tutorial tuesday: street fashion: graffiti alphabet

this tuesday i will be showing you how i created a graffiti alphabet for my street fashion series.

1. silhouette on white background, surrounded by collage. the collage was adhered with liquitex medium gloss gel (over and under collage elements) when that was dry i washed black paint over it to pick up the brushstrokes.

2. white wash over background

3. pencil sketch letters. (before doing this on your piece, you may want to practice lettering in your sketchbook or journal, as the pencil does not erase well on the painted background.)

4. outline letters with black sharpie poster paint pen, fine tip

5. start filling in letters with acyrlic paint, one color at a time (fill loosely with one color, let dry a little, do next color, repeat until satisfied). i used two shades of blue (liquitex basics light blue and artist's loft turquoise) and two shades of pink (liquitex basics medium magenta and quinacridone magenta). tip: use your finger to smudge a little as you're applying the colors.

note: before filling in the letters, i went over the background with a bit of watered down black paint, heavier around the edges of the picture and around the silhouette.

6. fill in silhouette with paint, again use finger to help smudge colors together.

7. when satisfied with the painting of the letters and the silhouette, use black sharpie poster paint marker to outline letters again and to outline the silhouette.

(you can thank blogger for the weird spacing in this post. i've fixed it repeatedly but it never sticks on the published version. grrr.)