Caton Volk Advertising contacted Pochis Bank Art Studio to create “clean graffiti” on pavement for a commercial video shoot. Clean graffiti or reverse graffiti is a method of creating a temporary image on a surface by removing dirt from it. It can be made using a power washer to spray a design into dirty pavement either freehand or with the use of a stencil. For the studio’s project, the client provided paver-sized sticker stencils with both negative and positive options for the design.

The stencils provided included intricate butterfly and cherry blossom tree designs for four large pavers. The team first underwent a thorough test phase with cutouts of the extra stencils provided. Practicing with both the positive and negative stickers on a separate piece of pavement, it was determined that the negative stencils produced a more remarkable design. After choosing the stencils, we carefully laid them down and adhered them to the concrete.

Nancy and studio artists Grace Brandt and Shane Taylor then worked to make the butterfly and flowered tree details come to life, eventually peeling the stencils off and uncovering the newly brightened designs. The team covered the pavers up for the video shoot the following day. This project was executed in the backyard of a beautiful home in North Center and Nancy returned as an on-call artist available for touch-ups during filming.