Types of Street Art - Stencils

Stencils

This is the first post belonging to our series that strives to present different types of Street Art to you.
We hope you've enjoyed everything so far and that you will equally like this new series!

Stencil made by Blek le Rat, Paris 1992

Stencil is a term for Graffiti or Streetart which are attached with templates.

The french term 'pochoir' is rather rarely used although the technique, which was initiated by Blek le Rat, had firstly been mostly used in France.

In contrast to freehand Graffito, the production of stencils is essential. They are normally made out of cardboards, plastic or laminated paper. Sometimes those templates are produced of metal or wood, because so they're suitable for more repititions. Complicated and big artefacts are mounted on thin wire mesh. Through combinating different stencils you can make multicoloured motifs. For applying the colour brushes, oilchalk and airbrush as well as sponges can be used beside the usual spray cans.

When looking at Reverse Graffiti (Def. , check out the 35 greatest works of reverse graffiti!) the colour is not even applied through the gaps of the stencil but e.g. with a high-pressure cleaner that cleans the artist's surface in order to make his intended art work appear.

One of the first stencil artists was Blek le Rat (check out his website here) who inspired lots of others, e.g. Banksy or Scott Williams to express themselves in the same way. Stenciling originated in the late 1970s in the culture of Punk, amongst other things in Amsterdam. Stencil had its first heyday in the 1980s in Paris because of Blek le Rat. He said he took the idea of this distribution of motifs from Italy where it was used for the dessemination of propaganda.

For the end, check out this quick video that shows you how to quickly and easily produce your own stencil!