Mural painted in an abandoned factory complex in Belgrade, Serbia.

The day that this was painted, I wasn’t planning to go to the factory, or paint anything anywhere, for that matter. I had gone back to the graffiti shop to get some more paint markers to use in my upcoming project, but now white in addition to the black ones that I have. While there, I ran into some other local graffiti guys that I previously hadn’t met and one of them was planning to go to the factory to paint a bit. I haven’t done any graffiti myself, and have generally been too busy to really watch/learn so that I can use spray paint in addition to brushes (and recently, markers). This time, though, I made sure to ask him if he would mind if I tagged along. I picked up a few cans of spray paint and accompanied him as it was on my way home anyways and I had the afternoon free.

When we got there, I already had some walls in mind, since I had just scouted the place out the month before. A few of them had been tagged in the meantime, so they weren’t options anymore, but a few others were in seemingly good shape and in great locations. We chose two walls in perpendicular corners of the same large hall/room. My only hurdle? I hadn’t planned to paint, so I hadn’t planned what to paint. I looked through some recent drawings on my phone and decided upon a portrait of a woman that I had drawn from a photo in Germany. It was the day that the big floods had overtaken parts of western Germany, Belgium, and the Netherlands and the sheer destruction in the photo struck me. I had gone on working that day, but the same evening finally just drew her to give my mind some peace. Write it out of my worries, so to speak. Anyways, this was the photo that I decided upon. I’ll include the sketches below.