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How to Graffiti

2025-09-23

On September 13, 2025, we had a workshop on graffiti. The workshop started at 1pm and took around 4 to 5 hours. Around ten people participated. The workshop was held by Marco Quade. Feel free to contact him if you want to have a graffiti workshop as well.

This page is a documentation to know how to start another spraying session on our own.

What to Buy

Paint & Nozzles

Paint and spraying utensils we bought at betterrun.shop (Leipzig based). When buying paint choose them so that you have different tones of each color: bright, "middle", dark. If you have enough money, add very dark and very bright tones. Additionally, buy much black and little less much (but still much) white. Prefer to choose more expensive colors in favor of quality. We chose for Montana Black and Loop paints following Marco's expertise.

Additionally, you need to buy nozzles. The default nozzles that come with the cans make the spray jet very wide. They are nice to fill large surfaces. We bought Montana Maclaim Skinny White-Grey Caps for very thin jets which is easier to handle for beginners and saves paint. The Montana Level 1 Cap - Ultra Skinny Cap were nice for filling medium-sized surfaces.

The order from betterrun costed around 220€.

Surface

As a surface, we decided to buy a cheap green 4x5m tarp (20€). The most important thing for the surface is that it is smooth and flat.

Alternative surfaces are e.g. canvasses. Do not use a surface like wood, which sucks in the color for "classic" graffiti. This might smear the picture, but of course you can experiment if this is a look you want to work with :).

Other Utensils

The links are amazon links, but its better to buy locally, if possible.

Buildup

During the buildup, we put the stretch film around the trees to protect them from paint.

Spraying

Introduction

Marco explaining the basics of spray painting

  • Have the index finger at the back of the nozzle (not on the top of it). This way, you can control the output of the can in an easier way.
  • First move the can and then start spraying. Otherwise, there are blobs at the start of your lines.
  • To clean the nozzle, hold the can upside down and spray. This is good to do before changing the can so the nozzle does not dry out.

After that, each participant practiced to spray

X ♡ ☺ name

to get a feeling how to handle the can.

Afterwards, everybody sketched on a sheet of paper what they wanted to paint. This could then be sketched onto the spraying surface using white or bright grey paint.

Spraying Techniques

Instead of sketching one big motive, I decided to paint multiple small ones for practice.

One thing I did was painting a simple sequence of letters. To do that, I first sketched with black, then, I filled everything with a gradient (red - orange - yellow). The border could then be drawn with black spray paint. Additionally, you can scratch away upper layers of color to set accents.

Another technique I learned was that one could just spray "some blob" of color and then use different shades to model some geometry out of it. You can figure out what you are actually painting during the painting procedure. It does not have to be clear from the start.

If you hold the can so that the jet and the spraying surface form a sharp angle, you get fade effects. This youcan even use to create hose-like objects.

The final result can be seen below.

To re-use clogged nozzles, they can be put in acetone. You then just need to wait until the color is dissolved.

Things to do Differently

  • Use another surface or rig it differently. The tarp was bent by the wind which made spraying rather complicated. However, if there is no other possibility it might still be fine. AFter all, the piece turned out well.