16/07/2011 - Norreys youth shelter, community project. Pt.1

Graff Workshop works closely with Wokingham Borough Council. This job was for the Youth Action Project and we designed and painted a mural with local youths. For the front we decided to go for a beach theme to try and brighten the park and the shelter up a bit.

This was a fun day, with some of the time spent inside designing the wall, and the second part spent outside painting. We had a huge audience by the end and everyone in the pub opposite was standing at the windows watching which was good.

Pictures coming soon, Part.2 on Saturday

14/7/2011 - We're about participation, not demonstrations. School mural workshop

Here at Graff Workshop, we seem to be heading down the education route, and we're loving it. Some Graffiti companies have gone for the private events market, some for the corporate and commission market, but we're all about education and young people.

As you can see in the title, our workshops are about participation; we don't send you an artist who paints the wall from start to finish and lets the kids watch, we send an artist who acts as a catalyst for the young people to form their own designs and idea. The artist will then show the young people how to use a spray can and give help and advice when needed.


This workshop was at a primary school in Derby. The kids in the final year were leaving and the walls in the playground needed a re-vamp so they got to leave their mark on the school before they left. They were split into five random groups of six students and were tasked with making a design relating to the school and things they had been doing recently. The themes were Art, Maths, Science, Space and Music.

Each team came up with great designs, and particular praise must go to the girl who painted the grand piano before our artist even had a chance to help her!

Graff Workshop knows how important it is for the students to have painted the wall themselves but also for the school to have a good mural on display. So our artist stayed back for half an hour to tidy up the edges, and this is how we do our workshops....oh and did we mention it was a hilarious day with a really funny group of kids.

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

23-26/5/2011 - Cromer Junior School Norfolk

This was the first four day workshop for Graff Workshop Ltd. So I stayed up in Norfolk for the week, at a nice B&B right next to the beach. It was really windy all week though so I passed on the beach idea unfortunately.

The week consisted of 8 workshops, one in the afternoon and one in the morning for 4 days straight. It was an arts week and the theme was monsters so in each workshop we created stencils for each of the group and the kid with the best design would also have theirs painted in the middle of the board.

On the third day I was asked to paint a monster onto a wall inside the school which was a nice respite from letting the kids take control of the cans all week. Overall it was a fun week, here are some photos and videos of my time there

22/05/2011 - Graff Workshop Launches Commissions page

http://www.graffworkshop.co.uk/commissions.html

Check out the new page for commissions by Graff Workshop. Now offering graphic design, bedroom murals, custom shoes, vehicle painting and for anything else graffiti related that you can think of....we have graffiti artists for hire

21/05/2011 - Commission/Jam/Workshop style job in Torquay

This job involved around 10 artists from across the country. Graff Workshop brought along Callum and Tom who were responsible for the blockbuster commissioned letters from the words 'Cockington Court Craft Centre' and 'Torquay Museum.' We had a day to do this massive wall and I think we pulled it off OK.

We decided to go for a blockbuster style with the letters breaking out of the wall as this would take around a day and look technical and professional enough without taking too long to complete.

School Mural Workshop - Yorkshire

Workshop at a school in Yorkshire, nice 3 hour drive for a 9am start again...think I need to start getting other artists to do the workshops over 150 miles away.

Anyway the day was a completely new set up as always happens in this business. I was in charge of 90 kids (the whole school!) and had to float between each classroom putting together designs from each of the kids, to be painted onto the wall in their gym which was part of a multi cultural week.

So the painting was split into four half hour groups and we managed to get these done. 

Mash Shack Completed

After many hours working on the Mash Shack, the work was done. Using spray paint, Posterman, Posca and Hardcore markers the job had quite a nice finish to it. The signs certainly have a much higher impact and are now a lot easier to read, which is always good when selling at a festival.

Quick Look around the Mash Shack Commissioned work

The Mash Shack is a converted ice cream truck that sells mash potato at festivals. Graff Workshop was asked to repaint all their signs as they expanded the mash shack for the 2010 festival season. The mash convoy consists of about three trucks all towing more trucks. From stories from Chris the owner it sounded half the trouble at festivals was just getting seen. So we had to create signs that would be immediately eye catching for the festival passers by.

To do this we kept with the yellow and purple branding which they already had, but added black outlines round the letters. This made them stand out massively and were a lot easier to read from a distance. We also made sure to use Upper and lower case fonts appropriately, with the first letter of each line in a capital and everything else in lower case. This was so people walking by..probably drunk..could easily recognise the words on the menu in front of them without too much bother, and read through as much of the menu is as shorter time as possible.

Hopefully our design ideas will add something to this years sales for the Mash Shack

News Cuttings 2011

Graff Workshop carried out a two day mural project to paint over the graffiti damaged Carnival Pool in Wokingham. It was about 0 degrees on both days but we still managed to create a solid mural which has so far seemed to deter further instances of vandalism.