More Word on the Street
I wanted to build a sense of history and texture right from the start, using the raw, unpretentious brown paper as my substrate to ground the piece in something organic. I layered a rough, whitewashed background to create a stage, then came in with a brayer to roll on those distressed blocks of black ink; I love the grit and the "noise" that creates, like static or an old street poster peeling away. To balance that harshness, I introduced soft, vertical washes of mint green and pale cream, allowing the transparency of the paint to let the chaotic black textures peek through. It was important to me that the background felt lived-in and imperfect before I ever touched the brush to it for the lettering.
When I added the script, "je vous aime," I wasn't aiming for perfect calligraphy, but rather the urgent energy of the sentiment itself. I used a dual-tone approach, letting deep red and forest green stroke over and under one another to create a vibrating, almost three-dimensional effect. I played with the orientation—flipping the text upside down at the top and letting the large central loops dominate the composition—to suggest that this feeling of love is all-encompassing and a bit dizzying. The sweeping, fluid gestures of the letters act as a dance over the rigid, blocky structure beneath, creating a tension between the mechanical background and the human, emotional foreground.
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