My Man's Graffiti Art

When Luke and I first got together over 12 years ago we used to sketch & draw a lot together. I was studying illustration (only for 1 year sadly)… all the while having a huge passion for art & design… while he had a massive passion for street art and skateboarding.  At nights he’d practice his graf sketches and sometimes I’d shade & color them because he wanted to learn new shading and shadowing techniques. We even made a skateboard together … he sanded back one of his own used boards and did his name as a piece and I did all the surrounding ink design. Fun memories!

We used to always keep our eyes out round our local area looking for the stand out best wall art and we found one of our favourite spots in Seaford through a mate which was trackside on the Frankston line.

Up till then…. although he loved sketching pieces and trying out new styles and ideas for lettering... he's not put spray paint to wall in a big proper piece fashion. Plans sometimes were thought up for putting them out there but none really eventuated.

Slowly through both being in full time work and having other distractions... I was in publishing and Luke started being a house/commercial painter… slowly that creative side and passion for both of us sadly petered out.

Fast forward to 2010 and I’m furiously being creative 24/7 thanks to my passion being re-ignited to a furious flame… first by my purchase of a Canon DSLR and then from finding and joining by far, the best community on the internet ► Red Bubble!

From this and my complete obsession… Luke slowly starts talking about and trying to dig out all his old pieces and sketches… I could see him wanting it back… I think especially when he saw how happy my creativeness was making me.

As if by fate Luke bumped into the guy living down the end of our street who he remembered from years back. He was in a Graffiti group called C.I. So of course Luke loved all the conversations with him… pouring over graffiti pieces watching doco’s on street art (especially in New York).

Turned out that this guy had access and permission to painting on that trackside Seaford wall that Luke always loved!! So of course he jumped at the chance when he was given permission to paint there.

Since then Luke has done 12 pieces in only 6 months!! All the time so passionate… sketching at nights… looking forward to the weekends when he can get to Seaford to paint.

And I have to say… he has a real talent for it! I’m so impressed by how good he was to start with and then how much he’s progressed in the short time he’s been doing it.

His graffiti name is Debaser... that dates back to before I knew him.

He chose it because of his favourite song called Debaser by his favourite band, The Pixies.

What do you think? Here’s the progression (I didn't include  his first 3 though) of his work up to his latest piece:

This is his romantic gesture to me... sweet huh! :)

this one (below) is my favourite.

This latest piece (below) we're both especially proud of and it's brings back some big memories.

This was a sketch Luke did when he was 20 and I coloured it in.  Luke found the sketch a few weeks ago... so it's kind of like a collaboration between us... in that we both had a hand in creating it... although he did all the hard work.

He keeps asking me to come paint with him... and I'm slowly warming to the idea... although I wouldn't do letters... I would definitely have to do an image/mural of some kind.

Will keep you posted.

Just to clarify... this is all legal :)