Spray Paint

About

Aerosol spray paint was developed in the United States around 1949, and its speed and portability soon made it ideal for marking walls. In the late 1960s teenage writers in Philadelphia and New York, among them Cornbread and TAKI 183, spread their names across their cities. By the mid-1970s whole subway cars in New York carried elaborate pieces, with Phase 2 credited for the rounded bubble letter and writers such as Blade and Dondi painting whole cars. In Paris, Blek le Rat began spraying stencils in the early 1980s, a method later taken up worldwide.

The can has its own vocabulary. Interchangeable caps give fat or skinny lines, distance from the wall controls softness, and lingering too long leaves drips. Painters outside graffiti now use spray for its haze and speed alongside brushwork. Look for feathered edges, overspray halos, sharp stencil outlines and layered fades.