Valentines Day, Banksy, Stencil Graffiti

As you know Valentines Day has been and gone and my boyfriend and I decided not to spend silly amounts of money on each other. However I did want to get him a little something and I noticed he seemed to be loving the graffiti artist Bansky at the moment. My plan was think of how I could make my own version of one of his pieces.
I thought I would have a go at embroidering the image. It’s a very clean, simple image and I knew I would have to get it right or it would look rubbish. I transferred the image onto some fabric by printing out the image onto the wrong side of some acetate and pressing the ink on to the fabric. It wasn’t 100% perfect transfer but I went round the out line with a pen to make it clearer then stitched into it with embroidery silks.
I then made a wooden frame and stretched like a canvas. He was very chuffed with it which made me happy and I might try it on a t-shirt as well as it’s one of my favourite Banksy pieces as well.

Here is what the original Banksy stencil graffiti piece looks in real life. I’m not sure where it is located but if you love stencil graffiti and you have a sense of humour just Google Banksy and look at his other work, it’s amazing.

I have also been having a go at stencil graffiti myself. I saw a great video clip on how to make them from Google-ing stencil garffiti, check it out www.metacafe.com/watch/286400/how_to_stencil_graffiti_art_101/ it was very easy to follow even if you don’t know how to use Photoshop. I had another friends birthday coming up and she loves this British comedian Justin Lee Collins so I thought I would make her a pop art style canvas print/stencil for her. It was a lot harder than I thought. You have to really simplify the image that you are going to work with on Photoshop, so I hope he is still recognisable. I did love doing this and feel there is so much potential if I have the patience cutting out the stencils, it did take quite a while. I have also included the original photo I used for you to compare, any comments would be greatly appreciated.