Thud & Dust

I am super stoked to have the opportunity to work with Pluto. His music has inspired me for a long time and I am always eager to hear yet another quality release. It was a pleasure to complete artwork for the Thud & Dust Drum Breaks release check it out via  Plutonic Lab 

Sketch Swap

I'm always up for a challenge so I hit up Adelaide based aerosol artist SG1 for a sketch swap. SG1 has a unique approach to three dimensional style graffiti and its always interesting to see  your own letters from a different perspective. It took me a couple of drafts before I developed a design I was satisfied with. Maintaining form and flow without cluttering the letters was an issue for me but I enjoyed the process and props to SG1 for rocking a super Sauce sketch. More to come so stay tuned folks.  

Sauce by SG1

SG1 by Sauce

Five Letters

Keep It Simple, Stupid

Welcome back to #ArtThursday! I’m glad you could make it. This week we’re getting into the nuts and bolts of the studio and talking about materials. You’ve all heard the saying a bad workman blames his materials, which is true to some extent, but mostly you get what you paid for.

When it comes to walls, murals and aerosol art, Sauce prefers to use good quality paint which will last the test of time. Which is why he prefers MTN. MTN have a great colour range and, with the Alien cans he can create some great translucent effects. Sauce has also used Montana Gold and Black and Australian made Signets. With paint, it is a matter of quality, especially when you are working with clients and painting on exterior surfaces. In the past, Sauce has experienced some supply issues as aerosols are classed as dangerous materials. This means they need to be shipped and freighted via rail or road, and all of that can lead to supply shortages at retail outlets, even if you order well in advance.

Sauce in the studio with his latest batch of supplies.

As for sketching, drawing and Blackbooks, Sauce prefers to keep it simple and low key. His Blackbooks are A4 or A5 and his latest batch came from the local office supply store. A4 is for Blackbook sketches and smaller commissions while the A5 is for large scale walls or logo designs. In the sketch books, he uses a myriad of pens and pencils and has no real brand preference. Again, this is where as an artist, he likes to keep it low key. Most designs are done in pencil with very limited use of colour. The lack of colour is usually done to save time for the client and it can be challenging to colour match pens with aerosol paints. 

Sauce’s drawing desk. Here, it’s full of reference pictures, pens, rulers and other stationary. 

No big secrets or surprises here. Just good old fashioned paint.

NB This is not a sponsored post.

Blackbook

Welcome to #artthursday! Now that I (Ainslie Rose) have editorial control over the blog (mwahaha!) I thought I would start a series which investigates the culture and practise of aerosol art. Each Thursday, I’ll talk about the different aspects of aerosol art and delve into the culture of graffiti. To start with, I’ll begin with the Blackbook.

The Blackbook in it’s simplest form is a sketchbook. It’s a dedicated book used by artists to mill over ideas and plan out designs. The exterior is usually plain black, hence the term Blackbook. They can be easily obtained from a newsagent or office supply store and usually have unlined white pages with a thicker GSM. Some aerosol paint brands associated with graffiti culture such as Montana/ MTN and Montana Colors  also carry a line of black books with their branding and some have the option of black pages for the use of metallic markers. The books are usually A4 in size, but larger versions are also available. As an artist, Sauce uses a standard A4 book, available from office supply stores and uses various pencil types for basic sketches and outlines in pen using Artline of Promarker for more complex and interesting designs. When Sauce is working on designs for clients, he prefers to keep the details simple and rarely uses colour. 

All very exciting facts, but it’s the little details which build the culture. The Blackbook (which I’ve written about before) is definitively more than a few doodles on a page and it’s more than vandals planning their next attack. Sketches are mindful mediations which are documented and journaled in the Blackbook  and it is this mindfulness which gives meaning to the graffiti piece. Now, through the mighty powers of social media, artists are sketching pieces and battling for supremacy with other artists all over the globe. When Sauce first stared dabbling and experimenting with Graff, he had a chance encounter with an old school writer, who gave him a quick sketch in Sauce’s Blackbook and it was this organic collaboration which sparked something inside Sauce and spurned him to improve his skills. It’s this type of sharing and creative process which forms the backbone of artist’s creative concepts and ideas.  

Sketches

It’s been too busy to keep track of my sketchbook lately as I have been preoccupied with back to back murals. The black book is where it all begins, putting pencil to paper and lately I have been chewing through pencils and paper.  Sometimes murals are meticulously planned and other times a rough sketch is an adequate starting point for ideas to elvolve from. I have just uploaded a stack of new sketches comprising some of the design concepts from recent murals. Here’s a taste…