ALL FOR ART & ART FOR ALL: BATHURST & QUEEN

I love graffiti. I've loved it ever since I bought Twisted Sister's album Come Out and Play, with the band standing in front of giant wall, spray-painted with the band's logo.

I've never done it, because I don't know the techniques and the tricks and I don't know anyone who can teach me. These kinds of things aren't readily available on the internet; I think graf artists are pretty secretive* about how they do what they do, not wanting the form to become more prevalent than it is already. I'm going to make it an aim to produce one piece of graffiti this summer. I'm going to work on a design and find a spot and then I'll go out one night and just do it, and hopefully not fuck up someone's wall.

Anyway, there are some spots in Toronto with some pretty incredible work, and on Sunday I went out with my camera and took some shots of a lot of the graffiti around Queen and Bathurst; there's an alley just south of Queen that is covered in amazing, detailed and very colorful graffiti, and that area is where all of these pieces can be found.

While I was there -at NOON! Broad daylight!- a group of artists were there working on a bunch of new pieces. They didn't want me to take pictures of them working (because they're criminals) but they told me that they are the ones who've done all of the work in those alleys, pretty much.

*Watching them I did pick up that they get the specific, bold lines by breaking off the plastic nozzle from their spray cans. Lesson one...

Here is a selection of my favorite pieces from the alleys there. Click on the pics to see more larger versions. Enjoy.

Some of these were too big to fit into one shot, so they're put together using multiple photos. You can see the seams if you look, but I've tried to fit them together as best as I can.

The shading on this one is incredible:

I have no idea what this says:










I'm amazed at how well these guys can do people. The feathers in the head-dress blow me away:





























"Bacon scam":