It seems like everyone and their mother has made some sort of video on how to tag graffiti
or how to get better at wildstyle graffiti and unfortunately the sad reality is some of those
sources are better than others. And because i'm a strong believer that no matter how much you THINK
you know about graffiti you should always be looking to improve and learn more, and because
i want to help all of you today no matter your skill level in graffiti currently improve more at
graffiti we're going to be talking about the top five ways you can actually learn graffiti today.
Now these top five ways have been the top five ways that i personally throughout my 12
plus years in graffiti at this point have used to learn more and more about graffiti at different
times in the game. And the best part about these five ways of learning graffiti is that
they range from ones that can be used by the most beginner graffiti artists and some of them are all
the way up to very advanced general techniques you can use to learn more about graffiti. So
i'm gonna try and attach a rating out of five for how advanced a graffiti artist should be
to get the most out of each of these ways that we're talking about. So let's get right into it!
Number five: the number five way of learning graffiti is one of the most underrated and
yet totally solid ways of actually learning graffiti. And it's one that i talked about
in the most recent episode of our graffiti freight watching series. And that way is
simply looking at graffiti in person. Just simply taking the time to look at the tags the throws
the pieces (merch available below the description by the way) is a great way to learn the techniques
and artistic concepts that are fundamental to making great graffiti. And i go into this in a
lot more detail in that video that is linked but the best way to learn from looking at graffiti
is simply to look at it with the mind frame of how can i learn from this piece or throw
or tag or whatever it may be look at it with the mind frame of how can i learn from this,
why does this look good to me, what has this graffiti writer done to make this piece look
good. Now i should mention that this method of learning artistic concepts and that kind of thing
is going to be the most beneficial for the newest graffiti writers out there but i still strongly
maintain that every time i go out to the yard to look at some pieces or you know just to a free
wall or wherever i learned something new every single time. And that goes for every single time
we go out and take a look at the freights together in our freight watching series on the channel too.
The only thing is although i recommend this most for the newest of graffiti writers out there,
those graffiti writers are the same ones that i do want to caution and say that there is a
big difference between learning from a piece of graffiti and biting, right. You don't want to be
biting. You want to be learning to create NOT learning to copy. Big difference there people.
Number four: tutorials. Now tutorials are a bit of a mixed bag because you get a lot of people making
them including me on occasion and you don't get a lot of people who should actually be making them.
That's the problem here. In short, tutorials and stuff that you can find for free with easy access
can be a great tool but they also lead to a lot of opportunity for misinformation,
which i'm not a fan of obviously. One thing this method of learning graffiti does have going for
it is that you can do it from the comfort of your own home whenever you want. You can explore
relax learn about whatever concepts you want right then and there. Speaking of learning
graffiti skills this is probably a good time to tell you guys that this video today has
been generously sponsored by skillshare. If you don't know skillshare is basically a massive
online learning hub where you can pretty much learn any skill that you could possibly want to,
and if you're looking to level up your artistic knowledge like i'm always looking to do skillshare
has a class on every single artistic concept under the sun you could possibly want to learn about. If
you want to get better at photoshop but graffiti specifically, they have that. If you're like me
and you're interested in exploring character drawing to level up your graffiti pieces,
they have that. A personal interest of mine that you guys probably didn't know about is that i
dabble in the stock market pretty obsessively. And if you happen to as well i would highly
recommend you check out Zach Hartley's stock market fundamentals class after you join for a
free month of skillshare using my exclusive link in the description. It's free for the first 1000
people to check out. It'll give you a free month of skillshare where you can learn and explore
whatever you want on the platform. But anyway back to the list. Number three: the third top way to
learn graffiti is talking to local graff heads at your local free walls or graff festivals. This way
of picking up knowledge is usually best if you're at least at a high enough level that you can
ask intelligent questions about graffiti. Asking actual intelligent questions sort of establishes
your credibility a little bit and it does make it more likely that other graffiti writers are going
to want to actually talk to you. Obviously you're going to want to use your sort of social judgment
as to when it's going to be an appropriate time to strike up a conversation with another graffiti
writer, but if you do find yourself having a conversation with other graffiti writers
that's often a rare and invaluable opportunity to even inadvertently learn about what they're
thinking as they go through the process of a piece or just pick up little tidbits of knowledge that
can propel your own work ahead if you keep those in mind. You never know what you're gonna learn
by getting to hear about someone else's thought process. Just to give you an idea of how this
works, in my area there is a local free wall where a lot of writers go to do their pieces
and whatnot and it's pretty social setting. Most times if you see another writer there you'll say
hi and that's sort of aided by the fact that it's sort of in the middle of like a dog park,
so you'll get a lot of normal people walking through there that say to hell with graffiti
etiquette because they don't know what that is and they'll ask you a lot of questions. So in short
it's a pretty social environment and most people in that setting are certainly happy enough to have
a bit of a conversation with you. Not all spots are going to be like that but the more naturally
social the setting is the more likely it is that other graffiti writers and you might get into a
conversation obviously. Just don't be annoying, like if someone's trying to paint their piece
freaking just let them do that you know. There's nothing worse than you trying to
paint a piece and there's like someone looking over your shoulder and saying like hey hey.
I would just make sure that if you're a graffiti writer that's anything less
than an intermediate level you don't overuse this resource because it could come across as
annoying. In short just use good social judgment people... that shouldn't be too hard I hope.
Number two: the number two way of learning graffiti is one of the very best ways
of learning the craft in a lot of cases and that is being mentored by a seasoned graffiti artist
that really knows their stuff. If you're lucky enough to establish a good relationship
with a top-class graffiti artist who is willing to basically give you advice on a fairly regular
basis then that is great news for you my friend. Now that doesn't happen overnight and because of
that and one other factor i'm gonna mention i'm gonna say you should at least be a three out
of five sort of in the skill range for this to be a way you should learn more about graffiti.
Firstly by the time you actually establish a real relationship with other graffiti writers,
you're probably gonna have been in the game long enough that your skills will level up
to that sort of three out of five intermediate range. And the second reason i'm saying that
you should be an intermediate writer is usually a mentor is going to want to see before they start
mentoring you seriously that you already have the ability to learn. Now any mentor who has
mastered the craft of graffiti is going to be a fountain of knowledge for you and the only caution
i have with this way to improve your graffiti is make sure you're looking to the right people to
be the ones to mentor you. Without mentioning any names... i do have to say anyone who is talking
on youtube specifically or online in general about how they've mentored this person and that person
or anyone who is eager to get into mentoring is probably going to be the wrong person to look to
for graffiti advice. In my personal opinion the graffiti writers with the least amount of ego
are often the best people you can possibly learn from in a lot of different respects. And that's a
rare thing, getting the graffiti writer without the ego you know. It's unfortunate. Number one:
not everyone has a well established graffiti community in their area and i totally get that.
The town i grew up in was super small had next to no graffiti scene at all in it, but luckily
what i consider to be the very best way to learn and improve at graffiti is one that you just don't
need anyone else for or a graffiti scene of any kind really. And this method of improving and
learning graffiti should be obvious, but i get so many messages from people saying hey how's
this piece and then they'll send me another one two days later and be like hey is this better
that it obviously isn't obvious, but that way is just practice! Practice graffiti guys! And
so many of those graffiti tutorial channels out there will never tell you that that is the case or
they'll only tell you it if they're trying to be edgy or something for a video title,
but you do have to just practice and put the hours in a lot of times. And they won't tell you
that because it's a lot more desirable to hear 'if you just do this one little trick you're gonna be
better at graffiti' but that just ain't the case guys. It ain't... it never will be... never was.
But in reality what do all the best graffiti writers and artists all have in common? Yes,
it's that they all spend an inhuman number of hours practicing and refining
the craft the art of graffiti. I confirmed this when i was lucky enough a couple years ago to do
an interview with Smoe Nova - you can check that video out - and off camera after the interview i
asked him how many hours a day do you actually spend drawing or painting or whatever. And the
answer he gave me was pretty much that on a daily basis for several hours he is busy creating. And
that makes perfect sense. When you're that good it's not because you spend all day doing nothing
and the best part about this method is that no matter how good you are, this way of improving
will still give you payoff consistently over time because it's sort of like in this way you're just
competing against yourself. If any of you would like to please feel free to share down in the
comments the things that you do that help you improve the most at graffiti. The more knowledge
we can share within our little graffiti community here on the channel the better off we all are.
And if you do want to engage right now in the first way of learning and improving your graffiti
that i talked about in this video then check out the latest graffiti freight watching video
where we take a look at some of the best work on those freight lines for you. That's what is
on screen for you to check out right now. I hope to see you over there soon! Until then, peace!