18 August 2011

Gigposters: Volume 2

My pal Clay Hayes of Gigposters.com is proud to announce the release of Gig Posters: Volume 2. The highly anticipated followup to the first Gig Posters book is available for pre-order now at GP and amazon.com. This anthology is 208 pages and will feature 700 posters by several poster artists/designers. Also included are 101 perforated ready-to-hang full page posters.
Gig Posters: Volume 2 features biographies, rock posters, and stories/commentary from several of today's current poster artists. I'm very excited to be a part of this book.
Pre-ordered copies of the book will received limited edition art prints by the very excellent Landland (while prints last, of course!).

If you feel so inclined, I've made the last of the Lollapalooza after show posters available on my site. Included in this batch are Fitz and the Tantrums, Smith Westerns, and The Vaccines.
I've got plenty to work on before I leave for Germany (in less than a month), but I'm going to find some time to post a new mystery tube sale in the not-so-distant future. Stay tuned!

14 August 2011

The sky above me

The last time I saw you, I was a bit of a wreck; I was actively resisting changes in my life when I should have been acclimating. It looked to me like you were taking on the world with grace and vigor. I envied you that.
You went back across the sea. I started working as an artist and moved to Montreal. Taking on the world with grace and vigor, just like you.
The earth kept turning when you left us. Maybe that's what makes something this permanent so difficult to fully comprehend. For whatever it's worth (and whatever it means), I hope you have found peace.
We all could go at any time, but most of us never think about it. Perhaps it's an adaptation to civilization that we put mortality out of our minds, making it a sobering thought when we finally are confronted with it. I just know I'm happy I knew you while you were here. Your kind nature, uniqueness, and zeal touched more people than I think you realized. I'm still inspired by your grace and vigor.


12 August 2011

Das Pferd!

I have spent the last three weeks finishing (and starting) brand new paintings and ink drawings for Das Pferd aus Illinois, which opens in Hamburg on September 10th. Above is one of the new pieces, which is an ink drawing/painting on paper. I've been doing a lot of work with thin, layered ink washes (with a bit of pencil work here and there). I also am putting the finishing touches on some new acrylic paintings. I laid all the work for this show out on the floor today, and it's kind of hard to believe I actually made as many pieces as I planned to make. Such seems to be the nature of working on several paintings at once; once things finally start coming together, it seems like everything falls into place at once. I've got maybe another hour or so of painting left on this whole body of work. Then I'll be packing them up and shipping them off to Germany.
I hope I still remember how to screen print.

09 August 2011

Ink, airline tickets, mangos, and predawn cat feedings

Oh, hi! Here in Chicago, Schubas and Lincoln Hall recently hosted six Lollapalooza after shows. The fine folks at the venues asked me to make posters for each of these events. I just put the three posters for the Lincoln Hall shows up for sale on my website.

In other news, I have been taking a small break from screen
printing and working hard on lots of new paintings and drawings for an upcoming show at Feinkunst Krueger with Jay Ryan. More info on that show can be found here. It opens September 10th in Hamburg, Germany.

Following Flatstock Europe 6, I will be heading to the country of Belgium for the first time to participate in 14 Years Orange Factory, which will showcase independent music, as well as rock posters by John Howard, Gary Houston, Malleus, and myself. I'm happy to report that this year's trip to Europe will feature my first ever direct transatlantic flight. I've always had at least one small layover (which I'm not complaining about; I got to briefly see Zurich last year), so having a flight straight back to Chicago will be nice.

I'm looking forward to getting back to Hamburg and eating at my favorite German vegetarian restaurant, Hin und Veg. I also can't wait to see what kind of rad vegan food I can find in Munich, Dusseldorf, and Leuven. Other than speculative future dining plans, I do have some new prints in the works. Expect new posters and art prints within the next month. That is, if expecting new posters and art prints is your thing.


03 August 2011

Ice, potatoes, pencils, and air conditioning

I set up shop in a new location this afternoon. Here's a camera phone picture of my temporary drawing setup in my girlfriend's living room. I spent a good chunk of the day at her apartment, helping her out with a sprained ankle. With plenty of work left to complete for the Hamburg show, I worked on some preliminary drawings for new pieces while she rested and applied ice to her injury.
I found a snapshot of a house under construction that I took months ago when I was at my parents' house. I'd more or less forgotten about the photograph, but it ended up making for a pretty cool sketch (we thought so, at least). The pencil drawing at the bottom left in the frame will be used as a guide for the final piece. I lay a sheet of rag paper down on the pencil drawing on my light table and do a series of layered ink washes. Because I have to let the sheet dry in between washes, I try to make sure I'm working on a few of these at once. Towards the end, I start to go in with a fine pencil and do small accents or light line work. Occasionally, I will add diluted white acrylic for highlights.
I'm also working on a bunch of new acrylic on panel paintings, which are fun to do again. I hadn't done any acrylic paintings since the fall, and it feels good to continue exploring the medium. I still feel very new to painting, but I enjoy the way screen printing has informed my approach to it. I feel more comfortable with paint now than I ever did in undergrad, but I still feel like I have a lot to learn. Still, I'm pretty excited about this new batch of work.

One last little note for subscribers: Subscription tubes with all prints for the first half of the year have been shipped out. True story.