Condition Ashland

Well, it's getting to be that time when I can go skateboarding outside again. Yesterday was especially nice, but I used the sunlight to print some cyanotypes instead. To the right is a shot of me in my friend Logan's workspace preparing paper for the process. Something I especially like about the cyanotype printing is that you can get really nice washed edges by applying the solution with a brush. Logan has also acheived some nice results by using a puddle pusher, which I suppose would be the photography world's counterpart to the scoopcoater.
The cyanotype process is rather easy, and it's a form of contact printing, meaning the film is placed directly on the coated paper and exposed to a light source. I made a negative by inverting a page from my sketchbook and xeroxing it onto acetate. We sandwiched the film and paper between two sheets of glass and exposed in direct sunlight. After exposure, we rinsed and dried the prints. I was very pleased with the results, and since I was working from an inverted pen drawing, the high contrast proved to be rather easy to print.
Expect a small edition of hand-coated, sun-exposed cyanotypes in the coming days. Ha, once a printmaker, always a printmaker.
Here is a more detailed process in the gigposters.com forums.

I printed posters for one of my all time favorites, Propagandhi earlier this week. I've been exploring clayboard as a medium lately. I love drawing with ink, but I also enjoy working subtractively. Clayboard is a remarkably versatile drawing surface, making it pretty easy to work with once you start to get a feel for it. Kathleen Judge and Dan Grzeca are two very talented Chicago poster artists who use a lot of clayboard for their drawing. Below is the final printed Propagandhi poster (original drawing was ink on clayboard) and an illustration I completed this week for the band, Caustic Casanova.


Lots of new art prints, cyanotypes, and a poster or two are well on the way, so I hope you'll check back soon!

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!

Let me let you buy me a rootbeer.

Things have been pretty busy lately, which is a good thing, of course. I had to rush to UPS yesterday to ship some freshly printed posters out for a last minute job. I feel like I am learning something new about screen printing every time I print. It has been somewhat intimidating to enter the screen printing and poster art world (modestly as I have) in the shadows of so many great Chicago artists.
Right now, I am working on a small narrative series of art prints that focus on some personal experiences (as well as cultural themes, as always). I start printing the second from the series today. I'm keeping the edition numbers relatively low and printing on linen cover stock.
I have some other fun things in the works, too. I just turned 25, and it's not as bad as I thought it would be. Ha. 2009's looking pretty good so far!

Notes from the drying line

"I'd like to see a forklift lift a crate of forks. It'd be so damn literal!"
- Mitch Hedberg

Optimist!

Have you ever seen somebody you went to high school with that you only kind of knew and you're not sure if they recognize you, but you still would really rather not say "hello" anyway? I mean, there would be nothing to talk about other than the particulars of a class you had together seven years ago, and you don't remember even caring too much for that person in the first place. Well, that happened to me at the gas station today.
And oh yeah, here are some new posters.