Team Cruisin' Conquerors - Week #4

This week we finally got our first taste of the bench project as reality. During this week, the long awaited Monty demonstrated how he works. We learned a lot through observation and questions. He first established his credibility by discussing, and showing us his last project—a massive, abstract mural painted on an old brick wall. His project focused on line work and color interaction; he will be using the same style for his bench. Monty does not work by recreating a draft, rather, he works with a rough idea and artistic instinct. For color choice, Monty chooses colors found in the environment surrounding the piece. As for technique, he showed us the various types of tapes and their uses. We also learned how to efficiently control overspray through utilizing different types of cardboard, rather than waste tape. We went to an extra level of protection from overspray by wrapping the the cement blocks in plastic and blue tape.

Monty demonstrating his techniques with spray paint (top) Wrapping our bench in plastic (bottom)

We finally began painting our bench the second half of the week. This mostly consisted of planning and spacing—the most important part. We had difficulty in conceptualizing the different layers and ordering of them, especially since we planned to incorporate the original color of the bench. By the end of the day we managed to lay out our design, paint over with our base color, spray the white border lines on the bottom, create the striped background behind the sun, and spray the main sun. The main sun is a good example of experimentation and creating the project as you go. Originally, two flat colors were superimposed on one another; we made the fill color into a gradient. We felt it made for a more aesthetically interesting design choice. 

Taping over the original bench to preserve the same color stripes and our altered sun design

Here we are spraying the first layer of the sun on top of a white primer coat. This layer will end up being only an outline after the second, smaller sun is sprayed on top of it. As seen in the video, we came across a difficulty: underspray. This was caused by the loss of adhesive as well as weakening of the skinnier parts of the stencil. We solved this issue by changing the fill color to a gradient so the underspray would blend in.

-Kiana Moy