Borrowed bike, stolen photography

So on Valentine's Day, I went on a sweet dude-date with my friend, Logan. To the left is shot of his fixed gear bike that I rode from the South Loop to the Northside and back. This had been my first time riding a fixed gear bike in Chicago, and it was not nearly as stressful as I expected it to be. I used to be intimidated by city riding, but I had a lot of fun. Needless to say, I am now more motivated than ever to set up my own bike this spring and get riding. I rode to the post office to ship out a bunch of mailing tubes today (before the snow started). It's a very satisfying and enjoyable mode of transportation, and it's great to not deal with parking, pollution, etc. I think the act of riding a bike is more fulfilling and mentally engaging than driving a car.


On the artwork and gigposter front, I'm hard at work. I've got two posters to do this month, one of which is for some band called Propagandhi. I'll be sure to post that as soon as it's done. I'm thinking I'll make a post documenting the process form start to finish. I've also got a lot of drawing and art print ideas, as well as some other exciting developments for later in the year.
Logan and I have been friends since eighth grade. He has a functioning photo enlarger in his apartment. He develops and prints from home, and his brother brews his own beer. Logan recently began doing platinum/palladium printing, which is a photographic process that hasn't been popular since the first world war, automatically making it awesome. The process is not terribly unlike the way a screen is exposed in screenprinting, which has unavoidably inspired me to try doing a print or two on palladium from films of drawings.
Logan and I have plans to combine our respective minds and mediums to create a few collaborative pieces. This is a process I'll be sure to document. Or have Logan do it.
Check out Logan's black and white photography on Etsy.

Dancing at discos, eating (soy) cheese on toast

I have long been tired of freezing cold, gray skies, and disgusting black slush lining every street. Chicago winters are most unkind. I couldn't be happier to see this season on its way out. We in the midwest know how it goes every year, however: we'll get a couple of warm days, then a few more weeks of winter, followed by another couple of nice days. Repeat until May.
In any event, I've been spending a lot of time at the light table, which is always a good thing. I've got the last two prints from my little narrative series on the way, as well as a modest inflow of freelance work. I'm keeping busy for sure.
I've had a lot of fun with the whole Paper Airplane Narrative thing. I like the idea of telling a story through a series of prints. Right now, the "story" probably doesn't make a lot of sense, but it should after the next two prints are finished. I like keeping it brief and somewhat vague, too, so people can interpret it individually and take something different from it. Ah, Delacroix would be pleased! Or possibly rolling in his grave.

I am your pamphleteer.

Above is a new art print that I printed today (instead of watching a certain vaunted festival of popular athletics and advertising). 19x25 inches, eight screens used, printed on French Speckletone. I will be signing them tomorrow, and they'll be available this week. This is the most screens I have used for one print so far. I couldn't be happier with how it turned out, but I'm admittedly looking forward to resuming my "paper airplane narrative" series with 3-5 screens and smaller edition numbers.

This week, I had the pleasure of visiting Chicago's Screwball Press. It was great to meet Steve and Erin, talk shop, and actually see an auto press in action. Watching Erin work on the auto sure makes printing an eight color run by hand feel particularly labor intensive. Steve Walters also hooked me up with a new art print depicting various squeegee angles. He used photographs of his own hand holding the squeegee and converted them to halftones. Coupled with Steve W's very distinct sense of color, this makes for a killer print. I think I'm going to hang it on the wall right above my hand press.
Now I owe Steve a print.

More prints are on the way. Stay tuned!