29/6/2011 - Birmingham Secondary School Canvas Workshop

Today Graff Workshop attended a secondary school academy in Birmingham to do a canvas workshop during an activities week. The previous day the pupils had done drumming with bins etc and the following day they were due to go and see Stomp in London. So we took a group of around 20 in the morning and 20 in the afternoon, and they created their own canvases to keep.

A lot of workshop companies have pictures with kids who have a canvas with a pretty good piece of graffiti on it, and some pictures of the kids 'supposedly' painting it. Don't believe this when you see it. The graffiti artist would have done most of this for them, and that's not what we're about. We're about letting the kids do the work and create something themselves from start to finish. There's a time and a place for watching someone else create a piece of art for you, and a workshop at a school is not one of them. If you want participation instead of watching a demonstration then call Graff Workshop...

25/6/2011 - Birthday Party, Painting T-shirts with spray paint

Today we were asked to throw a Kid's Birthday Party. Luckily the sun was shining and we had a beautiful day to go out in the garden and paint some T-shirts. The Kids started by selecting there favourite colour and using it as a background on their t-shirts, They then drew various different shapes and patterns that were then cut out and sprayed onto the shirts in various different colours to add to the background. We then finished the T-shirts by making stencils of each child's name to be sprayed on top. All the Kid's had a great time and produced some super cool colourful shirts! - Kieran, Artist for Graff Workshop

24/6/2011, Gateway Foyer - London, Mural Workshop

We were asked to co-ordinate a workshop for the Look Ahead - Gateway Housing Project, which is sheltered accomadation for vunerable young people. The task was to teach a few residents who had never used spraypaint before in order to paint a mural in the Common room. This was part of a complete Renovation project at  Gateway, there were over 50 volunteers pulling together to give the place a much needed facelift. The session was split into two parts, we begun by discussing ideas and producing a plan for the wall, we then painted it. The girls who participated did an absolutely brilliant job, onlookers had a hard time believing they we're all complete beginners! - Kieran, Artist at Graff Workshop

20/06/2011 - Canvas Workshop at a Junior School in Chesham

This was one of the first canvas workshops that Graff Workshop did at a school. We usually do these sort of workshops for private parties, but as with most of the services Graff Workshop provides, they can be adapted to any setting. We spent the first half of the session designing and cutting the stencils, and the second half painting them and touching them up using markers, we also had a bit of time at the end to go over the positive and negative aspects of graffiti and had a discussion about whether different forms of graffiti were legal.

A good morning at the school and some very interesting canvases produced

11/06/2011 - Fairfield Junior School Mural Workshop

At Fairfield Junior School in Derby, Graff Workshop did a mural workshop. The school had picked 4 kids from each year who were the best at art to get involved and create a mural per group of four. This was a fun day and the first time Graff Workshop has gone down the 'complete freedom to paint how they want' route. As we had boards to paint instead of walls this approach was possible and the results were very good. Although the artist did use a black marker to outline some parts as the teachers needed it to look a bit more professional. It was going to be attached to exterior walls at the school, for prospective students and parents to see the following September.

Have a look at the pictures!

1/5/2011 - Site hits 1000 visits

The Graff Workshop site has recently hit 1,000 visits! Maybe at 10,000 we'll have a party or free giveaway of some sort