Wall Painting

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Contents 1 Wall Painting 2 WheatPasting 2.1 Cycle Pasting 3 Hobo Code 3.1 Using New Hobo Code 4 Culture Hacking 5 Original Wall Painting

[edit] Wall Painting

In many locales, you must show ID proving you are over 18 to purchase spraypaint. Laws requiring this were passed as an attempt to control both graffiti and the practice of huffing. Most bucket paints and rollers are easy to get by anyone.

Traditional spray tagging, while considered by some to be an art form, is often difficult to read and is mostly ignored by the public at large so it may not the best choice for political messages.

Make a stencil so you can leave a clear readable message, cardboard or vinyl runner both work well for a stencil and roll up easily for transportation, but be aware that it is evidence if you get caught. A team of three: painter, stencil holder, and lookout are best. Wear gloves and a long smock or disposable long sleeve apron so you can ditch them and your gear and be clean if you have to run.

[edit] WheatPasting

Wheatpasting is an effective way to stick up posters in a way that is difficult to remove by hand, quick, and inexpensive. Again collect your poster holder, lookout, and glue painter although you could get away doing this as a one person job. Of course vampire hours are best since there will be few pedestrians to witness and call in your activities. Print your poster or flyer like we show in Starting a Printing Workshop, attempting to find the most water resistant print style possible since this will be outdoors. Butcher paper is usually the strongest and cheapest media. On a nice dry week with little rain in the forecast, move out to do your deed. Summer nights are best. Cement and metal walls and poles are best for adhesion. Plastic and wood walls don't stick too well. Bridge supports on highways are great, so think about combining four or more posters for a big well seen billboard here.

You will first need to make your paste:

• Take one cup white flour.
• Add the flour to two cups of water (add rock salt if deep in winter to slow freezing).
• Bring to a boil (boiling can be skipped in a pinch but makes weaker glue).
• Reduce to a simmer for half hour (converts the starch to better glue).
• Stir and break up lumps while you simmer.
• Let cool and place in your bucket.
• Refrigerate for up to a week or just use the paste right away. Otherwise, it really starts to stink!!

(In a pinch you can use potato flake, corn starch, watered wood glue, sour milk, and many other ingredients instead of wheat to make your paste)

Now let's paste!

• Liberally paint your paste on to the surface with a soft broom, big sponge, wide paintbrush, roller, or mop.
• Apply your poster.
• Smooth past over either the edges or if possible the whole poster to both secure the edges, seal the ink, and remove bubbles.
• Once stuck down well a few razor slashes will make removal more difficult when dry.
• Move along in a random direction down streets and alleys while posting to prevent leaving a trail for the cops to follow.

Experience will teach you if making a paste seal over the whole front of the poster will cause excessive ink running. Sealing the whole poster preserves it for much longer so you might adjust your ink to match the paste.

[edit] Cycle Pasting

For cyclists the best paster setup we have seen is a hand made oversized pannier on the back filled with posters and the bucket and brush in a handlebar basket. The paste has a chance of spilling when the lid is off but a plastic shopping bag conceals and protects it from the eyes of the cops and catches the spillage. You will have to learn how to balance the handlebars, grab a poster, paste up the wall, and stick it up without making a huge mess, but once you get it down you will be unstoppable!

[edit] Hobo Code

This is an 19th and early 20th century form of wall painting updated for our modern needs and can be done in any sort of paint or medium of drawing ranging from chalk to charcoal to paint to spraypaint to scratches in the dirt or tree bark. It is a system of simple characters and pictures that each mean something pertaining to the immediate surroundings/building(s), like a Caduceus symbol means a doctor or someone of medical knowledge lives within, or an upside down triangle means that people are burned out on bums. These symbols may be used one at a time or in sequence to form a sort of sentence. The best time to leave these symbols is when you move on so others can benefit from your discoveries. Use chalk or charcoal for temporary discoveries so the rain and wind will wash it away, paint or scratch marking is good for long term discoveries. The side of the curb, the bottom corner of a building, or lower side of large rocks or sign posts are good places to leave the marks.

There is nothing secret about these marks, just like the cops know better than any stoner where to stash a joint, they will figure out the what and where of these marks again. Use your head when marking something hidden and remember we will still have more time to notice these marks on foot than a piggie in a squad car.

Good stuff for your pack if you plan to take up hobo marking: thick kids sidewalk chalk, a large paint marking pen, and a quality black indelible marker.

Here is a simple code of many of the Hobo Code symbols. Look for them when you're in a bind and you can get by without too much trouble. These are in little use a the time of the printing of this book but we expect you to help fix this. Many of these signs are new for our generation, a good idea is to print and distribute this graphic and key on the back page of your publications for underground users so the new symbols get disseminated. Realize that this is not the 1930's and people are not as generous, but as times get tougher more "normal" people will be displaced or unemployed and sympathy may improve. Interestingly enough while it was not that widely used even in the 1930's the paranoia of that time gave it a solid place in our historical memory.

[edit] Using New Hobo Code

It is a good idea to print and distribute or paste up this sign list in low rent area bathrooms, homeless shelters, and radical hangouts. You should be able to get four to six copies to a sheet of paper. Here are come clarifications beyond what is on the card (you might include these on the back of your handout)

• 3-A top-hat in place of a cat was sometimes used for kind old man
• 8-pirate radio reception here (tower with radiating skull and bones) give broadcast frequency
• 9-fangs (also sometimes shown as stick with four legs)
• 14-eyes and X both mean safe, waves for water
• 17-Rich(top hat and pile of gold)
• 20-Open wireless Internet (give ESSID)
• 21-Closed wireless (give ESSID and key code if cracked)
• 22-International Squatters symbol (ask if there is room for you) and squatter solidarity
• 24-Talk religion then beg (specify Protestant,Catholic,Mormon, etc,substitute star of David if Jewish, crescent if Muslim, etc)
• 26-Panhandling success in exchange for music, magic show, juggle, acting (hat for panhandle, horn for entertainment)
• 33-Undercover cop or informer (roof over cop symbol)
• 34-Barter accepted (music, repairs, food, problem solving, whatever is needed between two parties, make a deal)
• 36-Overloaded with tramps (locals are getting burned out) dot differentiates this from gay symbol
• 37-Dishonest person (may not pay you for work)
• 41-Homeowner is frightened and gives to us so we will leave, be alert for police activity afterward
• 42-Locals are minorities and/or are cool with the cause (won't call cops, likely to help us in need)

[edit] Culture Hacking

The other way to use spray paint is to hack signs, billboards, advertisements, etc. If done correctly, it's possible to make a sign that looks no different from the original, except that the message has changed. A good example: nearby there is a sign that says, "Abortion Kills Babies." Black lettering on a white background. A culture hacker takes two cans of paint, one white, one black. Paint over the "Abortion" part in white, using as many coats needed to cover up the black. Second, use the black paint to write your own word, like "Cheney" or "Sex," for the finished product of "Sex Kills Babies." This technique can be used anywhere, on any sign, to confuse people and make them think a bit harder than they normally do. Alternatively, one could paint over "Abortion" and the "s" in "kills" in white, to change the sign to "Kill Babies". Be creative.

[edit] Original Wall Painting

One of the best forms of free communication is painting messages on a blank wall. The message must be short and bold. You want to be able to paint it on before the pigs come and yet have it large enough so that people can see it at a distance. Cans of spray paint that you can pick up at any hardware store work best. Pick spots that have lot of traffic. Exclamation points are good for emphasis. If you are writing the same message, make a stencil. You can make a stencil that says WAR and spray it on with white paint under the word "STOP" on stop signs. You can stencil a five-pointed star and using yellow paint, spray it on the dividing line between the red and blue on all post office boxes. This simulates the flag of the National Liberation Front of Vietnam. You can stencil a marijuana leaf and using green paint, spray it over cigarette and whiskey billboards on buses and subways. The women's liberation sign with red paint is good for sexist ads. Sometimes you will wish to exhibit great daring in your choice of locations. When the Vietnamese hero Nguyen Van Troi was executed, the Viet Cong put up a poster the next day on the exact spot inside the highest security prison in the country.

Wall postering allows you to get more information before the public than a quickly scribbled slogan. Make sure the surface is smooth or finely porous. Smear the back of the poster with condensed milk, spread on with a brush, sponge, rag or your hands. Condensed milk dries very fast and hard. Also smear some on the front once the poster is up to give protection against the weather and busy fingers that like to pull at corners. Wallpaper pastes also work quickly and efficiently. It's best to work both painting and postering at night with a look-out. This way you can work the best spots without being harassed by the pig patrol, which is usually unappreciative of Great Art.