Graffiti & Urban Art Features
How To: Make street art stickers
For the urban artist, this video shows how to leave your own personal touch to whatever you desire via a sticker. While there is no verbal instruction, the music is relaxing and the text messages provide clear directions. Get out there and make your mark!
How To: Draw graffiti letters
In this tutorial, we learn how to draw graffiti letters. When you are drawing these letters, you will want to use as much imagination as you can. Make sure to add in your own personal flare to give each of the letters a special touch. Now, you will draw the letters making them into a large 3D letter. Add in swirls and lines to the edges of the letters to give them a wet look and then add in shading to the side to make it look darker. Add in more shading and darker outlines, then when you are ...
How To: Draw a graffiti skull spraycan character with Wizard
The spraycan is the most important tool in most graffiti artists arsenal, and is often depicted in the tags themselves. This video from graffiti master Wizard demonstrates how to draw a skull / spraycan / pimp character with a menacing sneer on its bony face and a cane in its hand. Follow this demonstration done in black marker to improve your tagging skills before you take it to the street.
How To: Make dripping ink street art
Learn how to turn your street art alive using dripping ink in motion and some basic computer equipment. Graffiti Research Lab is an amazing resource in NYC that promotes and organizes graffiti art and artists. Hats off to these guys! This video is a great watch and you don't need to be a graffiti artist to appreciate or enjoy it.
How To: Tag your name using LED light throwies
This is a complex process, but the guys at Graffiti Research Lab have armed you with detailed written instructions and this video on how to create a night writer. This is a more complicated version of their LED throwies that allows you to catch a tag in lights. You'll never need an airpline skywriter again!
How To: Draw a graffiti style hip hop cartoon character
In this tutorial, we learn how to draw a graffiti style hip hop cartoon character. First, make a circle, then draw long triangles for eyes and a mouth plus a rectangular shaped body with very large feet. Then, draw in the arms with large hands and draw a hat on the top of the head. Then, fill in the color for eyebrows and fill in the pupils. After this, outline the character with a darker pencil or a black marker and fill in details for the outfit, like pants and a long sleeved shirt. To fini...
How To: Recycle plastic bottles and make decorative flower art
In this tutorial, we learn how to recycle plastic bottles and make decorative flower art. Start out by cutting around the cap of the bottle until the body is cut off. Then, cut small slits in the bottle until it's completely cut up. From here, you will spread these out so they are opened up like petals. Take different colored plastic bottles and repeat this process. When you're finished, you will then attach these together using heat and use them as decorative art for your wall! This is great...
How To: Laser tag graffiti
Laser Tag is using lasers and projectors to tag buildings with light! This is a joint project between Graffiti Research Lab and Make Magazine's Bre Pettis. Tag with lights. It's reversible and non-destructive.
How To: Draw the word Real in graffiti bubble letters
Wizard is back to spit some knowledge on all you graffiti students out there. In this video he is demonstrating how to draw the word Real, his last name, in bubble letters with a pen. Practice this one on paper then get to tagging!
How To: Make a magic duct tape wallet with secret compartments
How can duct tape be magical? When it you turn it into a magical duct tape wallet. The "magical" part of the wallet is that it can be flipped around to reveal a secret compartment.
How To: Make bohemian hanging flowers using recycled plastic bottles
By now we all know the slogan "Reduce, Reuse, Recycle." And many of us do just that every Sunday, visiting the recyling center to dump our latest fill of glass and plastic bottles.
HowTo: Annihilate Your Enemies With Light Warfare
You may be familiar with the graffiti art practice of light painting, or light writing (1, 2, 3, 4). Essentially, it is a practice that employs the manipulation of light, photography and stop motion animation.
How To: Draw a graffiti crown
Need a little help drawing a king's crowns? In this graffiti tutorial, learn how to draw an animated crown for your next graffiti masterpiece!
How To: Draw, shade, and outline graffiti art
If you're interested in learning how to draw graffiti art, this tutorial can help you out with it. In this video, you'll find out how to draw, shade, and outline graffiti art following this video. It's easy to understand and can be practiced over and over again. So good luck and enjoy!
How To: Do basic airbrushing techniques
Basic airbrushing techniques are demonstrated in this video. These little tricks will help you master airbrushing.
How To: Draw a gangsta graffiti can character with Wizard
Spray cans are to graffiti artists what paintbrushes and paint are to artists. As a graffiti artist a spraycan is efficient because it allows you to quickly slather on a tag and then run away before the Po Po come, and also offer a sleek, rough finish.
How To: Draw a gangsta graffiti spraycan holding a gun
Just a few years back, spray cans glorified their artists, writing reputations in stone with florid colors and extreme street stylization. These days, though, graffiti artists are increasingly glorifying spray cans, the very tools of their art and, for some, livelihood.
How To: Draw the graffiti alphabet
To some, graffiti is an art form that can only be expressed on the streets to share with everyone around there. To others, it's nothing more than a stupid way to deface property and cause the city to spend thousands of dollars to clean up. Either way, it take a certain skill set to come up with some great looking graffiti. This tutorial will give those aspiring taggers or artists an idea of how to draw the alphabet graffiti style. Enjoy!
How To: Draw a graffiti skull
A pretty cool graffiti character is a skull. It is intimidating and complex to draw. Skulls have been popular tattoos and tags for decades and are a perfect symbol for anarchy.
How To: Make new Krylon spray paint cans work like old ones
Here's how to make the new Krylon cans spray like the old cans did so that you can tag, spray graffiti and do space paintings. The can's new nozzle effects how the paint sprays and can interrupt your art.
How To: Draw graffiti style people
This video drawing tutorial shows a technique for sketching out people in a style reminiscent of graffiti. This video lesson will provide inspiration from street art into your own artwork. Follow along with the demonstrator, experiment with the new ideas, and learn how to draw graffiti style people in a way you like.
How To: Spray paint a moon
This is a simple video on spray painting a moon.
News: Magical Orbs of Graffiti Light
We've seen several examples of light graffiti on WonderHowTo (1, 2, 3), but this one is truly eerily beautiful. Australian photographer Denis Smith pushes the envelope with his project Ball of Light.
How To: Get better at graffiti letter writing
Wherever you sit on the debate of graffiti, one thing is certain: it takes someone with a great sense of skill. There are so many different variations when it comes to graffiti or tagging there isn't right or wrong way. But people can tell when it comes off as sloppy and lazy so making sure it looks nice and clean is pretty important. This tutorial shows you how to get better at writing graffiti letters. Enjoy!
How To: Spray paint a space landscape
This is a detailed tutorial on dabbing, color layering and overall spray techniques for spray painting space scapes.
News: Trippy 3D Illusion Graffiti
Paper Donut is a collaborative graffiti project between Justine Ricaud and Alexis Facca. The French duo paint geometrical illusions as urban art (with the exception of the gallery installation below). They've also posted some detail shots that give you some sense of how it was done.
How To: Draw a simple spraycan character
Cholowiz13 demonstrates how to draw an anamorphic spray can character, which can inspire your own cartoon characters for any artistic purpose. Without using any words, Cholowiz13 demonstrates the creation of a cartoon spray can character by starting with the eyes and mouth. He keeps the face simple and adjusts the body of the spray can to show action while fitting the face. A few simple curves form the hands and fingers. But for the best expression, add shading (especially inside the mouth, a...
How To: Write graffiti art basics with artist Leon Rainbow
Leon Rainbow demonstrates the basics of Graffiti. Leon Rainbow is a graffiti artist here to instruct on the history and basic techniques & skills of graffiti. If you are new to graffiti, this is a good introductory video.
How To: Make a slap tag
Slap tags, or sticker tags, are faster, and less risky, than freestyle graffiti or stencil tags. You can design your slap tag, and put them up inconspicuously wherever you go. This how-to video shows an easy method for designing your slap tag, and even offers a tip on getting stickers on the cheap.
News: A Complicated Solution for a Simple Act of Vandalism
Swedish graffiti artist Akay's latest “Instrument of Mass Destruction” is Robo-Rainbow, self-described as a "complicated technical solutions to aide in a simple act of vandalism.”
How To: Draw a graffiti male character
Interested in the art of graffiti? Get started drawing in an urban graffiti style with help from this video. Learn how to draw a graffiti male character with these step-by-step instructions.
How To: Draw a goateed spraycan graffiti character with Wizard
What do you get when you comebine graffiti, a spray can, and a lean and mean street urchin? Well, according to graffiti artist Wizard, you get a very gangsta looking spray can with an arrow-shaped goatee.
How To: Draw an animated spray can toting a boom box
When it comes to drawing graffiti-inspired artwork, almost anything can be animated, from a piece of paper to, in this case, a graffiti spray can.
How To: Draw a cool graffiti character and spraycans
In one of his simpler videos, Wizard teaches us how to draw a vaguely Italian-looking graffiti character holding a spraycan in each hand. A good place to start for the novice graffiti artists among you to word on your tagging skills.
How To: Use LED throwies to add color to your neighborhood
What's an LED Throwie? Watch this video and find out how to light up your neighborhood using colorful LED's and magnets! Yet another great idea for creating neighborhood art from Graffiti Research Lab.
How To: Make a cheap, concealable "mop" for graffiti
In this tutorial, learn how to make a super cheap "mop" out of household items. This device can be carried around in your pocket so no one will see it and it is ready for tagging at a moment's notice. If you have trouble with spray cans and need a new way of writing, follow along and try and make this mini-mop.
How To: Draw a character flipping his finger
Wizard is back in the house to teach us the fine art of graffiti drawing one image at a time. In this installment, he draws us one of his standard gangster figures with both middle fingers proudly raised to the viwer and some names around the side of him. Wizard's skills are so nasty, I would rock that t-shirt the character is wearing his his name on it any day of the week.
How To: Draw a gangsta character
Graffiti master Wizard spit some more knowledge at us with only his hands, drawing a gangsta figure for a viewer named HQ in his signature style, working quickly in sharpie on graph paper to create something that the more clumsy-handed among us couldn't produce with a lifetime of effort. If you think you're up to the challenge though, copying Wizard's techniques on paper will greatly improve your skills before you take them to the streets, so that when you really want to leave your mark you w...
How To: Draw a graffiti character
In this video, we learn how to draw a graffiti character. Start out by drawing two large eyes with small pupils at the bottom of them. Next, you will draw a nose and a mouth with pointed teeth. From here, you will draw the head around this and the jaw line for the mouth. Shade in the mouth and add lines to the face, then draw graffiti letters for the name of the character right underneath it. When you draw the letters, make sure to drag the letters out to make them flare more and stand out. W...
How To: Airbrush rivets
This is how to airbrush the rivet effect.