Graffiti vs Street Art

With an increasing presence of “Street Art” surrounding us, it has become a hot topic of conversation, where it has tied in particularly well with last years „Environment? theme, and this term’s “Rules & Government” theme. The main question asked was, “What is acceptable street art?”

I had spotted a couple of interesting „graffiti? faces – one on a wall in Brunswick (and a similar one in Richmond), with another on a footpath in Northcote. Even the logo for Max Brenner (the chocolate man) had used the technique common with all these images – they were drawn as a continuous line or used few individual lines.

For their art piece, students were asked to replicate an alley wall; grimy, gloomy, messy, or with contrasts in light and shade. Sponges were used to apply paint in a variety of ways such as using faces, edges, dragging, dabbing or blending. The remainder of the first lesson provided an opportunity for students to practise drawing faces without lifting the pencil off the paper.

The 2nd session students used chalk pastel to shade in a silhouette of their face. Colour was built up by sealing and re-shading at least 3 times. Students were encouraged to choose a contrasting coloured Posca marker to draw their face “line” and could “tag” their work.

One student’s response to his finished piece was “This is so awesome – it’s something I actually
want to take home and keep!”

Teacher – Chris Richardson
Albert Park Primary School