New print available in the shop!
Here’s a sneak peek of my print for Big Table Studio’s latest show “For The Love Of Love”.
On Friday, February 3rd, Amsterdam Bar & Hall and MN United (http://www.mnunited.org/) will be throwing a fundraiser to help support the campaign against the proposed Marriage Amendment that will appear on the Ballot in Minnesota in November of 2012, Big Table Studio is hosting a poster show tentatively called “For The Love of Love”.
With this print, I focused on getting the overprinting to look exactly how I wanted. I’ve had problems in the past with inks not being as transparent as I needed them to be.
With my previous prints, I’ve always printed the blues/greens first and the reds/oranges on top. This time I printed the red first hoping that it would be easier to make the blue ink transparent. It turns out that wasn’t the case—I still wasn’t getting the desired transparency. The solution was to start with a bunch of transparent extender base and ink to it bit by bit (I had been doing it the other way around). I’m really happy with how it came out!
Here’s my second collaboration with LTD EDN Agency—a customization of their logo!
LTD EDN Agency matches artists with companies to help raise money for charity. I’m looking forward to working more with them in the future!
As you may have noticed, I haven’t posted at all to this blog in 2012. I’ve been rolling ideas over in my mind, really trying to come up with the perfect post. Most people say they like to end with a bang—I wanted to come in on one!
Well, this post ain’t that. The perfect profound post eluded me, so here’s a cheesily poetic, poetically cheesy picture of a sunrise to kick off the new year.
Phew. Now that the pressure’s off, I can get back to regular posting!
Between work and An Exquisite Beast, I haven’t had much time for fun, personal illustrations lately. The To Resolve Project gave me the perfect excuse to take a breather and think about I what I’d like to get out of next year. The answer is balance. Spending 14 to 16 hours a day by myself in my basement is not really the most exciting existence. It’s not that I want to be lazier next year, I just need to force myself to take a break every once in a while :)
So my resolution for 2012 is to Make Time for Play Time!
It’s An Exquisite Beast’s 3 month birthday! They grow up so fast…It seems like only yesterday I was drawing Forester or Family Reunion. Now, here we are 92 drawings in a row (see what I did there?) and I think this bad boy’s still just a toddler. I have no idea when this thing will stop growing, so for now, just grab a slice of cake and celebrate!
Prints Printed & Lessons Learned
What I love most about exploring a new art making medium is how quickly you learn and evolve your art making process. I’ve printed 3 new prints since my OK! post and I’ve learned something new and adjusted the way I work each time. Each new print I make is my new favorite one I’ve ever printed!
The Print: Bundle Up
The Lesson: I had some issues with ink drying in the screen last time. It created a bit of unwanted texture in the print so this time around I intentionally added a whole mess of texture. I also printed a smaller run than last time which forced me to really work on getting the alignment right. Only two of the prints turned out bad, much better than the 15+ that were crap last time.
The Print: The Hybearnation Experience
The Lesson: The colors in Bundle Up turned out fine, but they really weren’t what I envisioned when I designed the print. This time around I really focused on mixing inks to get exactly what I wanted. I’m really happy with how the colors turned out, but the overprinting didn’t have as much contrast as I would have liked. It takes a lot more extender than I thought it would.
The Print: Greased Up
The Lesson: This time around, I didn’t want to worry about color mixing or overprinting and instead I focused on just getting a nice clean print. I had some issues again last time with ink drying in the screen. The red went down perfectly, couldn’t be happier with it. The black was quite a different story. I think the black ink was way too think and thus was getting stuck in the screen. After thinning the ink quite a bit, it was better, but still not perfect. I wish I could say all of the texture in this piece is intentional. I know what to work on next time!
I’ve added all of these prints to my shop!
I have two new prints in Inkcicles, an art show that opens tonight at Big Table Studio in St. Paul. I’ll post the pieces next week, so if you want to see them before the rest of the internet, get your ass to St. Paul! More Info
It’s been a while since I’ve drawn something for Robots and Monsters. The words were Atlanta and Dancing—I’ve never been to Atlanta and I only dance enough to embarrass my wife :)
Today, my forearms are sore arms, and I love it. I printed my first two color screen print over the weekend!
It was a long road—a lot of trial and error and a lot of frustration were involved. Exposure times, mesh counts, even coating, washing out the screen after burning it—all of them had beaten me down for the past month and a half. Finaly, FINALLY, this weekend everything came together wonderfully.
This is such a huge relief for me because I gained something more than just 40 new prints over the weekend—I fulfilled a years-long dream. Ever since I graduated from UW Madison, I wanted to have my own space where I could pull my own prints. Someplace I could have control. Someplace where I could break a small sweat and create something nice in the process. I never gave up on that goal. Here I am 6 years later with sore arms and everything is OK.
2012 Calendar of the Impending Apocalypse
Awwww YEAH, you guys! It’s almost here—the end of the world! To celebrate all of us reaching the metaphorical finish line, David Huyck of Cloudy Collection curated the 2012 Calendar of the Impending Apocalypse. 12 months, 12 illustrations, 12 ways the world will end.
picture by David Huyck
My contribution, imagines that the giant hamster at the center of the world will finally pass away from old age. Oh, you didn’t know the Earth spins thanks to a giant, old hamster? Well, know you do.
Get your calendar and count down to the big (perhaps even the biggest) sleep!
