Banksy + Leonardo da Vinci

The subject of my creation is a spray painted skeleton. It is a mixture of Banksy and Leonardo da Vinci. Banksy is a street artist who used stencils to spray paint symbols of important messages onto public property. He was and still is anonymous, though his work was sold in art auctions. His art was very controversial, some considered it vandalism while others saw it inspirational. I mixed banksy's stencil graffiti technique with Leonardo da Vinci's subject matter which included a lot of anatomical drawing in his notebook. That's why I decided to spray paint a skeleton. I began this project by drawing the outline of a skeleton onto hard poster paper. I took an exacto knife and cut out the pieces of the skeleton that I wanted to show up when I spray painted it. I then laid my stencil onto black paper and spray painted it. This took a few tries. First I used library glue to try to hold my stencil in place and make sure the thin ribs of the skeleton stayed flat on the paper when I spray painted. This didn't work so well because the spray paint still got under the stencil. I then tried it without anything to hold it down. I made sure to spray paint directly down on the stencil and from two feet above it. This worked a lot better! I used space in this project by focusing on the negative space when cutting out my stencil. The negative space was the only thing left on the paper after I had cut out the skeleton. The meaning behind this artwork is it is how I think Banksy would have portrayed the human body if he were making the same scientific discoveries as Leonardo Da Vinci. It relates to my life because I like street art a lot and think it is very interesting and can bring attention to important messages.

Example of Banksy's art and skull drawing from Leonardo Da Vinci's notebook