View allAll Photos Tagged Marking
Graffiti is art that is written, painted or drawn on a wall or other surface, usually without permission and within public view. Graffiti ranges from simple written words to elaborate wall paintings, and has existed since ancient times, with examples dating back to ancient Egypt, ancient Greece, and the Roman Empire.
Graffiti is a controversial subject. In most countries, marking or painting property without permission is considered by property owners and civic authorities as defacement and vandalism, which is a punishable crime, citing the use of graffiti by street gangs to mark territory or to serve as an indicator of gang-related activities. Graffiti has become visualized as a growing urban "problem" for many cities in industrialized nations, spreading from the New York City subway system and Philadelphia in the early 1970s to the rest of the United States and Europe and other world regions
"Graffiti" (usually both singular and plural) and the rare singular form "graffito" are from the Italian word graffiato ("scratched"). The term "graffiti" is used in art history for works of art produced by scratching a design into a surface. A related term is "sgraffito", which involves scratching through one layer of pigment to reveal another beneath it. This technique was primarily used by potters who would glaze their wares and then scratch a design into them. In ancient times graffiti were carved on walls with a sharp object, although sometimes chalk or coal were used. The word originates from Greek γράφειν—graphein—meaning "to write".
The term graffiti originally referred to the inscriptions, figure drawings, and such, found on the walls of ancient sepulchres or ruins, as in the Catacombs of Rome or at Pompeii. Historically, these writings were not considered vanadlism, which today is considered part of the definition of graffiti.
The only known source of the Safaitic language, an ancient form of Arabic, is from graffiti: inscriptions scratched on to the surface of rocks and boulders in the predominantly basalt desert of southern Syria, eastern Jordan and northern Saudi Arabia. Safaitic dates from the first century BC to the fourth century AD.
Some of the oldest cave paintings in the world are 40,000 year old ones found in Australia. The oldest written graffiti was found in ancient Rome around 2500 years ago. Most graffiti from the time was boasts about sexual experiences Graffiti in Ancient Rome was a form of communication, and was not considered vandalism.
Ancient tourists visiting the 5th-century citadel at Sigiriya in Sri Lanka write their names and commentary over the "mirror wall", adding up to over 1800 individual graffiti produced there between the 6th and 18th centuries. Most of the graffiti refer to the frescoes of semi-nude females found there. One reads:
Wet with cool dew drops
fragrant with perfume from the flowers
came the gentle breeze
jasmine and water lily
dance in the spring sunshine
side-long glances
of the golden-hued ladies
stab into my thoughts
heaven itself cannot take my mind
as it has been captivated by one lass
among the five hundred I have seen here.
Among the ancient political graffiti examples were Arab satirist poems. Yazid al-Himyari, an Umayyad Arab and Persian poet, was most known for writing his political poetry on the walls between Sajistan and Basra, manifesting a strong hatred towards the Umayyad regime and its walis, and people used to read and circulate them very widely.
Graffiti, known as Tacherons, were frequently scratched on Romanesque Scandinavian church walls. When Renaissance artists such as Pinturicchio, Raphael, Michelangelo, Ghirlandaio, or Filippino Lippi descended into the ruins of Nero's Domus Aurea, they carved or painted their names and returned to initiate the grottesche style of decoration.
There are also examples of graffiti occurring in American history, such as Independence Rock, a national landmark along the Oregon Trail.
Later, French soldiers carved their names on monuments during the Napoleonic campaign of Egypt in the 1790s. Lord Byron's survives on one of the columns of the Temple of Poseidon at Cape Sounion in Attica, Greece.
The oldest known example of graffiti "monikers" found on traincars created by hobos and railworkers since the late 1800s. The Bozo Texino monikers were documented by filmmaker Bill Daniel in his 2005 film, Who is Bozo Texino?.
In World War II, an inscription on a wall at the fortress of Verdun was seen as an illustration of the US response twice in a generation to the wrongs of the Old World:
During World War II and for decades after, the phrase "Kilroy was here" with an accompanying illustration was widespread throughout the world, due to its use by American troops and ultimately filtering into American popular culture. Shortly after the death of Charlie Parker (nicknamed "Yardbird" or "Bird"), graffiti began appearing around New York with the words "Bird Lives".
Modern graffiti art has its origins with young people in 1960s and 70s in New York City and Philadelphia. Tags were the first form of stylised contemporary graffiti. Eventually, throw-ups and pieces evolved with the desire to create larger art. Writers used spray paint and other kind of materials to leave tags or to create images on the sides subway trains. and eventually moved into the city after the NYC metro began to buy new trains and paint over graffiti.
While the art had many advocates and appreciators—including the cultural critic Norman Mailer—others, including New York City mayor Ed Koch, considered it to be defacement of public property, and saw it as a form of public blight. The ‘taggers’ called what they did ‘writing’—though an important 1974 essay by Mailer referred to it using the term ‘graffiti.’
Contemporary graffiti style has been heavily influenced by hip hop culture and the myriad international styles derived from Philadelphia and New York City Subway graffiti; however, there are many other traditions of notable graffiti in the twentieth century. Graffiti have long appeared on building walls, in latrines, railroad boxcars, subways, and bridges.
An early graffito outside of New York or Philadelphia was the inscription in London reading "Clapton is God" in reference to the guitarist Eric Clapton. Creating the cult of the guitar hero, the phrase was spray-painted by an admirer on a wall in an Islington, north London in the autumn of 1967. The graffito was captured in a photograph, in which a dog is urinating on the wall.
Films like Style Wars in the 80s depicting famous writers such as Skeme, Dondi, MinOne, and ZEPHYR reinforced graffiti's role within New York's emerging hip-hop culture. Although many officers of the New York City Police Department found this film to be controversial, Style Wars is still recognized as the most prolific film representation of what was going on within the young hip hop culture of the early 1980s. Fab 5 Freddy and Futura 2000 took hip hop graffiti to Paris and London as part of the New York City Rap Tour in 1983
Commercialization and entrance into mainstream pop culture
Main article: Commercial graffiti
With the popularity and legitimization of graffiti has come a level of commercialization. In 2001, computer giant IBM launched an advertising campaign in Chicago and San Francisco which involved people spray painting on sidewalks a peace symbol, a heart, and a penguin (Linux mascot), to represent "Peace, Love, and Linux." IBM paid Chicago and San Francisco collectively US$120,000 for punitive damages and clean-up costs.
In 2005, a similar ad campaign was launched by Sony and executed by its advertising agency in New York, Chicago, Atlanta, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, and Miami, to market its handheld PSP gaming system. In this campaign, taking notice of the legal problems of the IBM campaign, Sony paid building owners for the rights to paint on their buildings "a collection of dizzy-eyed urban kids playing with the PSP as if it were a skateboard, a paddle, or a rocking horse".
Tristan Manco wrote that Brazil "boasts a unique and particularly rich, graffiti scene ... [earning] it an international reputation as the place to go for artistic inspiration". Graffiti "flourishes in every conceivable space in Brazil's cities". Artistic parallels "are often drawn between the energy of São Paulo today and 1970s New York". The "sprawling metropolis", of São Paulo has "become the new shrine to graffiti"; Manco alludes to "poverty and unemployment ... [and] the epic struggles and conditions of the country's marginalised peoples", and to "Brazil's chronic poverty", as the main engines that "have fuelled a vibrant graffiti culture". In world terms, Brazil has "one of the most uneven distributions of income. Laws and taxes change frequently". Such factors, Manco argues, contribute to a very fluid society, riven with those economic divisions and social tensions that underpin and feed the "folkloric vandalism and an urban sport for the disenfranchised", that is South American graffiti art.
Prominent Brazilian writers include Os Gêmeos, Boleta, Nunca, Nina, Speto, Tikka, and T.Freak. Their artistic success and involvement in commercial design ventures has highlighted divisions within the Brazilian graffiti community between adherents of the cruder transgressive form of pichação and the more conventionally artistic values of the practitioners of grafite.
Graffiti in the Middle East has emerged slowly, with taggers operating in Egypt, Lebanon, the Gulf countries like Bahrain or the United Arab Emirates, Israel, and in Iran. The major Iranian newspaper Hamshahri has published two articles on illegal writers in the city with photographic coverage of Iranian artist A1one's works on Tehran walls. Tokyo-based design magazine, PingMag, has interviewed A1one and featured photographs of his work. The Israeli West Bank barrier has become a site for graffiti, reminiscent in this sense of the Berlin Wall. Many writers in Israel come from other places around the globe, such as JUIF from Los Angeles and DEVIONE from London. The religious reference "נ נח נחמ נחמן מאומן" ("Na Nach Nachma Nachman Meuman") is commonly seen in graffiti around Israel.
Graffiti has played an important role within the street art scene in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), especially following the events of the Arab Spring of 2011 or the Sudanese Revolution of 2018/19. Graffiti is a tool of expression in the context of conflict in the region, allowing people to raise their voices politically and socially. Famous street artist Banksy has had an important effect in the street art scene in the MENA area, especially in Palestine where some of his works are located in the West Bank barrier and Bethlehem.
There are also a large number of graffiti influences in Southeast Asian countries that mostly come from modern Western culture, such as Malaysia, where graffiti have long been a common sight in Malaysia's capital city, Kuala Lumpur. Since 2010, the country has begun hosting a street festival to encourage all generations and people from all walks of life to enjoy and encourage Malaysian street culture.
The modern-day graffitists can be found with an arsenal of various materials that allow for a successful production of a piece. This includes such techniques as scribing. However, spray paint in aerosol cans is the number one medium for graffiti. From this commodity comes different styles, technique, and abilities to form master works of graffiti. Spray paint can be found at hardware and art stores and comes in virtually every color.
Stencil graffiti is created by cutting out shapes and designs in a stiff material (such as cardboard or subject folders) to form an overall design or image. The stencil is then placed on the "canvas" gently and with quick, easy strokes of the aerosol can, the image begins to appear on the intended surface.
Some of the first examples were created in 1981 by artists Blek le Rat in Paris, in 1982 by Jef Aerosol in Tours (France); by 1985 stencils had appeared in other cities including New York City, Sydney, and Melbourne, where they were documented by American photographer Charles Gatewood and Australian photographer Rennie Ellis
Tagging is the practice of someone spray-painting "their name, initial or logo onto a public surface" in a handstyle unique to the writer. Tags were the first form of modern graffiti.
Modern graffiti art often incorporates additional arts and technologies. For example, Graffiti Research Lab has encouraged the use of projected images and magnetic light-emitting diodes (throwies) as new media for graffitists. yarnbombing is another recent form of graffiti. Yarnbombers occasionally target previous graffiti for modification, which had been avoided among the majority of graffitists.
Theories on the use of graffiti by avant-garde artists have a history dating back at least to the Asger Jorn, who in 1962 painting declared in a graffiti-like gesture "the avant-garde won't give up"
Many contemporary analysts and even art critics have begun to see artistic value in some graffiti and to recognize it as a form of public art. According to many art researchers, particularly in the Netherlands and in Los Angeles, that type of public art is, in fact an effective tool of social emancipation or, in the achievement of a political goal
In times of conflict, such murals have offered a means of communication and self-expression for members of these socially, ethnically, or racially divided communities, and have proven themselves as effective tools in establishing dialog and thus, of addressing cleavages in the long run. The Berlin Wall was also extensively covered by graffiti reflecting social pressures relating to the oppressive Soviet rule over the GDR.
Many artists involved with graffiti are also concerned with the similar activity of stenciling. Essentially, this entails stenciling a print of one or more colors using spray-paint. Recognized while exhibiting and publishing several of her coloured stencils and paintings portraying the Sri Lankan Civil War and urban Britain in the early 2000s, graffitists Mathangi Arulpragasam, aka M.I.A., has also become known for integrating her imagery of political violence into her music videos for singles "Galang" and "Bucky Done Gun", and her cover art. Stickers of her artwork also often appear around places such as London in Brick Lane, stuck to lamp posts and street signs, she having become a muse for other graffitists and painters worldwide in cities including Seville.
Graffitist believes that art should be on display for everyone in the public eye or in plain sight, not hidden away in a museum or a gallery. Art should color the streets, not the inside of some building. Graffiti is a form of art that cannot be owned or bought. It does not last forever, it is temporary, yet one of a kind. It is a form of self promotion for the artist that can be displayed anywhere form sidewalks, roofs, subways, building wall, etc. Art to them is for everyone and should be showed to everyone for free.
Graffiti is a way of communicating and a way of expressing what one feels in the moment. It is both art and a functional thing that can warn people of something or inform people of something. However, graffiti is to some people a form of art, but to some a form of vandalism. And many graffitists choose to protect their identities and remain anonymous or to hinder prosecution.
With the commercialization of graffiti (and hip hop in general), in most cases, even with legally painted "graffiti" art, graffitists tend to choose anonymity. This may be attributed to various reasons or a combination of reasons. Graffiti still remains the one of four hip hop elements that is not considered "performance art" despite the image of the "singing and dancing star" that sells hip hop culture to the mainstream. Being a graphic form of art, it might also be said that many graffitists still fall in the category of the introverted archetypal artist.
Banksy is one of the world's most notorious and popular street artists who continues to remain faceless in today's society. He is known for his political, anti-war stencil art mainly in Bristol, England, but his work may be seen anywhere from Los Angeles to Palestine. In the UK, Banksy is the most recognizable icon for this cultural artistic movement and keeps his identity a secret to avoid arrest. Much of Banksy's artwork may be seen around the streets of London and surrounding suburbs, although he has painted pictures throughout the world, including the Middle East, where he has painted on Israel's controversial West Bank barrier with satirical images of life on the other side. One depicted a hole in the wall with an idyllic beach, while another shows a mountain landscape on the other side. A number of exhibitions also have taken place since 2000, and recent works of art have fetched vast sums of money. Banksy's art is a prime example of the classic controversy: vandalism vs. art. Art supporters endorse his work distributed in urban areas as pieces of art and some councils, such as Bristol and Islington, have officially protected them, while officials of other areas have deemed his work to be vandalism and have removed it.
Pixnit is another artist who chooses to keep her identity from the general public. Her work focuses on beauty and design aspects of graffiti as opposed to Banksy's anti-government shock value. Her paintings are often of flower designs above shops and stores in her local urban area of Cambridge, Massachusetts. Some store owners endorse her work and encourage others to do similar work as well. "One of the pieces was left up above Steve's Kitchen, because it looks pretty awesome"- Erin Scott, the manager of New England Comics in Allston, Massachusetts.
Graffiti artists may become offended if photographs of their art are published in a commercial context without their permission. In March 2020, the Finnish graffiti artist Psyke expressed his displeasure at the newspaper Ilta-Sanomat publishing a photograph of a Peugeot 208 in an article about new cars, with his graffiti prominently shown on the background. The artist claims he does not want his art being used in commercial context, not even if he were to receive compensation.
Territorial graffiti marks urban neighborhoods with tags and logos to differentiate certain groups from others. These images are meant to show outsiders a stern look at whose turf is whose. The subject matter of gang-related graffiti consists of cryptic symbols and initials strictly fashioned with unique calligraphies. Gang members use graffiti to designate membership throughout the gang, to differentiate rivals and associates and, most commonly, to mark borders which are both territorial and ideological.
Graffiti has been used as a means of advertising both legally and illegally. Bronx-based TATS CRU has made a name for themselves doing legal advertising campaigns for companies such as Coca-Cola, McDonald's, Toyota, and MTV. In the UK, Covent Garden's Boxfresh used stencil images of a Zapatista revolutionary in the hopes that cross referencing would promote their store.
Smirnoff hired artists to use reverse graffiti (the use of high pressure hoses to clean dirty surfaces to leave a clean image in the surrounding dirt) to increase awareness of their product.
Graffiti often has a reputation as part of a subculture that rebels against authority, although the considerations of the practitioners often diverge and can relate to a wide range of attitudes. It can express a political practice and can form just one tool in an array of resistance techniques. One early example includes the anarcho-punk band Crass, who conducted a campaign of stenciling anti-war, anarchist, feminist, and anti-consumerist messages throughout the London Underground system during the late 1970s and early 1980s. In Amsterdam graffiti was a major part of the punk scene. The city was covered with names such as "De Zoot", "Vendex", and "Dr Rat". To document the graffiti a punk magazine was started that was called Gallery Anus. So when hip hop came to Europe in the early 1980s there was already a vibrant graffiti culture.
The student protests and general strike of May 1968 saw Paris bedecked in revolutionary, anarchistic, and situationist slogans such as L'ennui est contre-révolutionnaire ("Boredom is counterrevolutionary") and Lisez moins, vivez plus ("Read less, live more"). While not exhaustive, the graffiti gave a sense of the 'millenarian' and rebellious spirit, tempered with a good deal of verbal wit, of the strikers.
I think graffiti writing is a way of defining what our generation is like. Excuse the French, we're not a bunch of p---- artists. Traditionally artists have been considered soft and mellow people, a little bit kooky. Maybe we're a little bit more like pirates that way. We defend our territory, whatever space we steal to paint on, we defend it fiercely.
The developments of graffiti art which took place in art galleries and colleges as well as "on the street" or "underground", contributed to the resurfacing in the 1990s of a far more overtly politicized art form in the subvertising, culture jamming, or tactical media movements. These movements or styles tend to classify the artists by their relationship to their social and economic contexts, since, in most countries, graffiti art remains illegal in many forms except when using non-permanent paint. Since the 1990s with the rise of Street Art, a growing number of artists are switching to non-permanent paints and non-traditional forms of painting.
Contemporary practitioners, accordingly, have varied and often conflicting practices. Some individuals, such as Alexander Brener, have used the medium to politicize other art forms, and have used the prison sentences enforced on them as a means of further protest. The practices of anonymous groups and individuals also vary widely, and practitioners by no means always agree with each other's practices. For example, the anti-capitalist art group the Space Hijackers did a piece in 2004 about the contradiction between the capitalistic elements of Banksy and his use of political imagery.
Berlin human rights activist Irmela Mensah-Schramm has received global media attention and numerous awards for her 35-year campaign of effacing neo-Nazi and other right-wing extremist graffiti throughout Germany, often by altering hate speech in humorous ways.
In Serbian capital, Belgrade, the graffiti depicting a uniformed former general of Serb army and war criminal, convicted at ICTY for war crimes and crimes against humanity, including genocide and ethnic cleansing in Bosnian War, Ratko Mladić, appeared in a military salute alongside the words "General, thank to your mother". Aleks Eror, Berlin-based journalist, explains how "veneration of historical and wartime figures" through street art is not a new phenomenon in the region of former Yugoslavia, and that "in most cases is firmly focused on the future, rather than retelling the past". Eror is not only analyst pointing to danger of such an expressions for the region's future. In a long expose on the subject of Bosnian genocide denial, at Balkan Diskurs magazine and multimedia platform website, Kristina Gadže and Taylor Whitsell referred to these experiences as a young generations' "cultural heritage", in which young are being exposed to celebration and affirmation of war-criminals as part of their "formal education" and "inheritance".
There are numerous examples of genocide denial through celebration and affirmation of war criminals throughout the region of Western Balkans inhabited by Serbs using this form of artistic expression. Several more of these graffiti are found in Serbian capital, and many more across Serbia and Bosnian and Herzegovinian administrative entity, Republika Srpska, which is the ethnic Serbian majority enclave. Critics point that Serbia as a state, is willing to defend the mural of convicted war criminal, and have no intention to react on cases of genocide denial, noting that Interior Minister of Serbia, Aleksandar Vulin decision to ban any gathering with an intent to remove the mural, with the deployment of riot police, sends the message of "tacit endorsement". Consequently, on 9 November 2021, Serbian heavy police in riot gear, with graffiti creators and their supporters, blocked the access to the mural to prevent human rights groups and other activists to paint over it and mark the International Day Against Fascism and Antisemitism in that way, and even arrested two civic activist for throwing eggs at the graffiti.
Graffiti may also be used as an offensive expression. This form of graffiti may be difficult to identify, as it is mostly removed by the local authority (as councils which have adopted strategies of criminalization also strive to remove graffiti quickly). Therefore, existing racist graffiti is mostly more subtle and at first sight, not easily recognized as "racist". It can then be understood only if one knows the relevant "local code" (social, historical, political, temporal, and spatial), which is seen as heteroglot and thus a 'unique set of conditions' in a cultural context.
A spatial code for example, could be that there is a certain youth group in an area that is engaging heavily in racist activities. So, for residents (knowing the local code), a graffiti containing only the name or abbreviation of this gang already is a racist expression, reminding the offended people of their gang activities. Also a graffiti is in most cases, the herald of more serious criminal activity to come. A person who does not know these gang activities would not be able to recognize the meaning of this graffiti. Also if a tag of this youth group or gang is placed on a building occupied by asylum seekers, for example, its racist character is even stronger.
By making the graffiti less explicit (as adapted to social and legal constraints), these drawings are less likely to be removed, but do not lose their threatening and offensive character.
Elsewhere, activists in Russia have used painted caricatures of local officials with their mouths as potholes, to show their anger about the poor state of the roads. In Manchester, England, a graffitists painted obscene images around potholes, which often resulted in them being repaired within 48 hours.
In the early 1980s, the first art galleries to show graffitists to the public were Fashion Moda in the Bronx, Now Gallery and Fun Gallery, both in the East Village, Manhattan.
A 2006 exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum displayed graffiti as an art form that began in New York's outer boroughs and reached great heights in the early 1980s with the work of Crash, Lee, Daze, Keith Haring, and Jean-Michel Basquiat. It displayed 22 works by New York graffitists, including Crash, Daze, and Lady Pink. In an article about the exhibition in the magazine Time Out, curator Charlotta Kotik said that she hoped the exhibition would cause viewers to rethink their assumptions about graffiti.
From the 1970s onwards, Burhan Doğançay photographed urban walls all over the world; these he then archived for use as sources of inspiration for his painterly works. The project today known as "Walls of the World" grew beyond even his own expectations and comprises about 30,000 individual images. It spans a period of 40 years across five continents and 114 countries. In 1982, photographs from this project comprised a one-man exhibition titled "Les murs murmurent, ils crient, ils chantent ..." (The walls whisper, shout and sing ...) at the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris.
In Australia, art historians have judged some local graffiti of sufficient creative merit to rank them firmly within the arts. Oxford University Press's art history text Australian Painting 1788–2000 concludes with a long discussion of graffiti's key place within contemporary visual culture, including the work of several Australian practitioners.
Between March and April 2009, 150 artists exhibited 300 pieces of graffiti at the Grand Palais in Paris.
Spray paint has many negative environmental effects. The paint contains toxic chemicals, and the can uses volatile hydrocarbon gases to spray the paint onto a surface.
Volatile organic compound (VOC) leads to ground level ozone formation and most of graffiti related emissions are VOCs. A 2010 paper estimates 4,862 tons of VOCs were released in the United States in activities related to graffiti.
In China, Mao Zedong in the 1920s used revolutionary slogans and paintings in public places to galvanize the country's communist movement.
Based on different national conditions, many people believe that China's attitude towards Graffiti is fierce, but in fact, according to Lance Crayon in his film Spray Paint Beijing: Graffiti in the Capital of China, Graffiti is generally accepted in Beijing, with artists not seeing much police interference. Political and religiously sensitive graffiti, however, is not allowed.
In Hong Kong, Tsang Tsou Choi was known as the King of Kowloon for his calligraphy graffiti over many years, in which he claimed ownership of the area. Now some of his work is preserved officially.
In Taiwan, the government has made some concessions to graffitists. Since 2005 they have been allowed to freely display their work along some sections of riverside retaining walls in designated "Graffiti Zones". From 2007, Taipei's department of cultural affairs also began permitting graffiti on fences around major public construction sites. Department head Yong-ping Lee (李永萍) stated, "We will promote graffiti starting with the public sector, and then later in the private sector too. It's our goal to beautify the city with graffiti". The government later helped organize a graffiti contest in Ximending, a popular shopping district. graffitists caught working outside of these designated areas still face fines up to NT$6,000 under a department of environmental protection regulation. However, Taiwanese authorities can be relatively lenient, one veteran police officer stating anonymously, "Unless someone complains about vandalism, we won't get involved. We don't go after it proactively."
In 1993, after several expensive cars in Singapore were spray-painted, the police arrested a student from the Singapore American School, Michael P. Fay, questioned him, and subsequently charged him with vandalism. Fay pleaded guilty to vandalizing a car in addition to stealing road signs. Under the 1966 Vandalism Act of Singapore, originally passed to curb the spread of communist graffiti in Singapore, the court sentenced him to four months in jail, a fine of S$3,500 (US$2,233), and a caning. The New York Times ran several editorials and op-eds that condemned the punishment and called on the American public to flood the Singaporean embassy with protests. Although the Singapore government received many calls for clemency, Fay's caning took place in Singapore on 5 May 1994. Fay had originally received a sentence of six strokes of the cane, but the presiding president of Singapore, Ong Teng Cheong, agreed to reduce his caning sentence to four lashes.
In South Korea, Park Jung-soo was fined two million South Korean won by the Seoul Central District Court for spray-painting a rat on posters of the G-20 Summit a few days before the event in November 2011. Park alleged that the initial in "G-20" sounds like the Korean word for "rat", but Korean government prosecutors alleged that Park was making a derogatory statement about the president of South Korea, Lee Myung-bak, the host of the summit. This case led to public outcry and debate on the lack of government tolerance and in support of freedom of expression. The court ruled that the painting, "an ominous creature like a rat" amounts to "an organized criminal activity" and upheld the fine while denying the prosecution's request for imprisonment for Park.
In Europe, community cleaning squads have responded to graffiti, in some cases with reckless abandon, as when in 1992 in France a local Scout group, attempting to remove modern graffiti, damaged two prehistoric paintings of bison in the Cave of Mayrière supérieure near the French village of Bruniquel in Tarn-et-Garonne, earning them the 1992 Ig Nobel Prize in archeology.
In September 2006, the European Parliament directed the European Commission to create urban environment policies to prevent and eliminate dirt, litter, graffiti, animal excrement, and excessive noise from domestic and vehicular music systems in European cities, along with other concerns over urban life.
In Budapest, Hungary, both a city-backed movement called I Love Budapest and a special police division tackle the problem, including the provision of approved areas.
The Anti-social Behaviour Act 2003 became Britain's latest anti-graffiti legislation. In August 2004, the Keep Britain Tidy campaign issued a press release calling for zero tolerance of graffiti and supporting proposals such as issuing "on the spot" fines to graffiti offenders and banning the sale of aerosol paint to anyone under the age of 16. The press release also condemned the use of graffiti images in advertising and in music videos, arguing that real-world experience of graffiti stood far removed from its often-portrayed "cool" or "edgy'" image.
To back the campaign, 123 Members of Parliament (MPs) (including then Prime Minister Tony Blair), signed a charter which stated: "Graffiti is not art, it's crime. On behalf of my constituents, I will do all I can to rid our community of this problem."
In the UK, city councils have the power to take action against the owner of any property that has been defaced under the Anti-social Behaviour Act 2003 (as amended by the Clean Neighbourhoods and Environment Act 2005) or, in certain cases, the Highways Act. This is often used against owners of property that are complacent in allowing protective boards to be defaced so long as the property is not damaged.
In July 2008, a conspiracy charge was used to convict graffitists for the first time. After a three-month police surveillance operation, nine members of the DPM crew were convicted of conspiracy to commit criminal damage costing at least £1 million. Five of them received prison sentences, ranging from eighteen months to two years. The unprecedented scale of the investigation and the severity of the sentences rekindled public debate over whether graffiti should be considered art or crime.
Some councils, like those of Stroud and Loerrach, provide approved areas in the town where graffitists can showcase their talents, including underpasses, car parks, and walls that might otherwise prove a target for the "spray and run".
Graffiti Tunnel, University of Sydney at Camperdown (2009)
In an effort to reduce vandalism, many cities in Australia have designated walls or areas exclusively for use by graffitists. One early example is the "Graffiti Tunnel" located at the Camperdown Campus of the University of Sydney, which is available for use by any student at the university to tag, advertise, poster, and paint. Advocates of this idea suggest that this discourages petty vandalism yet encourages artists to take their time and produce great art, without worry of being caught or arrested for vandalism or trespassing.[108][109] Others disagree with this approach, arguing that the presence of legal graffiti walls does not demonstrably reduce illegal graffiti elsewhere. Some local government areas throughout Australia have introduced "anti-graffiti squads", who clean graffiti in the area, and such crews as BCW (Buffers Can't Win) have taken steps to keep one step ahead of local graffiti cleaners.
Many state governments have banned the sale or possession of spray paint to those under the age of 18 (age of majority). However, a number of local governments in Victoria have taken steps to recognize the cultural heritage value of some examples of graffiti, such as prominent political graffiti. Tough new graffiti laws have been introduced in Australia with fines of up to A$26,000 and two years in prison.
Melbourne is a prominent graffiti city of Australia with many of its lanes being tourist attractions, such as Hosier Lane in particular, a popular destination for photographers, wedding photography, and backdrops for corporate print advertising. The Lonely Planet travel guide cites Melbourne's street as a major attraction. All forms of graffiti, including sticker art, poster, stencil art, and wheatpasting, can be found in many places throughout the city. Prominent street art precincts include; Fitzroy, Collingwood, Northcote, Brunswick, St. Kilda, and the CBD, where stencil and sticker art is prominent. As one moves farther away from the city, mostly along suburban train lines, graffiti tags become more prominent. Many international artists such as Banksy have left their work in Melbourne and in early 2008 a perspex screen was installed to prevent a Banksy stencil art piece from being destroyed, it has survived since 2003 through the respect of local street artists avoiding posting over it, although it has recently had paint tipped over it.
In February 2008 Helen Clark, the New Zealand prime minister at that time, announced a government crackdown on tagging and other forms of graffiti vandalism, describing it as a destructive crime representing an invasion of public and private property. New legislation subsequently adopted included a ban on the sale of paint spray cans to persons under 18 and increases in maximum fines for the offence from NZ$200 to NZ$2,000 or extended community service. The issue of tagging become a widely debated one following an incident in Auckland during January 2008 in which a middle-aged property owner stabbed one of two teenage taggers to death and was subsequently convicted of manslaughter.
Graffiti databases have increased in the past decade because they allow vandalism incidents to be fully documented against an offender and help the police and prosecution charge and prosecute offenders for multiple counts of vandalism. They also provide law enforcement the ability to rapidly search for an offender's moniker or tag in a simple, effective, and comprehensive way. These systems can also help track costs of damage to a city to help allocate an anti-graffiti budget. The theory is that when an offender is caught putting up graffiti, they are not just charged with one count of vandalism; they can be held accountable for all the other damage for which they are responsible. This has two main benefits for law enforcement. One, it sends a signal to the offenders that their vandalism is being tracked. Two, a city can seek restitution from offenders for all the damage that they have committed, not merely a single incident. These systems give law enforcement personnel real-time, street-level intelligence that allows them not only to focus on the worst graffiti offenders and their damage, but also to monitor potential gang violence that is associated with the graffiti.
Many restrictions of civil gang injunctions are designed to help address and protect the physical environment and limit graffiti. Provisions of gang injunctions include things such as restricting the possession of marker pens, spray paint cans, or other sharp objects capable of defacing private or public property; spray painting, or marking with marker pens, scratching, applying stickers, or otherwise applying graffiti on any public or private property, including, but not limited to the street, alley, residences, block walls, and fences, vehicles or any other real or personal property. Some injunctions contain wording that restricts damaging or vandalizing both public and private property, including but not limited to any vehicle, light fixture, door, fence, wall, gate, window, building, street sign, utility box, telephone box, tree, or power pole.
To help address many of these issues, many local jurisdictions have set up graffiti abatement hotlines, where citizens can call in and report vandalism and have it removed. San Diego's hotline receives more than 5,000 calls per year, in addition to reporting the graffiti, callers can learn more about prevention. One of the complaints about these hotlines is the response time; there is often a lag time between a property owner calling about the graffiti and its removal. The length of delay should be a consideration for any jurisdiction planning on operating a hotline. Local jurisdictions must convince the callers that their complaint of vandalism will be a priority and cleaned off right away. If the jurisdiction does not have the resources to respond to complaints in a timely manner, the value of the hotline diminishes. Crews must be able to respond to individual service calls made to the graffiti hotline as well as focus on cleanup near schools, parks, and major intersections and transit routes to have the biggest impact. Some cities offer a reward for information leading to the arrest and prosecution of suspects for tagging or graffiti related vandalism. The amount of the reward is based on the information provided, and the action taken.
When police obtain search warrants in connection with a vandalism investigation, they are often seeking judicial approval to look for items such as cans of spray paint and nozzles from other kinds of aerosol sprays; etching tools, or other sharp or pointed objects, which could be used to etch or scratch glass and other hard surfaces; permanent marking pens, markers, or paint sticks; evidence of membership or affiliation with any gang or tagging crew; paraphernalia including any reference to "(tagger's name)"; any drawings, writing, objects, or graffiti depicting taggers' names, initials, logos, monikers, slogans, or any mention of tagging crew membership; and any newspaper clippings relating to graffiti crime.
I visited the CAF SoCal museum this past weekend. still going through the images of what I shot. The CAF is the Commemorative Air Force museum. They have a bunch of old WWII Navy & Army Air Corp/ Air Force planes...
Olympus E-PM1 + Fujian 35mm f1.7
Shot in RAW, processed with Filterstorm & Snapseed
A member of Wessex Archaeology's Finds Department identifying and marking animal bones using a fountain pen.
via Playground Markings UK bit.ly/1R7dyCp
I liked a @YouTube video from @sports_surfaces bit.ly/1LqOBSA Sport England Play Area Renovation Cumbria
Copyright © Stephen Day, all rights reserved.
It is an offence under law if you remove my copyright marking, or post this image anywhere else without my express written permission
I discovered these markings on the wall of an underpass that had been flooded. Numerous snails were present on the concrete walls and, presumably, made the snail trails seen here.
Looks a bit like the back of a circuit board or tapestry.
How it came to be:
This model was initially inspired by a "what if" illustration of a Westland Wyvern in Russian markings (which looked disturbingly realistic...). I have always been fascinated by this brutal construction on the thin line between the prop and jet age, and building one had been a vague plan for a long time. But instead trying to get my hands on a Trumpeter Wyvern in 1:72 I thought: well, if I was going "what if", then I could also build the plane from scratch.
While browsing sources and older Hobby Japan issues, I came across the Sanka and Skyly fighters from Bandai - and things fell together. Why not build a fighter in the post-WWII look of "The Sky Crawlers"?
The construction:
The kit was constructed as a kitbashing, with some scratch elements added. Design benchmark was the Westland Wyvern, but the Skyly J2 also had some influence, as well as various turboprop prototype of the US Navy, esp. the Ryan "Darkshark".
What went into this model:
North American F-86 Sabre (1:72, Hobby Boss):
- Fuselage
- Cockpit interior
- Canopy
Vought F4U-5 Corsair (1:72; Revell):
- Wings
- Landing gear & wheels
- Antennae
Mitsubishi A6M Zero (1:72 , Hasegawa)
- Engine cowl
Gloster Meteor NF.11 (1:72, Xtrakit/Matchbox):
- Vertical fin & horizontal stabilizers
Other smaller donations:(
- McDonnell Douglas F-18A Hornet (1:72, Italieri):
Turboprop spinners (= drop tank halves)
- Martin B-26 Marauder (1x Matchbox, 1x Airfix): Propeller blades
- McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom (1:72, Matchbox):
RAF reconnaissance pod
- Grumman F9 Panther: underwing hardpoints
- Kamov Ka-34 "Hokum" (1:72, ESCI): jet exhaust bulges
- WWII pilot figure from an unknown Airfix kit
Building the thing went pretty straightforward. F-86 hull and the Mitsubishi Zero engine cowl were glued together and four coats of NC putty melted the into one. Only a small slit between fuselage and propeller was left open as an air intake for the turboprop engine.
The Corsair wings were taken right out fo the box and could be merged with only minor modifications. On the upper side of the wing/body intersection, bulges for the jet exhaust pipes were added on the fuselage flanks (they were intended to end behind the wings' trailing edge), they consist of parts of the engine pods of a Kamov Ka-34 "Hokum" kit from ESCI. Later, the fuselage was drilled open at their ends and sunk exhaust funnels added - simple polystyrene pipes of 6mm diameter.
A similar pipe was vertically fitted into the fuselage at the plane's CG, for in-flight display (photography purposes).
The cruciform tail comes from an Xtrakit Gloster Meteor NF.11. Originally I planned just to replace the Sabre tail with the complete Meteor tail cone, but the latter turned out to be too slim! As an emergency remedy, I only used the the Meteor's fin and cut away the original jet exhaust of the Sabre - replacing it with a new, fatter tail cone which was built with parts from an RAF F-4 reconnaissance pod from a Matchbox kit (and lots of putty, though). The result is a rather massive tail which reminds of a Mitsubishi Zero's shape, but overall the lines blend well.
The contraprops were built from scratch, and for photography purposes I built tweo specimen: one with propeller blades for static display, and the other one with two clear plastic discs, as if the propellers were running full speed. The base for both is a drop tank from an Italieri F-18 Hornet kit. For the static contraprop, this base was even cut in two and an axis fitted - the propeller is actually fully functional! Its propeller blades come from B-26 Marauder kits and were fitted with reversed pitches, so that the contra-rotating construction would be realistic. Inside of the fuselage, a plastic pipe was used as an adapter for both propellers, making the easily interchangeable.
Even though weapon hardpoints were added, the remained empty - even though my construction looks rather like an attack plane, I wanted to keep a clean air-to-air look and leave a clear view onto the very good Corsair landing gear. The latter was taken 1.1 from the donation kit, just the rear wheel was modified (w/o arresting hook) and a respective compartment cut out of the tail cone.
Livery and markings:
Another subject which was rather difficult. With "whif" planes, you easily end up with prominent markings and camouflage schemes - many such kits bear a Luft'46 look. While this would have been a nice option, I also considered Russian markings (on a pure Aluminum livery or a simple green/light blue cammo scheme). Even painting the whole thing dark blue and adding some white stars would have been a plausible option.
But for a special twist, I wanted to "catch" the retro but subtly colourful spirit of The Sky Crawlers, avoiding a retro-Luftwaffe look. First idea was something that would have looked like an USAF Mustang in late WWII: lower side bare metal, upper sides olive drab and some flashy colours on the spinner, wings and tail. But then I remembered "something different".
The final paint scheme was heavily derived from a rather weird livery which the P-47M "Thunderbolts" from the 63rd fighter squadron, 56th fighter group, 8th Air Force, based in the UK in the final WWII months. Those machines wore a bluish-grey two-tone camouflage on the upper sides, with bare metal undersides. The wings leading edges would be bare metal, too, the engine adorned with a red band and the vertical rudder would be blue. Pretty unique - and AFAIK there's even an airworthy P-47 in this guise around in the USA, flown/kept up by the Confederate Air Force historic flight. This specific machine was actually the benchmark for my paint scheme, because its colours are rather bright.
I more or less sticked to the P-47 paint scheme, just raised the bare metal undersides on the flanks and used brighter colors. These are:
- Testors #1562 "Flat Light Blue"
- Testors #2074 "RLM24 Dunkelblau"
- Testors #1401 "Aluminum Plate" Metallizer
All interior surfaces were painted with RLM02 from Testors, the spinner is plain Testors #1103 "Red". The white stripes were cut from a plain white decal sheet from TL Modellbau, the red insignia are actually French WWII squadron markings in 1:48 scale - also aftermarket pieces from Peddinghaus Decals. Stencelling and bort numbers come from the scrap box.
With the overall exotic shape and cammo scheme, I decided to leave other markings simple and rather neutral – no shark mouth or nose art, even though there would have been plenty of space for such a detail. But I think it would distract too much, and AFAIK no plane in The Sky Crawlers bears such flashy decoration.
The kit was lightly weathered with thinned black paint and some dry painting with shades of grey, plus gun smoke and exhaust fumes with dry-painted black. Everything was sealed under a thin coat of semi-matte varnish.
Final words:
This thing looks disturbingly realistic and plausible, even in its bright livery! While the finish is not perfect (hey, it is scratchbuilt!), the Fafnir (named after a German mythical dragon) really looks like a project from the late 40ies, one of the final high end fighters with a propeller. I am rather surprised how good the result became, and it is exciting to see how such a project evolves step by step, only with a vague idea as a basis. Won't be the last kitbashing!
A small clip of coyotes marking the area. They were lying down as a bobcat ran by. They both got up on alert because of the bobcat. I wish I got the bobcat too but it was only about 6 feet from me and behind a fence. The bobcat disappeared in a flash. I used the Canon R1 withe the RF 100-300mm with the 2x resting on a fence post.
On YouTube
via Playground Markings UK bit.ly/1ZTQLAj
"First primate model can help researchers to study mother-to-fetus CMV infections"
Markings; 20th Tactical Fighter Wing, 77th Tactical Fighter Squadron, RAF Upper Heyford, United Kingdom, 1992
My friend Nick Marking in his natural surrounding at Blooming Hill Vineyard.
Taken with Canon 200mm F2.8 L USM lens
via Playground Markings UK bit.ly/1FX7lTH
"Higher doses of hydrocortisone not linked to neurodevelopmental impairments in low birth weight..."
From the Classical Era through the 20th century, before the invention of the interwebs, people communicated with each other over long distances and even greater spaces of time by making markings on convenient flat surfaces such as clay tablets, animal skins, or a forest product called "paper." Because these markings could be arranged to represent words, and those words could be organized into ideas, they were thought very useful and versatile. For example, they were sometimes composed in such a way as to communicate a personal message (called a "letter"), transfer money via a third party to a named person or entity (called "paying the bills," done by "writing checks"), or even tell a story (sometimes called "literature," if the story was a good one).
Depending on the era, a remarkable proportion of the population was able to communicate via such markings (or "literate"), and since one of governments' chief functions was to organize their movement (called "the mail"), they often built large and ornate buildings (called "post offices") to facilitate this activity. Today some people contend that the work that was done in these buildings was carried out by snails, but that is only a whimsical urban legend. It instead seems that in the period of transition during which the use of these markings was becoming obsolete, their movement was increasingly viewed as cumbersome and slow, giving rise to the term "snail mail."
Above, the Socialist Modernist Central Post Office in Plovdiv (1970s). During construction of the massive building the 1st century Roman Forum (foreground) was discovered and partially excavated. The building is still in use but is decaying and much of it is empty or repurposed. When we arrived the whole area seemed to have been taken over temporarily by Coca Cola, since it was lined with banners and youths passing out free cokes. Central Post Office, Plovdiv, Bulgaria.
via Playground Markings UK bit.ly/1X0rDsJ
Hampshire Tennis Court – Non Slip Acrylic Coating - YouTube bit.ly/1MDvZvC
via Playground Markings UK bit.ly/25IvU62
Key Stage 2 Play Area Design in Llangunllo #KS2 #Play #Surface #Designs #Llangunllo bit.ly/1RVTGEu
RAF Supermarine Spitfire MkIXB G-ASJV MH434 ZD-B in the markings of 222 Squadron
The most famous of all Spitfires still flying today, MH434 was built in 1943 at Vickers, Castle Bromwich. This Spitfire is remarkably original, having never been subject to a re-build
Photo taken at the Imperial War Museum Duxford Cambridgeshire 14th September 2024
Battle Of Britain Air Show
DAH_0804
via Playground Markings UK bit.ly/1Q1dJ5l
"Wider geographic sharing of pediatric donor lungs can increase transplant rates for young U.S...."
PORTAPIQUE (Colchester County) - this rural area is located near the mouth of the Portapique River on the north side of the Cobequid Bay in central Nova Scotia. It was named from the French "Porc-epic" porcupine. The population in 1956 was 42.
- from "Lovell's Gazetteer of the Dominion of Canada (1908)" - PORTAPIQUE, a post village in Colchester County, N.S., near Cobequid Bay, 10 miles from Londonderry, on the I.C.R.
- sent from - / PORTAPIQUE / MY 27 / 79 / N.S / - split ring cancel - this (first) split ring hammer was not listed in the Proof Book - it was most likely proofed c. 1876.
- via - / GREAT • VILLAGE / MY 27 / 79 / N.S / - split ring transit backstamp - this split ring hammer (first) was proofed - 9 April 1877 (NS- 1048).
The Postal Way Office at PORTAPIQUE opened in 1842 - it was upgraded to a Post Office - 1 June 1875 and closed - 31 December 1932 owing to the provision of rural mail delivery service via Bass River RR No. 1.
Distance to nearest offices -
Ban River 4 miles, East Portapique 1 1/2 miles
Distributing point - Great Village
Mail route - Great Village and Lower Five Islands
LINK to a list of the Postmasters who served at the PORTAPIQUE Post Office - central.bac-lac.gc.ca/.redirect?app=posoffposmas&id=2...
The Postmaster who was serving at Portapique during this time period was David A. Starritt - he served from - 1 May 1875 until his death - 5 March 1883.
David A. Starratt was born in 1832, in Economy, Colchester, Nova Scotia, Canada, his father, Robert Starritt, was 42 and his mother, Ann Fulton, was 33. He married Martha Jane Gamble on 14 March 1854, in Castlereagh, Cumberland, Nova Scotia, Canada. They were the parents of at least 8 sons and 4 daughters. He lived in Londonderry, Colchester, Nova Scotia, Canada in 1881. He died in 1882, in Colchester, Nova Scotia, Canada, at the age of 50, and was buried in Portapique, Colchester, Nova Scotia, Canada. LINK to his Find a Grave site - www.findagrave.com/memorial/210600330/david-a-starritt
Registered letter addressed to - Mrs. E. H. Lester / Corner of Exmouth & Richmond Street, / St. John / N.B.
Edward Hammond Lester
(b. 22 December 1832 in New Brunswick, British North America – d. 11 January 1893 at age 60 in St. John, New Brunswick, Canada)
This registered letter was addressed to - His wife - Amelia Catherine (nee Waterbury) Lester
(b. 4 September 1828 in St. John, New Brunswick, British North America – d. 8 May 1909 at age 80 in St. John, New Brunswick, Canada)
3 cents per 1/2 oz. + 2 cents registry for service within Canada = 5 cents - with a 2 cents registered letter stamp (RLS)
- also with a straight line - / REGISTERED / marking in black ink
The registration service for letters was introduced by Canada on 1 May 1855. Unusual is the fact that in 1875 Canada introduced stamps inscribed ‘Registered Letter Stamp’, the idea being that their use would make registered letters more obvious when the mail was being sorted. The earliest known use is of the 2 cent on 15 December 1875; use of the 5 cent and 8 cent is not known until the following year. From October 1876 the use of registration stamps was made mandatory, although the rules were relaxed from 8 May 1889 as long as at least one Registered stamp was used. The use of Registered stamps was discontinued on 1 August 1893. LINK - www.stanleygibbons.com/collecting-stamps/dispatches/5-rar...
In 1875 the post office department decided that it was desirable to have a separate series of stamps for the payment of registration fees. The stamps were not to be valid for postage - only for the payment of registration. Having a separate set of stamps made accounting for the revenue generated by registration services easier to determine. This may have been one of the reasons behind the issuance of these stamps.
There were three separate rates at this time for registration:
2 cents for local letters.
5 cents for US letters
8 cents for letters to the UK.
- arrived at - / ST JOHN / MY 27 / 79 / N.B. / - cds arrival backstamp - with St. John letter carrier mark - / 8 / MAY / 28 / - LINK to article reference carrier marks - (page 43) - bnaps.org/hhl/Topics/BNA%20Topics,%20Vol.%2023,%20No.%202...
Sep' 14, 2017 Nevatim AFB, Israel
Two IAF officers attaching the IAF roundel on F-35i AS-7 (Adir 909) upon arrival (by IDF PR)
Trail markings of 11 different hiking trails, one of them Dahner Felsenpfad (Dahn Rock Path) in Dahner Felsenland (Dahn Rockland) near Dahn in the Wasgau hill range, Pfälzerwald (Palatinate Forest), Rheinland-Pfalz (Rhineland-Palatinate), Germany.
This "sign tree" is standing near an inn called "Dahner Hütte – Im Schneiderfeld" (Dahn Lodge - In the taylor's field) which is operated by the local hiking club. Many hiking trails meet here.
Dahner Felsenpfad, the one we are hiking, is the fourth from top ;-)
Pfälzerwald is a low mountain range in the south-west of Germany. It is a designated nature park and part of the UNESCO biosphere reserve Palatinate Forest-North Vosges. It is famous for its bunter sandstone formations and its castles and is a popular hiking destination.
We found this tour on outdooractive.com.
Pfälzerwald holiday May 2017
The line-painting man never really kept his mind on the job on Fridays.
As he trundled his squeaky-wheeled line-painting machine down the road his thoughts would wander to the weekend ahead with the lovely Swedish girl from the council Sanitation Department....
Marking the 77th Anniversary of the Liberation of the Netherlands, Her Royal Highness Princess Margriet of the Netherlands inspects the Honour Guard during the Canadian Tulip Festival opening ceremony, at Commissioners Park, in Ottawa, Ontario, on 14 May 2022.
Photo credit: Corporal Valerie Mailhot, Canadian Forces Support Group (Ottawa-Gatineau) Imaging Services
À l’occasion du 77e anniversaire de la libération des Pays Bas, Son Altesse Royale la princesse Margriet des Pays Bas inspecte la garde d’honneur lors de la cérémonie d’ouverture du Festival canadien des tulipes au parc des Commissaires, à Ottawa, en Ontario, le 14 mai 2022.
Photo : Caporale Valerie Mailhot, Services d’imagerie du Groupe de soutien des Forces canadiennes (Ottawa/Gatineau)
via Playground Markings UK bit.ly/1MbZsvI
"Light exposure linked to weight gain in small children, QUT study reveals"
Markings: Royal Air Force 65 Squadron, late World War I, c1918
www.rafmuseum.org.uk/documents/collections/74-A-18-Sopwit...
_DSC6413 Camel Anx2 Q90
via Playground Markings UK bit.ly/1ZvOBa1
"New computer program can predict cochlear implant outcomes in hearing-impaired children"
via Playground Markings UK bit.ly/1jYZb9o
"Obese women who lose weight during pregnancy have healthier babies, save health care costs"
Marking his territory...
Der Neue markiert sein Territorium. Er ist recht zutraulich. Einen Namen hat er noch nicht.
The back of Aurora's dress is opened to more easily remove the wire around her waist. We also see the manufacturer's markings on her lower back. Then we free her train from her dress and lift both the train and dress up. We then remove the wires around her ankles, and cut off the tissue paper stuffing under her dress. After the tissue is removed, we can see the construction of her legs. They are the style of the 2012 Disney Classic Princess 12'' dolls. They are hard plastic, with hinge jointed knees, and ball jointed ankles. As usual, she is a bit bow legged, and her legs splay out when they are bent at the hips for her to sit down. Her dress is then pulled back down around her legs, but the train is left over her head, so we can see the back of her skirt. Then the train is draped over her dress. We see that her hair is still parted into two sections, the way it was in the box. Finally her hair is evened out, using my fingers, and the deboxing is finished.
Aurora has been removed from the backing, and placed next to it on a counter. I then finish the deboxing by removing the remaining fasteners. There are remnants remaining from removing her from the backing, and also fasteners tacking parts of her outfit together so they didn't come loose during shipping. There is also tissue paper stuffing under her skirt, that is taped together at the waist. Remaining are wires around her waist and ankles, posts sticking out of her head, and T-tabs tacking her dress train to her dress. Lifting her skirt a little reveals her ankle joints and shiny gold flat heeled shoes.
A look at the inside of the cardboard backing. You can see the ends of wires and plastic tabs that help to position and secure the doll. I cut loose the wires, and all the tiny T-tabs that I can reach. There is also thread securing her hair to the backing, and rubber bands around her arms and hands. The most difficult fasteners to cut were the ones tacking her head to the plastic spacer. But I finally got the doll loose, without having to remove the plastic spacer.
Deboxing the Aurora Doll from the Disney Store's Disney Film Collection. As with the Maleficent doll in the same line, it was easy to remove the plastic cover off the cardboard backing. First I cut all the tape holding the edges of the plastic to the backing. Then I pulled the tabs of the plastic cover out of the slots in the backing. The doll is now in the open, but still attached to the backing and spacers. The bottom of the backing was not square with the back side, so I had to place a wad of tissue paper under the front edge to make the doll stand up straight.
I just received my online order from the Disney Store, of the newly released The Disney Maleficent Movie Dolls and Mugs. The dolls are the Maleficent and Aurora 12'' dolls of the Disney Film Collection. The mugs are Maleficent and Dragon mug and the Maleficent and Aurora mug. I ordered them last Tuesday, when the dolls were released online, so it took exactly one week to arrive. Both mugs are very beautiful, and it's hard for me to pick a favorite now. The only slight disappointment is that they have the same design on both sides. Both dolls look very good, but I'm liking Aurora more at this point, mainly because I like her face more than Maleficent's. I think the Dark Beauty Maleficent doll by Jakks Pacific is a better likeness of Angelina Jolie as Maleficent. I will post photos of both dolls boxed, then during deboxing, and finally fully deboxed. I will also show them side by side with other comparable dolls, especially the Jakks versions.
Aurora Disney Film Collection Doll - Maleficent - 12''
US Disney Store
Released and Purchased Online 2014-05-06
Received 2014-05-13
$34.95
Item No. 6070040901005P
Golden age
Once upon a dream comes the golden vision of Princess Aurora as she appears in Disney's new live-action film Maleficent. Finely detailed with her beautiful hair and elegant gown, this Aurora doll is part of the Disney Film Collection.
Magic in the details...
• Fully articulated
• Deluxe costume
• Satin gown with mesh top layer
• Brocade trim with gold foil thread detailing
• Rooted hair
• Finely sculptured head with fern leaf headband
• Scenic packaging
• Part of the Disney Film Collection
The bare necessities
• Ages 3+
• Plastic / polyester
• 12'' H
• Imported
Safety
WARNING: CHOKING HAZARD - Small Parts. Not for children under 3 years.