Spray Glue

As if the fumes from a heavy usage of spray paint weren't enough... I just discovered spray glue. Well that's not entirely true. I've known of spray glue for quite some time. My brother and I once threw empty cans of it into a bonfire. Sweet explosions but you didn't learn that from me. Then I used it to mount all sorts of printed material to sheets of foam-core at a graphic design job I once had. Fun times. Now I have re-discovered it as it pertains to art, and more specifically, to really clean beautiful stencil work. Sometimes my stencils get pretty complex and there are lots of tiny little areas that I'm trying to get to lay flat so the paint won't overspray underneath them. I've used pins to hold them down, but then you have holes. I've used little pieces of gravel, but then you have a bunch of painted rocks which is lame unless you're a little kid selling them to suckers at a profit. I've tried using sticks to hold the areas down as I'm spraying, but what happens when you have say two sticks in one hand, a spray can in the other, and three areas that you need to stay put? Bad news. Enter spray glue. Props to Shepard Fairey's "Obey: Supply and Demand" book and its short stencil tutorial for the idea. Mist the back of that stencil with some spray glue, stick it to your surface and suddenly life is so much more easy! Who knew. Now you do.