Stop motion graffiti

I’m a big fan of the Dublin based graffiti artist, Maser. A couple of months ago, Maser released this stop motion video on his Facebook page detailing one particular piece of his. Pretty neato.
800 photographs, 9 hours of work, 5,000 meters – Maser walked 3.1 miles to paint this piece. Photographed and edited by Albert Hooi. Painted by Maser.

Needlepoint terrorist

I am a fan of graffiti. I feel the need to correct myself – not something a prepubescent boy has drawled across a shop front. I appreciate good graffiti and will {to the embarrassment of my brother} stop in my tracks and take a picture of a particularly good piece.
Since I am somewhat crafty, I wanted to make cross stitch that was the opposite of a typical cross stitch. I decided to combine my love of graffiti with my love of cross stitch, and began searching for ideas. I came across the Fuldesign website, which is full of designs right up my alley.
The moment I saw their Banksy Flower Terrorist piece, I had to do it. They have a downloadable PDF version {as seen below on the left}, but since it’s quite blurry and difficult to decipher, I redid the pattern in Excel {below right}.

The finished product. I framed it along with a grey mat and black frame to make it pop.

After two weeks, I was finally finished. This project was a real test of patience. It seems to go on forever, but is well worth the final product in the end. The main colors in this piece are black, with highlights of dark and light grey.
Should you like to try this cross stitch, let me know and I can e-mail the Excel pattern to you no problem. Happy stitching!

Curious to see what this looks like 5 years later? Check out my revised Banksy cross stitch here

Graffiti wallpaper

Last week I was lucky enough to be given a heads up about some graffiti wallpaper spotted in town. I happened to be passing by Gerry Keane on Talbot Street yesterday and I was able to check it out for myself.

This graffiti paper is designed by Muriva {based in Simonstone in the UK}. Entitled ‘Che Guevara’ it’s pretty self explanatory. The Che paper can be seen in a larger scale here. However, I do think this particular pattern is too obviously repetitive on a realistic scale.

To date, {off the top of my head} I haven’t heard of any graffiti wallpaper, and I’ve got to hand it to them – it’s a really good idea. I don’t know why I haven’t seen any before.
I really like the idea of this wallpaper, but maybe a version that has been toned down more to a more discrete scale. Paired with something soft, to give a strong juxtaposition between the two, I don’t see why it couldn’t be used as a feature for someone who isn’t afraid to try something out of the ordinary.