Open Space Print Process

Hello again! As promised, I remembered to document the stencil process of prints for the upcoming Open Space Limited Run show. I managed to do three editions, and I am retiring these stencils as I have made ten prints each with them and they are starting to fall apart.

The following is the process as performed by me; you will find I am a bit unorthodox as I am all about keeping my prints nice and neat. Also please keep in mind that this method is used for flat printing and not for stenciling on vertical surfaces:

First, you need to cut your images/layers. I am using stencils from last year due to time constraints so I will not be showing this part of the process. I'm sure you can find lots of tutorials online.

For this process, I focused on one image; above is the Buscemi stencil laid out. I actually keep all of my layers attached to a piece of board so that they are lined up with each other; this way, I just need to flop the layer onto the paper and the registration is lined up.

I printed both outdoors and at SUNY New Paltz. I prefer working at SUNY as its indoors and they have a hood that whisks those pesky paint fumes away. However, I have to wait until the students leave, so I decided to get a jumpstart by working outside during the day. I use one of those "science project" pieced of folded cardboard as both a surface to spray on and to transport materials.

In addition to keeping my layers lined up, I used built-up corners of tape to ensure that my paper is always placed in the same spot.

Its widely advocated to use spray adhesive to hold down a layers to avoid underspray (paint getting under the layer). However, I despise spray adhesive with every ounce of my being, and I only use it when permanently mounting an image to board; I just find it a pain to have sticky fingers or when there is a possibility of everything sticking to each other, and its easy to accidentally destroy a layer or print. So I weigh my layers down. With pennies. And nuts. Sometimes I use fishing sinkers.

The first layer weighed down and ready to be painted. A piece of cardboard protects the unused layer.

Bright orange!

The first layer dry and ready to be covered.

Layer two ready to go. Please note that the previous layer is covered to protect it from the paint.

A heavy layer of black. Its important to me to cover the overlap of black and orange well. Otherwise, the figure has a weird brownish aura.

Layer two complete. This layer took a long time to dry so I had to wait to do a final layer of white. I did not photograph it as I finished up at another location and did not have my camera.

Sometimes it is possible to "float" areas of white on a layer by connecting them to the border with wire; however, I find that doing so makes for stencils that are problematic to store. So I just cut an extra layer and this way I am able to store all my stencils flat. Again, this is not the "purist" approach, but its how I solved the problem.

The final prints. Please note the whites on the Buscemi.

And that's it. I delivered the prints this morning, and the show opens on the 12th. Sadly, I will not be able to attend the opening as I have prior commitments, but I definitely want to stop in at some point as its a huge show with all of the walls covered salon-style. Its a great place to pick up a cheap gift for art lovers as well.

With the holiday frenzy approaching, I will be giving the blog a break until the new year as I will be traveling extensively form now until 2010. So I get to say "see you next year!"

Enjoy the Day,
Chris

Open Space Beacon's Limited Run III

Howdy folks! I just wanted to take a moment to plug Open Space's annual print show. Dan and Kalene run a great gallery, and their shows are always a joy to check out.

I will have (hopefully) three stencil editions in the show as well as a few prints that the gallery has also been offering through their online store.

Prints I featured last year:



Sadly, I don't have any images of the prints as I will be stenciling like a madman over the weekend for a Monday delivery. Look for print images and process photos next week!

Last year's Limited Run (December blog post)

Open Space's Website and Show Announcement (with links to featured artists)

Open Space's Store (you could... you know...buy my work...)

Enjoy the Day,
Chris

Unions: the negative effect

Hello! So I just realized I completely missed my blog post for last week. Sorry! I'll try to make it up at some point by posting some embarrassing reference or something along those lines.

This blog post features artwork I did for Kerri at MYBusiness magazine. I have been very fortunate to work with Kerri on many occasions, and it is always a pleasure. In this instance, Kerri was looking for some eye-catching artwork for their cover. It had not been decided which article was going to grace the cover, so we worked on ideas for the two possibilities. One feature was about Unions/Big Labor and the other is about the military heroes of Small Business. Here are the sketches:

The first sketch for the "small business soldier" was a very simple man-in-suit with stars on his lapels and a striped tie, looking heroic and patriotic. Although I enjoy the sketch as a drawing, I feel this was too subtle.

The second sketch has a better feel. Kerri wanted a superhero-type image similar to the Blue-collar football image I had done a few months back. I feel that a patriotic superhero costume has been perfected, so I alluded the the amazing Captain America.

The second article dealt with the effect of labor unions on small business owners. In today's tough economy, some already suffering businesses are on thin ice because of union-enforced regulations that may or may not relate to their business and employees. For the first, sketch I went with a laborer's gloved hand squeezing a small businessman.

My second sketch played off a "boxing in" phrase used in the article in reference to government and labor unions trying to make small businesses fit a generic mold of what all businesses should be and how they should perform, waht they should provide, etc.

Both Kerri and I were surprised when the higher-ups decided to run the Unions/Big Labor article as the cover; Kerri was almost certain when initially contacting me that they were going to run the Soldier article, and I thought the best sketch was the superhero concept. It was decided to go with the squeezing sketch while dropping the suit (yes!) and adding a female. With this type of work, it is always a consideration to portray multiple nationalities and both sexes. I got into the revision and even added a third figure for a better balance and composition.

I submitted two versions, and Kerri chose the limited color palette. I always enjoy Kerri's type layouts over my images. With this illustration, I tried to plan for her use of white text and as such limited my own use of lighter values. All in all, I think we collaborated on a striking cover that grab's attention (no pun intended).

The article is a pretty interesting read, especially when taking into account union effects on businesses with only a few employees that have to meet these "large business union" demands.
Read the article here.

Enjoy the Day,
Chris

Question Everything!

Hello, all! Hope all is well. I've been juggling a few plates lately while trying some new things. I'm still trying to get the hang of a wacom tablet, and lately I've also been attending SUNY New Paltz's figure drawing every week; it's a great free-model Monday night. Perhaps I'll post some drawings from the sessions eventually, but for now you'll have to settle for another illustration installment!

I was recently contacted by Jesse at Philadelphia Magazine with a very interesting assignment: a portrait of Philip Berg. Now you may ask: "who is Philip Berg?" That was my initial response when I first read Jesse's email. It turns out that Philip Berg is the man behind many conspiracy theories including the government's responsibility for 9/11 and the Obama/birth certificate fiasco. Apparently, Berg became obsessed with conspiracies and was once a well-respected lawyer.

Jesse wanted a portrait that would showcase Berg's involvement in the conspiracy movement, but he dd not want Berg to be "too crazy looking." He sent me a few reference photos (neither of us could find much) and I got started:

I decided to nail the likeness down first and try some different backgrounds. I agreed with Jesse about staying away from a "crazy look" as we agreed that the article would let people decide for themselves. My goal with Berg was to show him as he sees himself: as a hero informing people of the facts. I went for a iconic and confident look; he is very proud of himself and what he is doing.

In terms of the backgrounds, the first sketch features polaroids of 9/11 and theories about Obama and the White House; the photos feature handwritten theories. I was going for an "evidence wall" type of feel.

For the second sketch, I went in a different direction and used a technique from a personal drawing I did a year or two ago. I like the visual effect of a figure surrounded by question marks. It works in two ways as they can represent both Berg's questioning everything as well as our questions about Berg: "What happened to this man? Has he lost his mind? etc."

Jesse decided to go with the first sketch, and I was fine with either choice. I worked up two different color versions. One featured a green background and the other was the red background chosen. I tried a few new things on this piece in therms of rendering the figure, and I like some of the subtle things going on.

Jesse seemed very happy with the piece, and I look forward to working with him again. Honestly, working with Philadelphia was a bit of a dream job as I spent my college years and then some in Philly, and I get a kick out of thinking folks I know actually get to see my work in print. And there are still some other Philly publications I would love to work with (hint hint).

On a side note, this assignment sort of sucked me into the whole conspiracy world. I was watching videos of 9/11, reading sketchy blogs, etc. Some of the arguments can be pretty persuasive! Interested in reading about Mr. Berg? Read the article here.

Enjoy the Day,
Chris

Coming to a town near you?

Hello, hello. As promised last week, I come bearing art. Its been getting busy around here since the last post, and it has made me almost forget about Halloween! I have to start my costume, and that means brevity in this month's post. Sorry!

Earlier this month, I was very lucky to be contacted by Tom at Riverfront Times. Not only was I glad to receive a job after a break, but it was a cover! Nice! Then Tom dropped the bomb that the article would be national among Village Voice Media publications, and that was awesome!

Tom had an idea of what he wanted so I sent him two quick layouts to choose from (I used a frame from another assignment's sketches as an indicator):

After layout approval, I worked up a tight sketch. While doing so, Tom ran the layout by the other art directors and wrote me with the feedback that it seemed very "farmer" with the pitchforks and such. I made it more urban by replacing them with pikes wrapped in barb wire. I thought it might be too much, but I guess not:

And I submitted two versions of final art. Initially, I was working the piece to emulate images on my website that Tom had mentioned. However, I really wanted to explore this as a two-color image, and Tom responded to that as the direction to move in:

After some discussion, we settled on this final version:
The difficult part of this assignment was creating a suitable composition that would work with all of the papers' mastheads. Tom allowed me some leeway and said that overlapping the logos is fine and actually encouraged in some cases. Good news for me! Here is a sample of what most of the other mastheads look like:
The artwork is being featured as an interior image in Minneapolis City Pages as well as the cover of Riverfront Times, Village Voice, Houston Press, SF Weekly, Miami New Times, New Times Broward Palm Beach, and Dallas Observer. Needless to say, I am SUPER-PSYCHED to have this artwork coming out this week! It's one of those days where you can't stop smiling and whistling, and people look at your weird.

Many thanks to Tom, Ivylise, Miche, Alex and Alex, Monica, Justin, and Nick for such a great opportunity as well as the great exposure. I hope to work with each of them again in the future!
(You may read the article here)

Enjoy the Day,
Chris

Work is Play.

Hello again. I'm sorry that I don't have any art to share this week. Instead, I wanted to share some work-related stuff that I have going on. To quote Milton Glaser, "Art is Work." But I also think Art is Play. We all started because it was fun, right? Doodles and mark-making were fun. So to keep it as such, I am trying new and old things outside of my usual methods.

I just got a Wacom in hopes of experimenting with Photoshop. It was a gift from my lady friend, and its pretty fun. I went with a tiny one as my desk space is pretty cramped already, and I didn't want to spend too much money in case I didn't like working in this manner. I hope to post some results eventually.
The Bamboo is pretty cool as it can also basically replace your mouse. Not only can you use it with a pen, but you can also use your fingers as if it were a mousepad (think scrolling and clicking on you smartphone or itouch).

I have also been experimenting a bit with "analog" work. Aside from the sketchbook, I want to try some media on different papers. Here is a result of inks on a watercolor block; no preliminary drawing here, just putting pen to paper and seeing what happens:

I also keep forgetting that I finally got a toned-paper sketchbook! Its in my bag, but I immediately grab ol'trusty. Hopefully, I'll stumble upon it and get some playing done there as well.

Sorry again for the lack of commissioned work this week; I need to spread it out :) Check back next week for a new piece!

Enjoy the Day,
Chris

Cham-paign, anyone?

Hello again! I don't have much time to chat today as I have a pretty complex project on hand, so I'll just jump into a brief step-by-step of a recent project I can finally post. I think. Although I do not see anything for the campaign online, I was told that I could start promoting the artwork in October...

Over the summer, I was very lucky to be chosen for a poster campaign. It is for Sidedoor Productions, a film studio that accepts submissions/scripts for movie ideas (think Project: Greenlight). They are teaming up with Mountain Dew to get the word out: you could have your movie made! The design firm handling the promotions was TracyLocke in Connecticut. A special thanks to Kim and Andy for selecting me as well as their friendly demeanor and patience.

The project was originally going to run four posters, but the number was cut down to two due to budget. There may be a third poster in the future if needed. The first two posters were to a pitch/script-themed poster and a generic all occasions poster.

Quick composition layouts that were discussed before sketches: Round one of sketches:

Round two of sketches (face alterations):

Round three of sketches (additional face alteration):

First round of finished art (too green):

Second round of finished art (more facial detail and new figure, background alteration):

Third round of finished art (face alteration and color changes):

Final posters as produced by TracyLocke:

I decided to show the original artwork on my website so that viewers will see exactly what I delivered. So I placed the needed text on the art and produced these versions for my promotions:

The entire process for these posters took around six weeks due to Andy and Kim waiting for feedback from folks at both Sidedoor and Mountain Dew, folks on vacation, etc. I do hope we continue with the third poster as I greatly enjoy working in a series. I also think I enjoy poster work so much that I am hoping to do more both for clients as well as self-initiated projects.

Enjoy the Day,
Chris