograph that decisive moment of interaction between the piece and passers-by. The resulting series he has dubbed Metabiotics.

He doesn't sound so bad. I picked this stencil all by my lonesome because the kid wandered off to play with her Maltipoo. No big whoop, right? I mean, it's only Father's Day for fuck's sake.

Original:



Step 1 and 2. Yeah, I can combine steps because I'm damn-near professional now.



Step 3.



Step 4.



I had wanted to place one of the kid's princess dolls so that it looked like it was casting the (neon? pastel? neon pastel?) debauched devil shadow, but my wife bought me some whiskey rocks and they're chilled now.

Before I go, I should mention that I was arrested for vandalism once. It wasn't very creative. In fact, I was only standing next to a drunk that broke a sapling in the parking lot of a strip mall and the cop that arrested him decided to arrest me too (so, it was less vandalism and more eco-terrorism really). These stencils make me feel younger and vengeful all at once.

Cheers and Happy Father's Day!… (meer)