Splashed on highway overpasses and scrawled across the sides of passing buses, the colorful shapes of graffiti are common sights in many urban landscapes. Thanks to the notoriety and skill of graffiti artists such as Banksy and Shepard Fairey, the idea of a street artist has, in some instances, been raised from vandal to celebrity.

Yet the idea of street art is not necessarily limited to graffiti and tagging, and unlike in the urban setting of other cities, the Sacramento street art scene contains a variety of artistic mediums.

On shops, salons and street corners around midtown and downtown, legally painted murals add color and dimension to otherwise bland walls. The unconventional art form known as “yarn bombing” or “guerrilla knitting” can be spied around town when members of Sacramento’s Gorilla Knitting Crew crochet and knit tubes and scarves used to wrap around sign posts, bike rails and trees.

Local artist Lily Moon has dabbled in a variety of mediums from graffiti to oil paintings. As an advocate for the homeless, Moon said she draws much of her inspiration from personal experience and the people she meets on the street.

“I’m a walking representation of my art,” Moon said. “When you know your art, you know yourself.”

Moon learned more about both herself and her art during the three weeks she spent painting a 50-foot long mural for Midikat Boutique on K and 21st Streets in midtown. The mural is topped with colorful swirls reminiscent of Van Gogh, while below, the crosshatched undulations of mountains and valleys blend into a sunset of yellows, blues and purple in this landscape piece.

The one-week job stretched into three, Moon said, as rainy weather hindered progress and threatened her morale.

“It was three weeks of hell,” Moon said. “We were up there … painting in the rain. We had this crowd of homeless people looking up at us and talking to us and we really got to know the culture around us. Really if I think about street art, that was it right there.”

During the process, Moon became well acquainted with the homeless individuals watching her paint, listening to their stories and learning more about their histories.

“As a thank you for keeping my spirits up while I was painting in the rain … I painted their silhouettes all at the bottom,” Moon said. “The people who were living on the streets are now embedded on the wall.”

The silhouettes sit below the sunset on the mural and feature two homeless men sharing a beer, a kissing couple and a man with a camera.

While the process was arduous, Moon said she would do it all over again.

“Every little painstaking minute was worth it because of the people that I got to meet,” Moon said.

Daniel Osterhoff, a local DJ and artist, has been involved in painting 10 murals around the Sacramento area.

These include the wall for Lush Salon and Spa on 20th and I Streets, a mural featuring a woman, colorful background and stylized words in classic graffiti fashion as well as the “Rosie the Riveter” painted on the side of Three Women and an Armoire on F Street and 12th Street. Osterhoff also worked on the exteriors of the Broadway Dimple Records and American Market and Deli.

“Sacramento has a great art scene,” Osterhoff said. “But they don’t really promote it. The last couple years, me and my partner Shaun … have been trying to paint more walls around Sacramento.”

Osterhoff said the graffiti scene is lacking in Sacramento due mainly to the city’s financial ability to keep walls bare.

“It doesn’t really exist here because this is the capital of California and they invest a lot of money in buffing stuff out,” Osterhoff said. “It’s not like in San Francisco where they have a lot more street artists and it’s a little more widely accepted.”

Yet accepted or not, individuals with a love for the art form are not likely to let the threat of removal stop them from creating in the first place.

Senior communication studies major Ernest Cavasos said the act of designing a piece can be almost therapeutic and is a great way to connect with people of a similar mindset.

“There’s nothing like a beautiful piece and collaborating with your friends,” Cavasos said. “You could say it’s like salvation sometimes. It’s just you and your work.”

Jill Jordan, a Sacramento artist breaking into the local art scene, said street art can be found in a variety of forms around the area but doubts the attitude of many individuals is broad enough to grasp what some artists are trying to put across.

“Some people only see what they want to see,” Jordan said. “Personally I’m trying to get my own personal and spiritual ideas out there to open people’s minds.”

Moon said she has similar sentiments about the reception locals have given her art and said she believes the Sacramento art community fails to embrace novice artists.

“I think if Sacramento organized their art community a little better … we might feel a little more welcomed,” Moon said. “(This town) will never end up with another Andy Warhol or other great artist such as that if they don’t allow their artists to grow.”

Jessica Scharff can be reached at [email protected]