Using the city as their canvas, with only spray paint and maybe some stencils, graffiti artists make what they believe is art. These artists also use pens and make graffiti like work on a piece of paper, cardboard, or canvas. Graffiti can be seen about anywhere. Because of the fact it appears anywhere, it’s frowned upon by the police and the people of the city. This fact doesn’t stop the graffiti artist from making works of art on city walls and signs. The question is “is graffiti art?”

At ODA, a couple of students are actively working on graffiti art in art class:  Peter Runge, sophomore, and me, senior Josh Lovin. I am working on a project that features four images. These images portray a police car, a pelican, a dog, and a person. They are all being made by using stencils and are being placed on an eight by eight foot wooden canvas.

To decide what I wanted to create, I wrote down words that would pop in to my mind every second and then I would look through the list after a minute or two and circle the words that popped up most often. This is how I got the idea to do most of the pieces. From there, I took pictures of objects that would be in my pieces. Then I would upload them into photoshop and alter the images to the way I want them. After I print the picture out to the size I want the picture to be. Then, I put a thin plastic roll over it and cut out stencils of it. These stencils then get placed onto an eight by eight wooden board.

I choose to create these graffiti pieces because it looked interesting and cool. Even though these graffiti pieces will be looked at with controversy, it doesn’t reflect my views of the government or the society we live in. One piece features a person about to spray paint a police car. I came up with that idea because it was edgy and the fact that someone wouldn’t make a picture of it intrigued me.