3 Things Toys In Graffiti Should Know!
When you first start in graffiti it can be hard to figure out where you want to take this art form. It can be even harder to find where you fit in this community. These obstacles make it easy to feel the need to “prove yourself, get respect, and get into big-name crews but in today’s video, I want to share a few tips that should help you orient yourself in the community and enjoy graffiti more as a result. If you’d like to watch the video on YouTube you can check it out here, "3 Things Graffiti Toys Need To Know”.
#1 Don’t Rush The Toy Phase
All too often new graffiti artists want to hurry up and get out of the toy phase in graffiti. In their best efforts to do so, they rush the learning prosses and as a result, they don’t learn at all, prolonging their toy phase by decades. Not to mention the fact, toys tend to get caught up in proving themselves, they worry about getting in crews, they worry about gaining people’s approval and they don’t realize that by prioritizing these things,s they make bad and foolish decisions. For example, toys will cross people out, rock crowns on their tags, and over-dedicate to crews that are no good for them. By taking a second, and focusing on your own work while ignoring the greater graffiti community you can hone your skills much faster, and surround yourself with genuine friends in the community who can actually help you.
#2 Getting Into Crews
This one is a bit strange because on one hand I always recommend going solo, and not getting into any crews unless you’re close friends with everyone in the crew. On the other hand, if you’re in a populated area with plenty of graffiti artists and you’re somewhat skilled then you may get invites with no expectation of you. These types of invites are more out of kindness and respect and can also be transactional if you’re a big-name artist. These aren't too bad to get into because you’re never expected to paint with these people, (in most cases), and you’re not expected to put the crew up. Its once again just a way for people to pay respects to you, or allow them to brag about you being in their crew assuming you’re a notable artist.
The reason I advise against crews for toys is because of the fact that crews often mean drama, and plenty of it even in legal crews. Not only that, but statistically, the people closest to you are the ones most likely to snitch and trust me they will snitch if you’re breaking the law. As if that wasn’t enough, if you happen to break the law and you’re putting up a crew then in some areas they can charge you for all of the crew’s work too. In short, avoid crews like the plague
#3 Good Tools Won’t Help
Many new artists have this idea that good high-quality tools will somehow make their work better and while sure there is a small nugget of truth to that, it’s mostly false. For example, using good paints might make your work last longer, it might make your work less drippy if you’re using spray paint, it might be easier to blend, and so on and so forth, but none of that hides your fundamental mistakes. None of that teaches you how to write letters, none of that teaches you the actual art form. Tools only augment your current skill and knowledge, so experienced artists can use low-quality tools they’re used to and still do just fine. Take Rebel here for example, he’s clearly learned the fundamentals, he’s a great writer and when he uses quality items, his work is better for it, but his work would be great regardless.
Now if you’d like to help yourself learn graffiti then be sure to check out our new book, The Ultimate Graffiti Guide Book Part 1-Fundamentals where you’ll learn all of graffiti’s basics in an easy-to-follow book. By the end of it, you’ll fully understand how to find your style, and how to keep progressing for the rest of your graffiti journey.
