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  1. Photograph: Caroline Voagen Nelson
    Photograph: Caroline Voagen Nelson

    Invent the Future mural by street artists Chris Stain and Billy Mode at the Bushwick Collective, April 2013

  2. Photograph: Caroline Voagen Nelson
    Photograph: Caroline Voagen Nelson

    Invent the Future mural by street artists Chris Stain and Billy Mode at the Bushwick Collective, April 2013

  3. Photograph: Caroline Voagen Nelson
    Photograph: Caroline Voagen Nelson

    Invent the Future mural by street artists Chris Stain and Billy Mode at the Bushwick Collective, April 2013

  4. Photograph: Caroline Voagen Nelson
    Photograph: Caroline Voagen Nelson

    Invent the Future mural by street artists Chris Stain and Billy Mode at the Bushwick Collective, April 2013

  5. Photograph: Caroline Voagen Nelson
    Photograph: Caroline Voagen Nelson

    Invent the Future mural by street artists Chris Stain and Billy Mode at the Bushwick Collective, April 2013

  6. Photograph: Caroline Voagen Nelson
    Photograph: Caroline Voagen Nelson

    Invent the Future mural by street artists Chris Stain and Billy Mode at the Bushwick Collective, April 2013

  7. Photograph: Caroline Voagen Nelson
    Photograph: Caroline Voagen Nelson

    Invent the Future mural by street artists Chris Stain and Billy Mode at the Bushwick Collective, April 2013

  8. Photograph: Caroline Voagen Nelson
    Photograph: Caroline Voagen Nelson

    Invent the Future mural by street artists Chris Stain and Billy Mode at the Bushwick Collective, April 2013

  9. Photograph: Caroline Voagen Nelson
    Photograph: Caroline Voagen Nelson

    Invent the Future mural by street artists Chris Stain and Billy Mode at the Bushwick Collective, April 2013

  10. Photograph: Caroline Voagen Nelson
    Photograph: Caroline Voagen Nelson

    Invent the Future mural by street artists Chris Stain and Billy Mode at the Bushwick Collective, April 2013

  11. Photograph: Caroline Voagen Nelson
    Photograph: Caroline Voagen Nelson

    Invent the Future mural by street artists Chris Stain and Billy Mode at the Bushwick Collective, April 2013

  12. Photograph: Caroline Voagen Nelson
    Photograph: Caroline Voagen Nelson

    Invent the Future mural by street artists Chris Stain and Billy Mode at the Bushwick Collective, April 2013

Street artists Chris Stain and Billy Mode paint a mural (video)

Watch a time-lapse video of two street artists painting a mural at the Bushwick Collective in Brooklyn, and hear how they did it.

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Street artists Chris Stain and Billy Mode were invited by the Bushwick Collective (one of Time Out’s top spots to see street art) to create a piece, Invent the Future, on a 28-by-57-foot wall at the corner of Troutman Street and Wyckoff Avenue in Bushwick, Brooklyn. It was put up over seven days, and the artists contributed the necessary $500 worth of materials. Watch them in action in a time-lapse video above, and read on as they explain the steps they took.

RECOMMENDED: Street art and graffiti guide

Stain: I had taken a photograph of two girls that were standing in front of a mural that Bill and I did up in Albany. I thought it fit really well in this neighborhood, so I shared this image with Bill.

Mode: I’ve been considering positive quotes. invent the future was something I had really been wanting to put out in the world as an idea. I built a template for a portion of the overall hexagon design to help lay things out. I put in the lettering freehand. I didn’t want them all to be exactly the same; I wanted some variation.

Stain: I cut a stencil out of the photograph, scanned it and put it on a piece of clear acetate. I project the image on the wall when it’s dark enough and it produces an outline for me to follow. Mode: It also gives you the opportunity to mess with composition, see ahead of time how this is going to work. Stain: Then it’s like doing a graffiti piece, where you put up your first outline, fill your colors in, do your background and then come back and clean everything up with your final colors to make everything nice and tight.—Edited interview by Jonathan Shannon

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