Graffiti Letters with Marker on Illustration Board

I’ve never tried my hand at graffiti letters before so I decided to give it a try the other night. Lately, I’ve had an interest in street art and more specifically, street murals and I am planning on giving a large scale mural a try pretty soon but I figured to do that I need to practice up on a different type of a style. I figured I’d start with something on a smaller scale before I delve into something much larger later since I still need to get some paint and graffiti letters seemed to bee a good start.

First Try at Graffiti Letters

This is my first attempt at graffiti letters, but don’t get me wrong, I’ve been doing art for some time. Before I got started I watched some videos on graffiti artists and how they do their graffiti writing. It gave me a pretty good base on where I should get started so I took that and added what I already know with art.

Graffiti Letters Sketch

I started with a sketch in pencil, that way I could modify the piece as I go, try new ideas and not be bound to something from the first line. This is a similar process to how I do my drawings as well. I’ve done this on hot press illustration board so it had a nice and sturdy surface to work on.

Graffiti Letters Pen

After the sketch was to a point I was happy with, I commit to the lines by going over it with a thin India ink pen. This will then lead me to the next stage which is cleaning up the lines. If I leave the pencil marks there, the markers will smudge the pencil and make it look dirty which we don’t want. I like the clean graffiti writing you see on the streets and I’m trying to emulate that with marker.

Graffiti Markers

Once I have the thin pen down it’s time for markers. I wanted to use some complimentary colors and a simple one was orange and blue. Originally I was going to do orange and gray, but my gray marker was fairly old and streaking so I decided not to use that one and opted for blue instead.

Finishing Up

Once the base layers where down it was time for some details. I added the shadow to the letters and some texture by adding a slightly darker color over the marker. I then finished up with a silver paint pen so it reflects from the angle you are at. You can see it in the short video below.