Be Street Art: 2015-11-22

Sidewalk Chalk

Chalk is a material made of rough subsoil for lettering especially on boards. It leaves small particles which cling to the board and can be wiped off easily.

Chalk is originally made of natural chalk, so called calcium carbonate, a fine-grained and soft form of limestone.

Nowadays sidewalk chalk is produced in Germany, Austria and Scandinavia.

Since real chalk is really expensive, sidewalk chalk is made of calcium sulfate so called gypsum or magnesium oxide. Therefore about 55 percent of chalk sold in Germany consists of gypsum.

Whether a piece of chalk exists of real chalk or not can be ascertained by the test with an acid (for example, lemon juice or vinegar): Lime decomposes to CO2 and calcium acetate. Magnesium oxide and also gypsum don't change due to the acids.

To produce colored chalk you only have to add some coloring.

Chalk is a wonderful sign medium for everybody, because it can be used on sidewalks, walls, paper and other media.

(go to source)

Chalk has an enormous significance in Streetart, because an artist can work more exactly whit a piece of chalk than for example with a spray can. That's why sidewalk chalk is often used for 3D chalk art, which is a 2-dimensional artwork drawn on the street itself that gives you a 3-dimensional optical illusion from a certain perspective. Because of the exactness it can be very breathtaking and realistic.

Many Street artists make their chalk wet before they start to paint, to make chalk sticks more colorful and more covering.

Another advantage of the chalk-art is, that the painting of walls or grounds with chalk is only a temporary change. That means that at the latest the next rain will wash the chalk-art away.

So if you want to share your critical opinion with many people, without getting into trouble with the police, you should use chalk to write a statement on the street and make it public.

Chalk artists are for example David Zinn and Kurt Wenner.

The Chalk Art Festival Denver shows which importance this type of Streetart has.

The Denver Chalk Art Festival is a FREE two-day street-painting festival, where more than 200 artists spend many hours one weekend turning the streets of Larimer Square into a museum of chalk art. Artists, sponsors and spectators find it difficult to describe the experience that the Denver Chalk Art Festival creates, with live music, featured artists and also youth challenges.
Next year it is scheduled for the 6^th and 7^th of June.

JJJ

Os Gêmeos

Octavio and Gustavo Pandolfo - Os Gêmeos

Since the late 1980s the twin brothers have been working under the name Os Gêmeos, which means "twin brothers" and stands for "one world, one voice" among other associations they make.

As children, the street and studio artists would find themselves drawing on the same sheet of paper and seamlessly completing one another’s work. At the age of 12, the brothers used many different kinds of materials for their graffiti projects – just what they had available, including car paint, latex and spray cans.

Later they were influenced by hip-hop and breakdancing and their little knowledge about graffiti culture helped them to develop their own visual vocabulary.

Os Gêmeos are no strangers to mural work; their colorful images adorn buildings in cities like Berlin, Lisbon, New York, Moscow, Athens.
In their native country Brazil they have even painted whole trains - after successfully persuading the authorities to let them do it.

Painting graffiti on the streets of their home country São Paulo, they first imitate the styles of New York City, but slowly both discovered their own style and embedding it to their work.

Today Os Gemeos' individual characters with their yellow skin and colorful clothing appear on public walls, galleries and museums around the world.

The Wynwood Walls (go to source)

For the Wynwood Walls, Os Gêmeos collaborated with Nina and Finok, two Brazilian artists they have worked with many times before, so it was an easy and comfortable process to decide what to paint. They discussed all the details and made a lot of sketches before coming to the final composition.

To understand the work of Os Gêmeos, it is necessary to allow reason to be replaced by the imaginary – so allowing ourselves to realize the fineness in the world around us. That means: to feel first and to understand later.

Streetart in...

... New York!

Nowadays New York belongs to the biggest streetart-hotspots in the world.

New York is the city, where the whole story of streetart started in the 60s: Teenagers wrote their names on walls, just with pens. That´s all.

Whereas this kind of „art“ seems very unspectacular, there was a big hype around it.

Today this kind of „Nickname writing“ is called „Tagging“. It is still a important component in the streetart scene.

Later on the tags got bigger, more creative and more colourful. The artists tried out how to draw their name even fancier than before and so the „piece“ was born. That´s what we see as a „real graffiti“: writing your name or any word in big and entwined letters on a wall.

Despite being illegal, nowadays Streetart is a part of everyday life in New York. Graffiti is painted everywhere, in every size, colour and sense. Posters and Stickers are fixed on signs, buildings or just on the street (which is usually not exactly illegal, but let´s say it´s at the edge of legality).

Many artists exhibit their art in New York. Even Banksy has been there to present some artworks and the people loved it.

But spraying isn´t illegal everywhere: there are some places like the corner Bowery/Houston Street where the graffiti has been legalized and people can meet in order to spray.

Another way to do graffiti in a legal way are the containers that got provided by the city. At so called „block partys“ these containers were painted and everyone can take part or just have a look.

Below you can see some pictures taken in New York.