Graphics

ROLL OVER BANKSY… AND APOLOGIES TO DAVE…

I have been preparing for a gallery wall, and wanted to make some of my own artwork for it as well as using existing pieces.

I had started to hunt around for original prints, and found some images I really liked, but the artists’ works are REALLY expensive, and then they would need framing and so on. So I thought I would pay homage instead and get creative for next to nothing.

I found this very cheeky artwork by Dave Buonaguidi. He has worked in advertising for over 30 years, founding St. Luke’s, the world’s first Co-operative ad agency and most recently Karmarama in 2000. In 2003 he created the iconic MAKE TEA NOT WAR poster for the anti-war march. It now is part of the collection at the V&A and hangs in the Trento museum of modern art. He loves to make work that creates a reaction. And this one really is a bit full on, but I like the text over a map.

dave-buonaguidi-i-fucking-love-this-place-munich

Obviously I needed to tone down the wording on my homage to this, I can just imagine the looks of horror from people visiting with kids if I copied the above verbatim! So this is how I made my own version by changing the working to ‘I bloody love this place’, far less brutal text than the original but still a bit cheeky and a bit ‘English’. I also have older teenage daughters who would not be offended than younger ones would be, so I think I can get away with it…. maybe… just!?

HOW TO MAKE YOUR STREET ART

I had a vintage framed map of Milan lying around in storage. It has fond memories for me as I lived there for a few months many years ago, and had a blast whilst there. So I thought it was a personal piece that I could adapt. This was going to be the base of the artwork. I carefully opened it up, and cleaned up the glass on both sides. I measured how much space I had free on the part of the print which would be visible when re-framed.

Download the free font ‘Marigold’ from fontspace.com, and then you can make any text you want and it is a lovely curly handwritten font. If you don’t want the bother of making your own document I enclose a pdf you can use but it does have my wording on it, be warned!

I then printed out my wording, in my case on A3 paper as my print is quite big. Print with black ink.

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I owned a scruffy victorian cupboard, and had used it for general dumping for a while. It looked a bit sad, so I decided to have a go at making it into something more exciting. I wanted to turn into into something that looked like a faded old french shop fitting. I found some excellent template signs at The Graphics Fairy. These are a variety of french worded signs that you can print out in reverse and use as transfers for the below method. You need to print the transfers on inkjet printers as that ink can transfer onto your chosen item.

First of all I painted the cupboard in a mixture of ‘Mizzle’ by Farrow & Ball used on the tops and door panels and ‘Duck Egg Blue’ by Annie Sloan on the sides and door frames. It looked very pristine and bright, but I was going to add coloured wax after so knew it would darken down when applied.

I then used Modge Podge, (this is a US glue product available from Hobbycraft in the UK, but you can use PVA as a substitute diluted about 2 parts water to 1 PVA). I coated the front of the transfers with it so they were saturated. This then was stuck onto the panels, smoothed on very well on the areas of font and left to dry hard overnight.

In the morning, I soaked the paper with water so it was sopping wet, and very slowly peeled it off. It leaves an imprint of the print showing the right way around. After it thoroughly dried I sanded it back to make it look faded and old, I then waxed these areas very gently with clear beeswax. I then waxed all the other areas of the piece with clear beeswax, and then rubbbed in much darker bison wax into all the cracks and crevices. This gives a patina of age and use.