Exercise - Street art

Brainstorming ideas in my sketchbook. There is a strip of green opposite my house which has the backs of some garages behind it.

It looks like a good spot for a bit of graffiti....
My first though was to try and reflect the local area which is predominantly 1950's new town home to many people who work in building trades. historically there was farming here and industrial jobs. I started with the idea of a workman.

To get some of the feeling of graffiti I drew them on large sheets of rough paper.

 It seems a bit sexist to just draw a man, women worked in the areas factories and although the building trade is predominantly male it would imply that it's only the men who work. I thought about a more gender neutral image of a hand laying a brick.

They could be on the opposite side laying the top brick which adds a slightly more playful element as they brick themselves in. I also had a go with an airbrush. There is a lot of skill even in doing a simple tag although maybe spray cans are more precise than the elderly airbrush.

 Again on large sheets of paper I did some airbrush doodles.

More practice is needed to get anywhere near the effect that I'm looking for so I changed to using the Paper 53 app on my iPad which, although it doesn't have a spray brush, will draw on photos. I used the watercolour brush instead (I'm sure that wasn't what the designers had in mind for it!) and a sort of marker pen.

I started by doodling my builder on the wall. It's fun to virtually paint on walls! He's lost a lot in the translation. What happens if I digitally add the best of my first drawings to a wall?

 This is the first attempt just making part of my original drawing transparent.

 Here I used the find edges option in Photoshop

and here it is using the dry brush option. It does look better than I had expected though it's not great if you look too closely, I guess that's true for a lot of graffiti. He reminds me of work by Nathan Bowen (although it's nowhere near as good) Subconsciously I think that I was influenced by him.
It still isn't saying what I want to, so back to the hand.

This doesn't quite have the effect that I was looking for. It's too big but the top of the wall isn't quite right for a smaller drawing and it would only be visible to pedestrians, this could be seen from a car.
I did a few more doodles on this wall.

 Here I experimented with the idea of the hand slotting a block into the existing wall. I don't like it for several reasons. I don't think that it makes sense to the viewer and the marker pen doesn't look like its been drawn on the wall. Maybe if the brick wasn't red or there was a glimpse of the scene behind it could work better but I'm not convinced.

Here I followed on from the coloured block to make children's building blocks. Again the marker pen is too bold for the surface and the idea hasn't much relation to the site, there are schools and nurseries in the area but there not that close and the blocks are a very old fashioned idea when related to children and learning.
I went back to the watercolour brush for a more realistic effect.

 and then the marker again.

But now I'm just doodling for the sake of it and its not about anything.

Reflection

The best images here are this version of the superinposed builder

because he looks like he's actually been drawn on the wall and because I have left areas of the wall showing through on the graffiti.

and the hand with the brick which makes sense in the context of the area even though I don't think that I've got the right idea yet. 

The course notes say;

Reflect on how the contexts you have chosen have changed the nature of your illustrations. What conversation has gone on between the work and the place?

The pictures that I have made show how important the place is to the interpretation of the graffiti. The drawings that I have made don't fully engage with the area that I have chosen for them, maybe I'm approaching this the wrong way.

I contemplated this while sitting in the garden looking at the back wall of my house which needs repainting.

A spot just begging for a bit of graffiti

It's only charcoal so it isn't permanent and it does look like the cat is peering into my neighbours garden. 

I have been known to paint animals on walls before but I would plan the image and copy it onto the wall. This is the first time that I have responded to the surface to make the image though I find it very easy to see faces, animals and all manner of things in the abstract shapes and patterns. To pursue this line of street art I would need an area that I had permission to deface because I'm too scared to make anything half decent if anyone is watching, let alone if I'm not supposed to be there. It's a more promising line of graffiti than my mock ups.

Reviewing what I've done I think that I've spent far too long on this exercise if I'm going to have any chance of meeting my next submission deadline so reluctantly I think that I'd better leave things here, maybe to return when I get some more time as I haven't quite finished with this exercise.