I've recently decided that I'm going to try and get more hands on with my work again. I used to love stencilling before I went to uni, until everytime I did one someone would say “have you heard of Banksy?” or “is that based on Banksy?” or (...the killer...) “do you base your work on Banksy?”. I didn't even know if that guy existed when I did my first stencil! So I started trying new things and have recently become more and more dependent on my trusty Mac.
I've come to the conclusion that this needs to change again, so it's time to go back to the drawing board. I stopped following Graffiti a couple of years ago, when I decided it would be more worthwhile to find my inspiration from Designers, Typographers and Photographers. However, I did come across a couple of Graffiti artists I liked while researching more established and credit worthy (in the educational sense) practitioners.
One of my favourite photographers is Ricky Powell, and in his book 'Public Access' he has a collection of his photos doctored and manipulated by some impressive illustrators. One of these was KAWS, who now has his own label (original fake) in Japan. I love his simple and brightly coloured illustrations and he has an impressive range of Vinyl figures to his name now too (and an issue of iD based around his world)!
I recently bought some blank vinyl figures. They won't turn out anything like the ones above but it'll be a good way to get back into doing some hands on stuff.
