Starting graffiti

This weekend, I actually went out and put up some of my art on public structures. 3 were parking meters and one was a storm drain. I used my plastic and paper mouths and also used some Sharpie and I painted on the sewer drain. I spent most of my time this week, however, on preparing for the portfolio expo, so I did not get to spend too much time on my project. I was excited to actually get my artwork up outside though.

What I Did:
4 hours putting up artwork and photographing at night and the next morning
1 hour researching things about Ann Arbor
2 hours researching paper and wheat paste artists and tips

plastic with super glue

paper with wheat paste

paint

defining the whole mouth with paint

paper with wheat paste

with eyes drawn on with Sharpie

What I Noticed:
I came back the next morning to first see if my art was still attached and I wanted to photograph my art in daylight instead of using the flash at night. All were still attached. I noticed that the parking meter that had been in the sunlight (the one with the paper open mouth) was stuck on the most because the wheat paste had totally dried to form a nice bond. The other 2 parking meters still had not dried though because they were not in the sunlight and had only been sitting in the cold all night. I tried to peel off the plastic and the paper and it was fairly easy. The paint on the sewer drain was mostly dry except for a few little spots.

I think the one that looked the best was the kissy face on the yellow parking meter, but I agree with my classmates and professors when they said that when I added the eyes with Sharpie, it was a little too overwhelming and did not need to be added. I mostly just wanted to see how Sharpie would look directly on the parking meter without having to create a whole face with it though. I think the detail that I get with the colored pencils is great and the wheat paste seems to stay on better than the super glue. Plus, when applying the wheat paste, you can brush it underneath and on top of it all over so that there is no pieces hanging off freely, unlike the superglue, which you can only cover so much of the bottom of the plastic. I think with the weather getting warmer, the paper and wheat paste graffiti will only give me better results.

Sadly, I went back to the kissy face on Wednesday and it had been removed. Even the Sharpie marker had been cleaned off, which means that it was not someone just being a jerk and taking off the paper, but it was someone who really wanted the markings off. Even though my facial features did not interfere with anything on the parking meter, somebody did not like it. I have yet to see if the others are still intact. I would be very surprised to see them remove the paint from the storm drain.

I am still trying to figure out how to connect all of my pieces. I tried looking up facts about Ann Arbor that could give me a clue as to how the spots for my pieces could connect, such as similar events that took place in the spots that I put my faces, or demographics in certain areas, but I could not find anything that I could use in my project.

Some graffiti that I have been more closely looking at is paper and wheat paste graffiti. I found that wall paper paste stays on more permanently than wheat paste. I also found that thin paper like newsprint or old blueprints work better, which is something that I figured would be true.

Pavel Puhov's "Eyeglasses"

unknown

 

 

I love both of these pieces for different reasons. Sadly, there was no information about Pavel Puhov's piece, so I do not know how it was created, especially in the snow. But I love the way the lamp post is being used. It takes a person with a lot of imagination to come up with making a lamp post into the temple of a pair of glasses, but now that he did it, it's perfectly clear, and the size of the piece is hilarious. I also really like the shark phone booth, because people have to put their head into the mouth of the shark in order to use the phone. Both of these ideas are so clever, not only in transforming these objects into different objects through graffiti, but the impact that they have is awesome, and the thought process behind them is genius.

When people walk by my pieces of art on the street, that is what I want them to think. Not only do I want them to think it is funny, but I want them to say, "wow, that is genius", or something of the sort.


What I Plan to Do Next:
I really want to come up with a creative way to tie all of my pieces together. I have been racking my brain for a while about this, but have not come up with any plan that I truly want to run with. I also want to revisit my storm drain mouth and add more detail now that the paint has probably fully dried (and is hopefully still there). Since I found out that somebody took off my face on the parking meter, it actually only makes me want to put more up to sort of retaliate. So maybe I will add more paper and wheat paste (or wallpaper paste) to other kinds of structures.

painting directly on the objects or not?

This week I have been really sick, so I did not get to accomplish as much as I would have hoped, but I did figure out a few important things.


What I Did:
1 hour getting more supplies
2.5 hours researching graffiti artists
5 hours creating plastic and paper faces to put on parking meters

What I Accomplished/Encountered/Discovered:
When I bought my paint pens, the man at the hardware store told me that painting on metal outside was going to be hard because it will take forever for it to dry, and he was right. I tried to paint on metal indoors and that even took forever. When trying to paint white on top of red, it basically ruined the white pen by making the tip forever pink. It turns out, if I want to paint on top of a different color, I will basically have to wait about a day for the underneath paint to dry. I also thought about using Sharpie markers on top of paint, but it is the same situation.

Therefore, I decided to think up a few different ways to apply faces to the structures. I traced the dimensions of the details of a parking meter, and I made mouths out of Sharpie on plastic and colored pencils on paper. I am going to attach the paper with wheat paste and the plastic with super glue onto different parking meters and I am also going to paint directly on a parking meter and possibly use Sharpie directly on one in order to find the best solution to the problem. With the paper and plastic mouths, I created both the open mouth and the lips because the surface to put the open mouth is a flat surface and the one where I would put the lips is rounded and also has indents. This will allow me to see if the plastic and/or paper fails on bumpy surfaces compared to flat ones.

With the paper, I can get the most detail, with the plastic, it will look more seamless but with a little less detail, and by painting directly on the object, I will get the least detail of all but it will look more integrated into the object and less like I just stuck it on.

There are some graffiti pieces by unknown artists that I have been looking at that involve paper and wheat paste. These pieces are found on the ground and contain an unusual content that is very surprising. The first piece with the fake money on the ground catches people off guard because one of the best surprises is to find money on the ground, but you don't usually find it. You have to get close to this piece to realize it is not real. The second piece is more surprising like my ideas where the person took an everyday object on the street and added some imagination to it.

This is another piece of street art that I found and really liked.  The artist, Anna Garforth, took an everyday object, created a face out of it, and placed it on the street. She made it into a plant holder, however, so it makes sense to put it outside. I don't know if it relates to my idea that much, but I really like how she is reusing an object, bringing more plant life outside to an area that looks like it does not have much to begin with, and she is doing it in a creative way to bring imagination and child-like pleasures to the public.

What I Plan to Do Next:

This weekend, I am going to attach my plastic and paper mouth onto parking meters, and I want to paint directly on parking meters as well to see which one works the best. I want to know exactly what my plan is for attaching these creatures to the structures for the rest of the semester.

Different experiments on different objects

What I Did:

4 hours taking more pictures outside and then drawing on them
1 hour thinking up and researching 3D objects, adhesives and paint to use
1 hour researching artists
1 hour getting supplies
3 hours cutting metal teeth, painting them, and sticking them to a parking meter
2 hours coming up with ideas on how to connect my characters

What I Accomplished/ Discovered/ Encountered:

The critique that I had today and the comments and suggestions that I got were very helpful. Everyone seemed to respond to the objects that I liked the most. Those were the objects that I spent the most time on with the drawings and the details. They were the ones that were most clever and that incorporated things from the site into the face and whose personality matched the site best. I also realized after talking with people that the ones that had the mouths integrated the best were the best solutions.

I thought adhering metal pieces would be a good solution compared to drawing directly on the object, but it was the other way around. There was also comments about making a connection with my characters so that people will know that they are done by the same person and that they want to move on to the next character. Making a bunch of different characters on different structures makes my work surprising, but having a connection between them that makes the people want to see the next one brings about suspense.

I got a few ideas on how to connect my characters, such as only drawing mouths on openings, naming my characters by placing gallery tags next to them, writing hints on where to find the next character, and an idea that I had previously was to maybe create a poem or story by giving each character a word or a line in the poem or story.  

6emeia is an artist who also makes characters from things on the street. Sewers are the main things that he uses. And not only does he draw characters, but he also creates other objects from things on the street, such as a watch made from a crosswalk line. I like how resourceful he is with the surrounding structures, such as the post becoming the cigarette. And I also like the detail that he uses as well. They are not just plain circle eyes that he draws. He really makes specific characters that have a personality.

What I Think I Will Do Next:
I want to try to draw directly onto some objects so that I can contrast it with adhering something else onto the object, like I did with the teeth on the parking meter.

Many structures downtown

What I Did:

.5 hours figuring out a reason behind parking meters
2 hours walking downtown and taking pictures of structures
2 hours drawing faces on the pictures and creating characters
1.5 hours trying different materials on metal
.5 hours thinking up ways to display work for the show
2 hours looking at related art at Wooster Collective and filthyluker.com
3 hours revising my thesis paper

Pink-Eye Lady

Nasty Sewer Man

Blind Scary Alley Guy

Crazed Robot Man

Drained Woman

Experimenting with super glue, velcro, paint, pastels, colored pencils, and Sharpie markers.

What I Accomplished/ Discovered/ Encountered:

After talking with my professors, I realized that I need to not only focus on parking meters, but other structures in the area as well. This also became apparent to me because I could not find a big connection between me and parking meters, and if that is the only I would be working with, it would seem like a confusing match. I still love the way they look with the faces that I drew on them, so I will definitely use them in my overall project, but they will not be my only thing to work with.

One thing that I found interesting when looking up information on the parking meters is that there will be an increase in rates that takes effect on the 21st of January. So I would love to transform some of the meters into angry or surprised faces on this day, but it doesn't give me much time.

For many of the structures that I took pictures of, I could see a personality in them. For instance, the metal box/vent thing in the alley was really scary, especially since it was in an alley and how the screens could be interpreted as messed up eyes. The sewer drain was creepy and nasty (because it's a sewer) but I also liked the way it could look like it has missing teeth or large gaps between the teeth. After drawing faces that correspond to the structure and the location of the structure, I feel a lot better about where my project is headed. I think the public will be able to understand the work better and will be able to relate to the personalities of the objects better.

A few ideas that I have to display my work in the final show are to display photographs of the structures and then to also display one of the structures with a face on it in the gallery. It would be cool to find out how to get a parking meter that I could display there. I also want to create a map of where the structures that I have manipulated are and possibly have a path that people can take to lead them through my community of humanized structures.

While looking up street art, I found Filthy Luker who has done a lot of similar work to mine. He or she has put faces, mostly eyes on many structures in a city setting (I am not sure where). The way his differs from mine is that his eyes are very simple cartoon style eyes that are spray painted on. I like how other parts of the object become other parts of the face, and the eyes depend on the surrounding features. I also like the 3D eyeballs that he puts in some things like bushes.

Filthy Luker, untitled

Filthy Luker, untitled

Filthy Luker, "Lightning Nose"

Filthy Luker, "Bad Hair Day"

After talking with Megan about my paper on Tuesday, I realized that like many other people's papers, mine lacked specifics, particularly on the social relevance. Since that is a huge part of my project, I figured I had better fix this in my paper. I did not explain well enough why the faces are where they are, and why it is important for them to be unexpected. When I wrote the rough draft, however, I was not at the point I am at now. So I tried to update my paper a bit in order to have it more current and to keep my intentions and goals down on paper. I think correlating the type of expression of the face with the object makes it much more apparent why the faces are where they are. Also, having the faces on many different types of structures will have them be more surprising than if they were just on parking meters or buildings. And the reason behind having them be surprising is partially having a shock value, but mostly, the more they are integrated into the structure the more surprising it will be. Also, if they are expected, then people will get bored of them, but having them surprising will get people more engaged. And the integration and site specificity are key factors in my project.


What I Think I Should Do Next:

I ordered clear stickers that I can draw on, so I want to practice drawing on these and seeing how seamless they will look on different structures. Also, my mom is bringing my jeweler saw from home this weekend, so I want to start cutting metal pieces in the shape of teeth. Then I want to use paint/Sharpie on these (which I found is the best method) to color them like teeth. I would like to create one or two faces for the parking meters by Sunday, but I am not sure if I will get my supplies in time to do so.

Finding parking meters

What I Did:
2 hours walking around downtown taking pictures of structures
2 hours researching graffiti artists
5 hours drawing on pictures
1 hour thinking how to draw on/attach things to the parking meters and other structures

What I Accomplished/Discovered/Encountered:

I realized that sticking to smaller structures other than buildings would probably be a good idea when I thought about it realistically. Walking around downtown Ann Arbor, I found a lot of items around that had sort of facial structures, but nothing got my attention more than the parking meters. It was so apparent that they had characteristics of a head and there were so many of them around. I also like the fact that parking meters are kind of becoming extinct due to the new appearance of E Park meters. It says a lot about the change of the times: that everything analog is being replaced by digital things. Due to the large number of parking meters that are still around, I knew I could make a bunch of different faces on them and make sort of a community of parking meters.

When drew on the pictures of the parking meters, I realized that I like the simplest ones the best, especially the one with the fangs and the one with the open mouth and teeth. Those are the ones that I integrated the most on the meter. Right now, my idea is to create the add-ons (the mouth, eyes, teeth, etc) previously and then sticking them on to the meter quickly so as not to get caught. My plan is to cut teeth, and possibly ears, out of metal, paint them, and then super glue them on to the meter. With the mouth and eyes, I would like to create stickers that I can stick on them. I also thought that steel wool could be a great way to make the meter look like it has hair.

During my critique today, it was suggested that I dive deeper into the history of parking meters and also that I should explore many different items in a similar space. I really liked the mailbox that I drew on as well, so I am not opposed to humanizing other objects than parking meters. I just think that parking meters will be the best objects for me to humanize. I am thinking that they will be my main object that I will work on.

What I Think I Should Do Next:
I will look around downtown more to see if there are more objects for me to humanize. I will look up the history of parking meters and maybe get some more ideas with what I could do with the faces on them. I will also try to experiment with painting on metal, making stickers, and seeing how well super glue can hold metal pieces together.

Take away points from December consultation

Key points from faculty group:

• Littering and excessive waste issues seem to be an interest of mine, but drawing faces seems to be a passion. These two things are not coming together cohesively, so I should stick to what I am passionate about, and the project will turn out better. The mere surprise factor might just be enough to fuel my project.
• Use architectural details to integrate the faces more into the architectural structures. This is key to making my project come together!
• I need to be more site specific and goal specific
• My faces are currently expressive, but they are not very informational
• Try to use different configurations of the face depending on what is present in the architecture. Don't limit myself to 2 eyes and a mouth. Maybe try to incorporate other body parts as well.
• Also, don't limit myself to a certain style. Have it be dependent on the architecture. 
• Try to experiment with text, as long as it is integrated within the architecture as well.

Implications going forward:

• First, I will take pictures of a few sites in Ann Arbor and then draw on each of these pictures as many different ways that I can to integrate facial features and body parts in order to humanize the structures.
• I will try different ways I can draw on the structures or use similar materials to the ones used to make the structure in order to create facial features and body parts that look integrated within the structure. 
• I will learn about the site and the objects that are incorporated before I take over the site with my art.
• I will try different configurations of the face and the body, not just limiting myself to 2 eyes and a mouth, and I will try different styles as well.