a lesson on graffiti

Well, there isn't really anything you can do to learn how to tag but to practice it a lot. But practicing doesn't always work if you don't have a template. I know some of the basics, but I'm not even sure if they are. I'm evolving as I speak.

I started tagging when I was in the 8th grade (about 5 years ago) and I do it off and on. I never really done it on the walls because i'm a very spineless person hehe, plus getting caught is pretty serious in oakland. I remember hearing about some guys getting caught and they had to erase all their taggings that they ever wrote on the wall... which meant that you had to go back a long way. I dunno how they enforce it oh well.

Tagging is very much an art. To appreciate it you must first learn how to read it hehe. Thats a skill in itself. Its not easy to read it because the fact is, it is meant to be unseen to the non-tagger. In essence Peace is a lot easier to read than Graffiti. These are the 2 branches of tagging. Peace (or bubble, or whatever you call it) are the big letters in which there are spaces in between. You can say they are solids. (I myself like peace better :) Grafitti is the 2nd branch: these are the tags you see with lines. Its not that hard to tell them apart... the hard part is to read what they say.

Claiming Space: One of the reasons for tagging is to claim space. Its weird, but a lot of taggers want to claim their space. Of course I don't want people to tag on my house or anything, but I think some tags really do look cool on bland walls. A rule of tagging is to have respect for other taggers. Usually, when you see people tag, you'll see a 1 or a One or a ONE on the top right of the tag. This is to say that they are the first owners to that name. Some common names are like "Blast" and "Boom" so some people have copied them. This means they'll have to put a 2 on the top right corner instead. Actually, they just have to indicate that its the second generation owner... oh well, the new taggers ignore this rule. Another thing, when I was at Pitzer University in Claremon California, I saw something that shocked me - walls of graffiti that were allowed by the school. That doesn't make sense, because the reason people tag on walls is to defy the owners hehe. so if you let them tag on walls, its not worth as much. Anyways, beware of taggers. They are sly, quick, and nocturnal. If you're bombed (got your property tagged all over), its not my fault ^_^

A quest for 3D: Now I don't know why, but 3D stuff really looks cool. I have encountered my first sight of them when I was young. But now i see that people have really perfected it. Wow, how excitinG! I am trying to make the big jump from 2D to 3D. Of course its hard because perspective is really important. As usual adding shadows and shading are very nice (and hard). Its gonna be awhile before I understand how it works.

Added Touches: Well, theres a lot of things you can add to a plain tag. Well, all this only applies to Peacing (or Piecing, i'm not sure). Theres always shading, then theres coloring, and of course theres pictures.

Special Thanks and Shout outs I think Quoc would be my first contact with tagging. He sort of showed me that anyone can do it. Danny also showed me more about tagging, and allowed me to have a copy of his first letters. Also the last thanks goes to Brian, whom I met at summer art class. he did "William" (in the middle of the page) and helped me out a bit on tagging. Props to all the taggers out there!! ^_^

Here are some of my works, I only do my tagging on paper. And I usually do it when i'm bored, so they are done on my text books when my teachers arn't looking.