But Two More Will Take Its Place

But Two More Will Take Its Place
5 screens on Wausau cover
18x24", edition of 50, signed.

I just finished printing these yesterday afternoon. Some of my fondest memories from childhood involve me building ramps in the garage and driveway at my parents' house. From the fall of 1996 through high school, countless homemade boxes, rails, and small ramps were built from whatever materials I would find in the shed or around town in dumpsters at construction sites. I remember dragging huge sheets of plywood across town with my friend Mike to build a quarterpipe in front of the house. When I got tired of one, it would be disassembled and remade into something new. I've never actually owned or built a backyard miniramp, though. I've been thinking about the experience of the backyard ramp lately and have wanted to do a print of one since my roommate and I went to skate a friend's ramp in Indiana just before it got all snowy and freezing here in the Midwest.
These will be for sale on my site tomorrow. I documented my process and posted a new thread over at gigposters.com. Check it out here.

Speaking Franckly

Today's drawing comes from a photograph that was taken of my friend Franck in a recording studio just outside of Montreal. I'm assuming there's a cord on the right half of those headphones.
Well, I think the screens I coated this morning are just about dry. Time to get printing!

Maybe I shouldn't be butting in here, but you can catch the most with dead squirrels.

Today's warm up drawing is brought to you by a picture I took in Vermont in the late spring of 2009. I had just temporarily moved to Montreal and upon discovering how expensive postage in Canada is, was on a mission into upstate New York to ship out a big batch of mailing tubes. I noticed that the Vermont border was only two miles away, so I stopped over and checked out Lake Champlain before driving back to my apartment in Montreal. This picture was taken from the bank of Lake Champlain. There's my trusty Toyota parked on the shoulder of a rural two-lane road.
Making the trip back into the US to ship posters was actually kind of fun the first time, but it got tedious rather quickly. I recall my old roommate walking into the kitchen one morning and saying, "I'm just waking up, and you've already been in two countries?!"
After this photo was taken, I turned around and headed back for the border. The home stretch through rural Quebec was always pretty relaxing.

Spaghetti for four

There was a morning warm up drawing today, but it wasn't really that cool, and I had to get started on finishing a bunch of other things. I am quite enjoying doing those, however. Stay tuned for some more!

Better than that, however, is that Comb The Field opens tonight at 6:30 PM, 531 North 12th Street in Philadelphia.

Quick pencil drawing #2!

Today's warm up drawing was from a picture I took during Boy Division's show on a boat in Hamburg, the rainy and cold afternoon after 2010's Euro Flatstock.

Unlimited Symmetry

To the left is a quick little warm up drawing I did today while I was waiting for some freshly coated screens to dry. It is based on a picture I took in Hamburg at Flatstock this most recent fall. That's my pal Jeremy from Pop Fuel with a post-it note on his glasses that had read, "TOTAL RUBBISH!" I'm not sure what it was doing there, but I walked over to his booth in time to snap the photo on which this little sketch is based.
I've taken to starting days out with little practice drawings, giving special attention to contour lines and the darkest areas. Lately, I've felt a little overwhelmed when approaching certain compositions with ink, and I think going back to basics is helping me regain some of my comfort. I've just kind of been going through various photos on my camera's memory card and doing a quick drawing or two. Stay tuned for tomorrow's drawing, which should feature the singer from Boy Division during their post-Flatstock set on the boat.

Is anybody else as stoked as I am to hear that the Archers of Loaf played a reunion show this past weekend? Bummed I missed it (and that I was unaware of it and about 800 miles away), but rather excited at the (currently speculative) prospect of additional reunion shows.

justinsantora.com is not down!

Hi! Just a quick little message before a more content-rich post that I am planning today:
justinsantora.com is not down. It is not currently showing up in search engines--rather, a temporary server is displaying in Google search results--but the entire website (store included) is up and 100% functional at justinsantora.com. The temporary server is now redirecting to the proper site, and everything's cool.

That is all. Free Palestine.

The 100th Blog Post Party Time Extravaganza!

As was mentioned in that ridiculous post title, this is the one hundredth post on this blog. On a blog that's over two and a half years old, that probably means I should be posting more often. Perhaps I could cut back on the wistful rants about adolescence while I'm at it! Ha, but in all seriousness, I do plan on posting on this little page a lot more this year. I want to document my process and just the general workings of things a little more closely. I think that would be fun.
Above is a new ink/acrylic/graphite drawing that will be in Comb The Field, an upcoming joint exhibition between me, Mark Brabant, Punchgut, and Crystal Benoit. In addition to some older and current work, I will be showing five previously unreleased prints, as well as four new drawings. A poster promoting the show will also be available.