Shine Graffiti Art

Josie Trowsdale, Youth Activities Facilitator at the Shine Project recently told us about this arty project their young people had been involved in:

‘It all started when Liz Ballard got in touch to ask if the young people would like to be involved in Lowestoft Town Hall’s renovation project and we jumped at the chance.

Once we were on board, she partnered up with Phoebe Wingate who runs a local youth arts and heritage festival every October half term, and Stane who is a local graffiti artist. The sessions were organised to run over 3 consecutive Thursdays during our Shine youth sessions and the outcome would be for the young people and Stane to design and spray paint 2 hoarding boards that would be displayed on the outside of the Town Hall for everyone to see.

The first session involved us meeting Jess Johnston (who stood in for Liz due to illness) and Stane who took us for a walk through Lowestoft High Street up to the Town Hall where we looked at some of the graffiti that other artists had done, including our replica Banksy piece!

Once we were at the Town Hall the young people were shown around some of the rooms and taken into the council chamber where they got to see the stain glass windows and details of the room which were all amazing.

For the second session at our venue, Stane ran a drawing session with the young people. They got thinking about what design they wanted for the hoarding boards and we all decided to go with the seaside as that is one of Lowestoft’s best features – one board above water and the other under water.

The group got drawing and designing different aspects of the seaside theme with Stane supporting them.

Finally, in week three, their big moment arrived and they got to do the real thing! Everything was set up by the Town Hall, two big boards and tons of spray paints in all different colours! The group were provided with protective goggles and masks and shown how to use a spray paint safely and effectively.

Once everyone was confident to get spraying, Stane began one of the big boards with a small group of young people, they then took it in turns to spray on the hoarding boards until they were complete, using different stencils and effects. Each of them also completed their own unique small board – the smaller boards were to be displayed in the council chamber for the open weekend and then the young artists will be given them back to take home and keep.

Everyone got stuck in and had a great time, an amazing opportunity for them as young people and us a project!’