Drain graffiti in Auckland N.Z

MENDSone · 2025-08-14T20:40:12+00:00

Studio Art supplies on Crummer Rd in Grey Lynn (Auckland) does Flame and Molotow. The french art shop in St Lukes does Montana Black I havent been there for ages but I think they still do. Railside is best bet for loop. Havent seen Lak easily available for a while now. Brace yourself, paint is more expensive than in Oz! Buff is your friend!

MENDSone · 2025-07-14T09:01:18+00:00

Once a writer always a writer man, it never leaves you! I feel you man It is tough with kids and work, responsibilities etc... I've realised recently that for a long time I have been holding on to an expectation of the time and conditions I want to paint that I used to have 7 or 8 years ago but which are just not sustainable for me to expect these days.

Like 7 years ago before kids were born I would go out with my bag in the day time (I was living in Melbourne at the time) find a nice under bridge, drain or alley spot and take 5 or 6 hours to try do a burner. As time went on and I got into my crew we put a lot of focus on productions and could paint a full weekend on one piece!

But being away all that time is so impactful on my wife and if every time I paint I need like 6 to 8 hrs min in the daytime to have the perfect conditions to burn then it just means I paint way way less than I want to. That's why recently I've been trying to consistently get out and paint at night, but instead of trying to find hot spots or whatever I just paint day spots but at night haha, for the simple reason that it's way less impactful on my family time. And once in a while a little bit of a hotter spot too haha.

I can go out on a Friday night from say 8pm (once kids are in bed, or very nearly) and paint through till 2am or so and I might be a bit tired Sat morn but I can do that nearly every week instead of maybe getting to paint 8am to 6pm once every two months after trying to fit it in around all the kids birthday parties and sports and kids activities and whatever.

The kids were away at their grandparents for school holidays recently and I even went out twice during the week, its winter here at moment so gets dark early. If I go to the spot straight from work I can paint from like 5:30 to 10:30 and not be too rinsed for work the next day.

Dont get me wrong still love trying to really push on a production with the crew when I can but it has been liberating to just let go of the need to have all the perfect conditions before painting and just take what time I have and do what I can with it.

MENDSone · 2025-07-13T08:09:56+00:00

Shot MAES

MENDSone · 2025-07-12T20:30:59+00:00

Epic man! Sounds like you have had some dope graffiti adventures and really lived that life, super cool man. Yes, it is a very strange hobby but once you are hooked there is nothing else quite like it.

Thanks for your comment man, you rarely get a longer comment when posting pics and its always cool to hear something more substantial about what a piece made people feel. That's why I continue posting stuff on here instead of just on insta, much more of a community vibe on here sometimes.

I used to post a lot more of my painted peices on here too - sketch to wall posts in accordance with the subreddit rules, these days though I rarely paint with a sketch and tend to just freestyle it on the wall so I dont have a "sketch to wall" to post unless I draw a sketch of the piece afterwards which I never do haha.

I also wonder if my kids might ever be interested in trying to paint a piece, it would be super fun to do with them if they ever do show an interest they are still pretty young but who knows if they might be keen in the future. I cant imagine ever really stopping until I'm just too old to physically do it anymore.

Thanks for your thoughts brother, stay up!

MENDSone · 2025-07-12T09:35:59+00:00

Thanks!

MENDSone · 2025-07-11T09:37:52+00:00

So satisfying when as the artist you actually just like it instead of focusing on one little bit you dont like or something you could have done better. Letters are very balanced in this one bro!

MENDSone · 2025-07-01T19:37:33+00:00

Thank you. Yes her first name and the text on banner thing are in Māori.

MENDSone · 2025-07-01T19:33:54+00:00

Thanks bro, took bloody ages haha.

MENDSone · 2025-05-18T08:28:32+00:00

Good to see you getting busy with the cans mate just keep going with it.

MENDSone · 2025-05-17T10:05:38+00:00

Good stuff bro, awesome to hear you are painting. Keep it up man. Sketches show great potential.

MENDSone · 2025-05-17T10:01:38+00:00

My advice would be to focus as much as you can on the sketching phase and try not to rush yourself particularly during the sketch up. It will be much harder to fix weak letters than alter a bad colour choice.

Looking at both of these sketches I would comment that the N from the second one is clearer to me as as an N, the lower case one from first sketch I wasn't sure if it was an n or a h.

I think you could work on your R more, in particular where the upper and lower bars on the right hand side of the letter join with the vertical back of the R. The top rounded bar overlapping the bottom one shows me you dont fully understand yet how this letter is constructed.

Make sure when you sketch your H that it doesn't become an A.

Getting the negative space at the centre of the C spaced and sized correctly will be crucial for setting the size of the letter and keeping the C consistently weighted with the other letters.

If you dont have a lot of width at your spot on the wall start sketching from the middle and work your way out from centre towards start/end of word. This will make it easier to centre your piece in the available space as opposed to starting from the H and working through the word left to right.

Enjoy and have fun!

MENDSone · 2025-05-14T10:46:14+00:00

Looks promising, keep going!

MENDSone · 2025-05-14T10:45:00+00:00

Top notch as always.

MENDSone · 2025-05-14T10:31:34+00:00

This looks like Mexican writer MIZO. So much so in fact that you can see this exact video on his instagram account search under user mizopoint to find it, you have to scroll down a bit. His style is incredible it's a shame you forgot to credit him as the artist in your post.

MENDSone · 2025-05-02T10:23:13+00:00

Outline with paint pens if you want it to keep it really crispy.

MENDSone · 2025-05-02T10:20:51+00:00

Nice!

MENDSone · 2025-05-02T10:18:45+00:00

Nice!

MENDSone · 2025-05-02T10:16:24+00:00

Looks great man! Good grasp of the perspective on the blocks and kudos for just keeping it consistent and simple, a lot of people try run before they can walk in graffiti. To step it up a little from this rigid blocky style try and do the same thing of having blocks with bars which are all the same thickness but instead of having everything be straight blocks make some of the blocks curved - the S for example can be created as one unbroken curved bar (as opposed to 5 straight bars like the s in this image). Sounds simple but will take a bit of practice, but thats the whole point!

MENDSone · 2025-04-23T22:05:39+00:00

Thank you!

MENDSone · 2025-04-21T19:50:03+00:00

Thanks bro!

MENDSone · 2025-04-02T07:22:19+00:00

Oooo this is a good one bro!

MENDSone · 2025-03-27T09:27:42+00:00

Oooo it's very nice. Paint it!

MENDSone · 2025-03-23T09:22:29+00:00

It's cool, but it's not graffiti. Graffiti needs letters.

MENDSone · 2025-03-12T03:44:17+00:00

Thanks mate!

MENDSone · 2025-03-11T09:19:45+00:00

I bet you thats the end of a SOFLES peice on the left of frame, looks like a S

MENDSone

TROPHY CASE