Today, graffiti is considered a form of street art and one of the most popular forms of artistic expression around the world.

There are different styles and types of graffiti. Graffiti has already established itself as an independent genre contemporary art and as part of the culture and urban lifestyle. In many countries and cities, writers create real masterpieces on the streets of cities.

Often graffiti is used for political and social messages. However, you should be aware that in most countries of the world, graffiti on someone's property without the permission of the owner of this property is considered vandalism and is punishable by law.
The history of graffiti goes into the deep past. But first things first.

Origin of the term

(from the Italian graffito, plural graffiti) - images, drawings or inscriptions scratched or drawn with paint (ink) on walls and other surfaces. Graffiare (Italian) - "to scratch."
And currently the most popular spray art drawing graffiti with spray paint. In ancient times, graffiti was applied to walls with a sharp object, as well as chalk or coal.

History of graffiti

Everyone knows that wall inscriptions existed in countries ancient east, in Greece, in Rome.
The earliest graffiti dates back to the 30th millennium BC. These are prehistoric rock paintings and pictographs painted on the walls. The drawings were made in ritual and sacred places inside the caves. Most often they depicted animals or hunting scenes. Safsky language, which existed in the period from the 1st century BC. BC. according to the IV century. n. e., and only survived in the form of graffiti - inscriptions scratched on the rocks in southern Syria, eastern Jordan and northern Saudi Arabia.

Graffiti in ancient Pompeii: a caricature of an official
Ancient graffiti has also been preserved in the ancient Greek city of Ephesus (the territory of modern Turkey). Viking graffiti exists.

What did ancient people write about? Approximately about the same things that they write about now: about love, about politics and about other vital things. They wrote the same way: with grammatical and spelling errors. There are inscriptions like "Vasya was here." There is nothing new under the sun!
And how were things with graffiti in Russia? Wonderful! In Novgorod there are 10 graffiti of the 11th century, and in Kyiv (Ancient Russia) there are about 300 graffiti of the 11th-15th centuries. are located in the Cathedral of St. Sofia. They talk about the political events of that time.
AT modern form graffiti appeared at the beginning of the 20th century. - in the New York subway, and then on boxcars and in underpasses. Since then, graffiti has become a part of pop culture and has become associated with hip-hop, hardcore, beatdown and breakdance music. For many, graffiti is a way of life, hidden from the public and incomprehensible to others. Political activists used graffiti to spread their ideas.
By the 1970s, graffiti had grown in popularity, and new styles began to emerge. The first writer to come to prominence was TAKI 183, a teenager from the Washington Heights area of ​​Manhattan. His tag TAKI 183 consisted of his name Demetrius (or Demetraki, Taki) and the number of the street where he lived - 183. Taki worked as a courier, and wherever he went on the subway, he left his tags everywhere. He got a lot of followers.
Gradually, the manner of tags became more complicated, new styles of graffiti began to appear, and the movement itself acquired a competitive character.

More complex tag
In this regard, the city authorities began to fight graffiti artists. After all, not all works were skillful enough, and graffiti began to be identified with the clogging of city streets - scribbles on the walls were equated with garbage, landfills and desolation. A lot of money was spent on fighting graffiti. But at the same time, sometimes the writers painted such complex and beautiful graffiti on the facades of the stores that the store owners did not dare to paint over them. In some countries, special places were allocated for writers on the streets, in underground passages, etc., where they could express themselves calmly.

"Legal graffiti" in the city of Stroud (England)
The question of whether graffiti is an art form began to be seriously discussed. Meanwhile, graffiti began to gain more and more space: it began to be used in computer advertising, in video games, in the design of skateboards, clothes and shoes.
Graffiti has spread all over the world. Today Sao Paulo (Brazil) is considered the capital of graffiti and a place of inspiration for writers from all over the world.

Graffiti in the city of Olinda (Brazil)

How about in Russia?

Mass movement modern graffiti in Russia refers to the 1980s. In 2006, an international graffiti festival was held in St. Petersburg. And in large cities of Russia, annual graffiti festivals are held. Let's talk about one of them.

Snickers Urbania (SNICKERS URBANiYa) is an annual youth festival of street culture. The festival was first held in 2001, it includes the main areas of street culture: extreme sports, graffiti, breakdance, beatbox, freestyle. Its purpose is to give a chance modern youth declare yourself and your talent, as well as provide an opportunity to try your hand at professional equipment for extreme sports. The festival was held in largest cities Russia: Moscow, St. Petersburg, Nizhny Novgorod, Rostov-on-Don, Volgograd, Samara, Kazan, Yekaterinburg, Novosibirsk, Krasnoyarsk, and also in Kazakhstan - in Almaty.

BombART platform
In the early 1980s stencil graffiti was also born. It is created by cutting out shapes from a hard, dense material. The finished stencil is applied to the canvas and sprayed on top of it with quick, light and precise movements. spray paint. This technique has become popular due to its fast execution.
The most important tool in graffiti is spray paint in cans. Use rollers for paint and stencils, brushes, markers, wax rods, crayons, etc.

Graffiti in the modern world

Basically, graffiti is done on the streets (walls of buildings, underground passages, garages, payphone booths, parked cars, asphalt pavement in yards, etc.); in transport; in entrances and on stairs (including apartment doors, mailboxes, etc.); in the interiors of institutions.
Very slowly, but graffiti begins to acquire the status of a socially neutral phenomenon and is perceived as an integral element of the modern metropolis, a mass cultural phenomenon. It loses the meaning of protest. The language of graffiti is becoming a universal code of urban communication.

Types and styles of graffiti

Tagging is a quick application of the author's signature on the surface. A separate signature is called a "tag" (from the English tag - label). Taggers are not very interested in the meaning and aesthetics of their creations, the main thing is to leave as many "autographs" as possible. Often tags are incomprehensible to people who are not privy to the details.
Among writers, tags placed in hard-to-reach, but prominent places are valued. The team tag is called "single".
The inscriptions are usually applied using paint cans or thick markers. Experienced writers can write a tag in 2-3 seconds.

wilde(English Wildstyle - wild style). The main feature of this style is the intricate plexus of letters, sharp corners, shards and arrows. The name of the style was given by the nature of the drawing: wild, incomprehensible, since often the letters are so intertwined and many extraneous elements are introduced that readability becomes zero. 3D Wildstyle is distinguished from the wild (volume is added to the regular wild).

The "Bubble" style refers to the "old school" and is very significant along with all other styles. This is one of those styles that writers (graffiti artists) start their training with.

From the very name "Bubble » (from the English "bubble"), it becomes clear to us the style of the image of the letters, namely that they look like bubbles. Sometimes, in the drawing, the letters can reach several meters.

Let's try to draw graffiti in this style. To make it clearer, let's take not the English, but the Russian short word "POWER". First, let's make a rectangle in which we "write" our word. Take a simple pencil, sheet A 4 and retreat 2.5 cm from the top, and 2 cm from the bottom, then draw straight lines. This is where we will build our word (Fig. 1).

Let's start with the letter "C". We get it like a big drop (Fig. 2).

We draw the letter “I” behind the letter “C”, we will get it at an angle (Fig. 3).

One side of the letter "L" is closely adjacent to the "I". And it also turns out at an angle (Fig. 4).

We draw the letter “A” small so that it fits on the sheet and thereby balances the drawing (Fig. 5).

We add volume to our letters (Fig. 6).

We circle the outline of the letters with a red felt-tip pen or marker (Fig. 7).

Starting to cover the font yellow, leaving white highlights, and paint over the volume with an orange marker (Fig. 8).

On the final stage we paint over a wide outline around the word with a red marker and add drops, giving life to the drawing. If you forgot to leave white highlights, you can always finish them at the final stage with white gouache or corrector.

And thus, our graffiti is ready!