Is it vandalism if I paint rocks and trees around the city or in nature?

Yes, if you do it without permission.

Yes, even if you do it with permission. Learn the ethic of leave no trace: don’t disturb anything that is natural.

It is, but it is not vandalism if you are painting the roses red at the behest of the Queen.

Putting paint on tree bark and limbs is not good for the tree’s health, if that is what you are asking.

I love street art. Banksy is someone I enjoy following and consider an artist. I do not believe graffiti art should transition to natural landscapes. Trees, rocks, arches, canyons, caves, etc should be respected. Nothing upsets me more than to hike 3 miles into one of the largest natural bridges in the country and see it tagged for eternity with bullshit.

Ugh, graffiti is bad enough in the city. Makes me cringe everytime I have to see some illiterate ghetto scrawl on a perfectly good wall.

Please don’t do this to trees and in nature. It’s still an eyesore and it’s worse because trees are living things. They don’t take well to having chemicals stuck on them. It’s not fair to the trees. If you must graffiti, keep it in the urban environment. Don’t spoil nature.

Great opinions all. I was just JW, thanks. @seekingwolf yikes! bad graffiti is horrible, I hope you don’t hate all street art though, I know a bunch of artist who practice in that realm and are actually paid these days to do murals on their wall. There is graffiti art and then there is “tagging” that just looks pure horrible and are most likely done by wanna be alpha male gangsters.

Yes! Absolutely yes! Mother Nature is beautiful enough without the addition of contents from some spray paint can!

Carving initials into a tree is bad enough, spray painting rocks is something else.

Examples of good graffiti I have seen are on rusty old train cars. Does not bother me one bit.

@pleiades

I wouldn’t know. In my city, all I see are tags, nothing close to art or any smidgen of it. Like a dog peeing on a fire hydrant “Hey, other dogs, this is my TERRITORY, stay away, arf arf!” I wish gangsters would just pee on fire hydrants because at least us decent folks wouldn’t have to look at their gibberish.

Actual art, I mean real art in a city? Haven’t seen it but if you have in your city, that’s pretty awesome.

Regardless if it is good or not, my answer still stands. Even good art doesn’t have a place on trees and rocks and in nature. It bugs me when people carve things, even good-looking, excellent things, into trees in parks and the like. You could argue that paint on a rock wouldn’t hurt anyone but if it’s in a place of nature, animals and other organisms could come into contact with it.

Definitely agree with the saying “Leave nothing but your footprints”...