And some more stuff...

Once again it has been a busy month for the CFY machine, with a series of great projects underway or completed, and a stack more booked for coming months. Below are a couple of works, with many more underway and some which still pics, more on the way!


Drug Action Week 2010 saw CFY artists on hand to make a artwork at the Hurstville mall Drug Action Week event. The theme for this year is Look After Your Mind, and the 'brain' design below entertained numerous young people who had a fun and social afternoon decorating it.


CFY Illawarra teamed up with a group of school students to produce this set of back drops for the Dulwich High School of Visual Art and Design production of The Sound Of Music, painting to a series of rough concepts designed by students and staff at the school. In spite of horrendous weather, design changes and the sheer magnitude of the Alps back drop (The pic does not do it justice, it is about 5.5m high!) all the sets were completed on time and worked perfectly during the performance.



CFY Illawarra artists were also privileged to have the use of the Street University complex at Liverpool as a venue to run a beginners aerosol art workshop for the Salvation Army. Besides helping out with space to operate at the last minute (Cheers Naomi and Matt!) it was a top opportunity to check out the space and the young people I brought along thought it was awesome. It features legal graff walls, MC and DJ production and rehearsal space, basketball and soccer court, breaking area, youth café, the list goes on and on. The Street Uni has hit on something special here, check out the space and support it if you can. I have a couple of quick phone pics below for anybody who still hasn’t seen the spot, it is really something else, and the most innovative multipurpose youth space I have seen to date, nice one!




Punchbowl Boys High has featured me as a guest mentor artists for a number of young people using aerosol and street art referenced designs for their HSC works, the guys had some great concepts which I assisted them in producing, progress shots of two interesting pieces are featured below. The series of canvases are a pop art/stencil interpratation of a series of iconic pop identities, and the table is a representation of nations at the negotiating table, and different nations all yelling over the top of one another, and they are coming up pretty good.



Verona School in Fairfield has also recently completed a new artwork in its grounds. CFY Illawarra artists facilitated students using their favourite aspects of school and elements of the logo to come up with the design, which was then painted by the group under artist supervision. Pretty cool and painted in about 3 hours flat!

CFY Illawarra is currently flat out on a series of projects across Sydney, some highlights include a number of NAIDOC week projects, more school murals, some street art outreach and more- stay tuned!

More, More, More!

CFY has been continuing on a roll, with the jobs lining up and the high turnover of projects we are now training up extra artists to facilitate work, and we look forward to the year getting even busier. The past month has seen a variety of great projects for a diverse number of clients, including some return visits and also some aerosol art activism.



Kicking off the month, May 2nd saw the launch of ‘Keep Australia Colourful’, a collective of dedicated street artists, academics, community workers and aerosol aficionados who want to promote some of the mad art that is being produced across the city in the face of initiatives such as the ‘Keep Australia Beautiful Graffiti Action Day’. Some of the CFY artists were involved, and one mural produced on the day featured in the Sydney Morning Herald (Overshadowing the efforts of the cleanup!), check out the following link, talk about some stylish thwarting! To keep up to date on future KAC projects (and there are some really interesting ones in the pipeline) check out www.keepaustraliacoulrful.org or look them up on Facebook.




The recent school holidays saw another successful workshop at Punchbowl Boys High to mural over a series of dingy walls in the playground. CFY provided the artistic support to a number of young people who volunteered their school holiday time to rock the series of nature themed murals shown below also featuring a slogan for the young gamblers in the place. The young people did a fantastic job, the entire space was completed (including a panel featuring the school log which is not shown) in approximately 4 hours, which has to be some kind of record. The young people involved didn’t stop there, managing to also rescue a bird trapped in a metal section of wall, it was a top day of fast painting, fun and good people.





In between painting jobs there is occasionally time to relax and paint, and in a rare moment of downtime CFY artists were invited to rock a wall with a young ex-workshop participant who had scored a wall and needed some extra aerosol firepower. The CFY crew were happy to get some wall space to do their thing, and after consulting with the owner who requested a flower theme and even sponsored some paint, the lads got to work. Shown below are some details of the wall, which featured bold typographic pieces intertwined with a trompe l’oeil continuing the ivy and plants across the background. The owner of the wall was stoked and we were stoked the young bloke who lined the wall up was happy with the result and the neighbourhood all came out with nothing but positive things to say.






But the down time never lasts long, and the following day it was game on with a series of art workshops at Dulwich High School Of Visual Arts and Design. The school has had CFY artists involved with a variety of projects and workshops for over 5 years, and this latest round saw CFY provide a mentor artist to help young people produce a series of artworks based on tribalism as it relates to art movements and their subcultures as young people. The students designed and then cut out of plywood a series of tribal artefacts and these were then assembled and painted. A team effort totem pole based design gave the group an opportunity to learn new skills and watch a professional aerosol artist in action, and to complete the day a signage based piece to promote the annual event and exhibition were even painted. Once again, CFY Illawarra produced a comprehensive arts programme which engaged a variety of clients and resulted in a range of great finished products.







Some time back CFY artist helped out with a series of pieces in Glebe, and when a local set of Glebe hip hop heads scored a gig at Megaphon Studios as part of ‘The Nest’ live music sessions they contacted CFY to supply a set of back drop boards to decorate the show. Painted in about an hour under extreme rain conditions on the studio rooftop the boards came up a treat and provided a cool backdrop to the performance. CFY specialises in painting fast under any conditions, and the company prides itself on the skills and professionalism involved in getting these jobs turned around in minimal time.

Latest projects... CFY machine running white hot!

Since the last CFY blog post things have been on a roll, and a heap of awesome projects are underway. A work schedule restructure by the creative director has freed up a lot availability to complete projects and bookings are flying in. If you have requested a quote please be patient, we will get to you soon! In the mean time, check a couple of the recent jobs CFY has produced below:


One of the most entertaining and fun projects has been a series of aerosol artworks with the young people at Punchbowl Boys High, incorporating ideas and designs produced in art class with aerosol technique and school logo elements. MDF, Ironlak and two hours flat with the students was all that was required to produce the work below. The work was a success both as a fast, fun art activity as well as engaging a group of young people who were at risk of opting out of school altogether. CFY prides itself on being able to work with any and all client groups, and consistently uses art to achieve great outcomes with young people who have not been engaged with existing education programs.



Redfern Community Centre also received a new piece of art for the state of the art computer space on site. Young people worked with a CFY artist to produce a fast, fun design which demonstrated the progression from tags and basic forms of aerosol work to a considered, themed piece representing ownership of their space. The result was fast, fun and looks tops.



In a rare moment of down time a Bruce Timm inspired character was some good practice for a house in Enmore, nice Jordans!

And finally, a 5 minute rendition of a legal wall owner's best friend is featured below, CFY artists are always on the lookout for more space in which to hone their skills, and quick requests are welcome if it seals the deal for getting our paint speckled hands on the wall! Got a wall that needs some colour? We love to paint and paint walls for fun, if you turn us loose on your space we can paint it for little or no cost- Get in touch!

More on our unique vehicle wraps and the latest corporate aerosol adventures

Firstly a big thanks to all the people who have been checking out the site and sending through enquiries, 2010 is shaping up to be a massive year for CFY and innovative street art and graphics in Sydney. We are trying to return all emails and enquiries as fast as possible, and of course, we are still painting flat out!

CFY Illawarra vehicle Art Wraps- The unique art system running all-city

After many requests for more info, I have below a series of sequence shots of the unique vehicle wrap system which CFY Illawarra has been using to create great rolling works of art. The set below are from the now annual Christmas Bus painting and BBQ family day at Port Botany STA depot. Here is how the process works:


CFY artists wrap the bus with a unique white sign vinyl product, trimming around lights and handles which are then masked with tape.



The design is roughed in with pencil, and blocks of colour designated, so that a large group, including many young children, can see where the different colours go. Here you see some of the parents helping out with getting the mural started with acrylic paint and brushes, however the system can also be used with aerosol media just as effectively.


When the design is completed the vehicle artwork receives a quick tidy up by the mentor artist and then it is time for a coat of heavy duty clear anti graffiti protective coating. Besides creating a great glossy finish which can handle many washes and is easily cleaned of tags and road grime the clear coat guarantees months or even years (As in the case of the original STA beach and indigenous theme youth art buses, which have been in service and looking great for around 3 years!), its pretty nasty stuff however, not a job for the participants!


After the coating is brushed and rolled on and allowed to dry over night, the vehicle has its masking tape removed and it’s time to hit the road! Using the vinyl system and allowing the vehicle to become a canvas for a unique artwork is also a great way to increase the leverage of your promotional budget. Wrapping, painting and sealing an entire bus as a group art project costs about the same as installing only a couple of square meters of conventional adhesive digital sign print. The vehicle art system is in line with all RTA regulations, does not impair the function of the vehicle in any way and when no longer required the mobile mural can be peeled off to reveal an undamaged paint job underneath.



CFY vs. The CEO’s…

On the topic of unique projects and services, for a number of years now CFY Illawarra has supplied top street artists to run workshops and teambuilding activities for Hidden Door, Sydney’s premier boutique corporate team building and experience agency.



The Hidden Door team specializes in delivering innovative services for a large range of corporate clientele, and one of their most popular programmes is the graffiti activity, which has in recent months also been combined with one of Sydney’s most amazing venues at Cockatoo Island. The sessions are awesome fun, and the novelty of watching what a bunch of senior management suits actually do when they get their hands on spray paint is hilarious, and every group leaves stoked and wanting to paint more. Check out the awesome location in which participants get to work in the traditional manner of a graffiti crew to design a team artwork, and then execute it on a removable canvas ‘wall’ which they then get to keep. Below are a set of works and action pics of previous projects, set amongst the incredible backdrops at Cockatoo Island and also on location at a number of other great sites across Sydney (Exclusive access to the some of the best 5 - Star roof tops in the city!). The CFY Illawarra crew are having a ball creating these works with some of the biggest corporations in town, to find out more or see some of the other rad experiences Hidden Door have to offer go to www.hiddendoor.com.au

CFY Illawarra work

Welcome to the CFY Blog and online portfolio. To start of with please check out some of the work below and stay tuned for regular updates as more projects are completed throught out the year.

Glebe ‘Respect’ and Enjoy Glebe’

As is evident in the before shot shown here, a number of walls in the Glebe area were looking the worse for wear and identified as sites for potential youth arts projects. NRMA funding aimed at promoting safety and harmony in the community was administered through the local Glebe Youth Service to produce a series of large scale murals.. A series of design sessions prompted local young people to develop designs which reflect a pride in the local area and the sense of identity the youth feel with their community. Under the supervision and mentoring of Stuart from CFY Illawarra a series of works were completed, the two pictured here having received fantastic support from the locals and praise for the young people involved in conceptualizing and executing these iconic murals.

Google ‘Doodle for Google’

As a component of its Australia –wide arts competition to design a themed homepage, Google hosted a day long event for the winners and finalists at Darling Harbour. CFY Illawarra staged an interactive youth aerosol arts activity which stole the show. Groups of young people could try their hand at aerosol art, with all safety equipment supplied and an expert aerosol artist on hand to assist. The company branding was maintained using CFY Illawarra’s experience in accurate signage reproduction and finished entirely in aerosol. At the end of the day after engaging dozens of young people the finishing touches were added to very popular arts activity which was then able to be taken back to head office and displayed.

Google ‘XLR8’

CFY Illawarra was also involved in producing graphics for foyer of the ‘XLR8” Asia Pacific Conference which took part at Technology Park. Complex digitally produced graphics were scaled up onto to flats on site, producing an amazingly economical and fast section of branded event signage. Shown is both the art reference and finished product, as well as a shot of the artwork serving as a backdrop for the recording of interviews of VIP’s.

Home And Away

CFY Illawarra’s diverse experience in theming, signage, aerosol art and project management saw a series of jobs completed for long running drama Home And Away. The brief required the production of ‘graffiti style’ graphics on a number of scenic flats in a fictitious youth spot ‘The Den’. The artwork included accurate scaling up of finished art and attention to job details specific to working in television, such as sourcing matt aerosols to avoid glare of gloss finished artwork. The job was completed ahead of time and projected costs at short notice, with staff very pleased with the result.

Sexual Health Week Youth Centre mural

Many of the clients of CFY Illawarra are youth agencies with a mission to provide information and referral on particular topics. The natural fascination young people have with aerosol art and the opportunity to paint an entire wall at their centre was all the incentive required to engage a number of young people with the important safe sex message. Young people who would otherwise not participate in focus groups and educational sessions were attracted to the project by the aerosol art opportunities. The designs they created are reinforcing lasting messages regarding sexual health to everyone in the centre long after sexual health week finished. CFY Illawarra is unique in that it can provide staff who are experienced qualified youth workers in addition to being expert aerosol artists. This ensures that art projects deliver targeted, informative content in line with key organisational goals and best practice in the welfare industry.

Surrealist Artwork

The artwork in this picture was the culmination of a number of different goals converging from the educational, civic and street art spheres. Dulwich High School of Visual Arts and Design have for a number of years allowed students interested in aerosol art the opportunity to work in this fun media. This includes programs in the school, such as during Art Week as a feature two day workshop and also as ongoing shorter extra curricular sessions in the Street Art Club. For this work students who had been studying surrealist art designed a mural in school, which was then executed in aerosol as part of an Art Week workshop facilitated by CFY Illawarra on site at the school. The mural was painted on large boards which were then taken and installed in a nearby laneway, beautifying an otherwise drab and neglected area. This system has been used on a number of projects by CFY Illawarra, allowing works to be created in a studio environment at the artists leisure then installed on a suitable site quickly with minimal disruption to the area.

Fish ‘School’ Wall

Although working with predominately secondary school aged young people, CFY Illawarra has also worked in a number of primary school aged projects. This wall was painted on boards by a number of young people in after school hours care, and sees the popular fish characters of a well known movie incorporated into a ‘school’ design, with a number of media from aerosol to brushes and hand prints used to complete the work. The fun and easily fixed properties of aerosol make it an ideal media to use with young people as it is immediate, novel and if they make a mistake, easily corrected. CFY Illawarra is unique amongst the many art project facilitators as it encourages artists of all ages and stages to work hands on through the project, with the process and participation valued as highly as producing a aesthetically pleasing final result.

Vehicle Art Wraps, 2007-09.

CFY developed a unique art format to produce this series of art buses, the beach scene completed by young people as part of a school competition, and the Christmas scenes as part of yearly Christmas celebrations at Port Botany STA. The process involves drawing on CFY Illawarra’s extensive sign craft experience to laminate a blank, paintable layer of substrate to the exterior of the buses, which could then be painted with conventional student acrylics or aerosols. The paintwork beneath is left undamaged, the vehicle retains complete roadworthiness and functionality, and at the end of the required run the graphics peel off easily like giant stickers. The completed artwork receives a heavy duty clear protective coating before going into service, initially guaranteed to last six months some of these unique art projects are still in service in top condition after two and a half years!

Mixing Desk

A quick job based on photo realism and Tromp L'Oeil in a friends music studio saw the creation of this life-sized sampling machine. The work took only a couple of hours and provided a very striking piece of theming for the studio foyer and the back drop for many amusing photos.

Edgeware school Mural

This wall was completed in as part of an activity in a school, aimed at combining the beautification of a neglected area of the grounds with an opportunity for a number of taggers to experience more in-depth mural creation. In one half day session participants brainstormed and discussed designs, with concessions to the school of legibility and inoffensive content allowing the students to produce a letter based ‘piece’ which works as both school promotion and a credible piece of classic graffiti style.

St George Illawarra Mural

This football themed work was a creative approach to cleaning up a repeatedly tagged wall near the team’s home ground. Young people were invited to help create the work over the space of one morning, building skills in conventional aerosol art techniques as well more traditional fonts and illustrative styles. The wall has since received little damage and the project was a far more effective and value-added use of council funds than the previous attempts at cleaning and removal.

Triple M Artworks

A major function for radio station Triple M featured a series of custom canvas flats produced by CFY Illawarra. The brief was to incorporate the orginal winged guitarist mascot and logo into a set of flats as part of the decoration of an 80’s style music event. CFY Illawarra designed, painted and manufactured these free standing artworks which once the event concluded made great one of a kind souvenirs.