Walk into any serious garage gym and there is a poster on the wall. Usually Jordan, sometimes Ali, always curling at the corners because tape gives up in the heat. A sprayed stencil fixes that permanently. It costs about the same as a decent poster, it cannot fall down, and it looks like you meant it.
Every sports stencil in the shop is a halftone portrait: the image is built from a grid of dots, the same way newspapers printed photos for a century. Sprayed on a wall it reads photographic from ten feet and graphic up close. One sheet, one color, one pass. No layers to line up.
The basketball wall
Jordan, Kobe and LeBron cover the argument nobody wins. Jordan is the one we cut most. If the wall is a home gym, the 22x28 size holds its own over a squat rack. If it is the side of a locker or a bedroom door, 11x14 is the move.
The boxing wall
Ali and Tyson are the two portraits that work in any boxing gym, and the halftone treatment suits them better than anyone else in the catalog. High contrast faces, hard shadows, real menace. If a wall needs exactly one image, it is hard to argue against Ali.
The soccer wall
Messi and Ronaldo, sold separately, hung together at your own risk. Bolt technically belongs to a different sport but ends up on the same walls. For a full international corner, pair a player with their country from the flag pack rack: Messi over an Argentina blue field, Ronaldo next to a sprayed flag, and the wall starts looking curated instead of decorated.
The rest of the roster
Serena Williams and Carlos Alcaraz for the tennis crowd. Tom Brady and Travis Kelce for football walls. Every one of them is $14.95 to start.
How to pick size and material
Most portraits come in 11x14 and 22x28 inches. The honest rule: if you will view it from more than six feet, buy the 22x28. Halftone dots need a little distance to fuse into a face, and the big size is what makes people ask who painted your wall.
Card stock is fine for one wall. Plastic is mylar, which survives cleaning and repeat sprays, and it is what you want if the stencil will travel between the garage, the gym and a friend's place. The mylar guide covers the differences.
Every product page has a spray and peel simulator. Pick the stencil, spray it with your mouse, peel it off. It is the fastest way to see how a design lands before you commit a wall to it.
Spraying a portrait clean
- Tape all four edges and press the sheet flat. Dots bleed if the sheet lifts.
- Spray light and keep the can moving, about eight inches off the wall. Details in how far to hold the can.
- Two thin passes. The dots do the shading for you, so resist the urge to fill.
- Peel while tacky. Read the clean stencil guide before your first wall, not after.
Cut your own designs? The Stencil Library has every portrait in the catalog as a cut ready file for $5 a month.
0 comments