Alternative Press Festival

Thanks to Ryan Perkins, we are designing the posters for the Alternative Press Festival again this year. This makes the 3rd year of collaborative poster design with the talented Ryan Perkins, Max Kelly, Whitney Shaw, Claire Taylor, and Valerie Jar.

We each got a theme, ex Mystery, Classics, Fantasy. I got Romance. Here is my image, without the type.

The Alt Press Festival is on Saturday July 7th this year at the Downtown Main Library. Come see us, BIRDBRAIN press will have table!

More on Corndogs!

Final version of the first letter to Wienerschnitzel. Typewriter written on Mr. French Pop-Tone Pink Lemonade paper in a Construction Safety Orange envelope. We have gained another judge for our project. Now, just lacking the signatures!

 

And the score card, front and back:

We're going to Millie's tomorrow, which has been #1 by many people. Good luck to all.

Corndog Project

A friend and I are collaborating on a Corndog Project. We are going to every* restaurant in Salt Lake City that serves corndogs, hoping to find the PERFECT corndog. Here is documentation of our progress so far:

Here is a draft of a letter we are sending to Wienerschnitzel. The final will be on Mr. French paper and mailed to Wienerschnitzel headquarter in Newport Beach, CA. We will both be signing them of course.

Here is a draft of the "corndog score card" we will be using to score each corndog and it's restaurant. We will send in a copy of the score card with each letter.

*We are trying to hit every restaurant, so, if you know of any restaurants in Salt Lake City that serve corndogs, please let us know. Email me, post on here, call me, etc. Thanks!

B-Day Book for a Buddy

It was my friend's birthday recently and I made her a silly 8 page book. She has two cats, Swordfish and The Chap, who she adores probably as much as I adore my cat, Charles. Here are few pages from the book.

Hooray for Birthdays!

2012 Calendar

I made a limited edition of 2012 Calendars mainly for Christmas presents for my family and friends. They have been a bit hit and I've sold a few and given a few more out. There are still some left so contact me if you want one. Each month was illustrated with a holiday from that month, even August which has no government recognized holidays.

Here is a sampling of months:

Skiers

I found this while cleaning out my computer's Documents folder. This was a drawing I made for my parents last year for Christmas. It's pretty funny, so I thought I'd share.

Final Drawing (from left to right: dad, sister, me, mom)

Sketch

Hilarious original photo circa 1996 (we all had matching one-piece ski suits, and yes, that is a fanny pack)

"Seasons Eatings"

In December, I was once again invited to participate in the University's Art Department's annual mini-print exchange and sale. I letterpress printed this print from photopolymer plates and a linoleum block reduction cut. The original image can be seen in my 2012 calendar, soon to be on this blog!

Seasons Eatings: 8"x10"

Patron Saint of Book Arts

I made this piece for my boss and coworkers (Marnie Powers-Torrey, David Wolske, Emily Tipps, and Becky Thomas) for a panel discussion they were giving at the latest College Book Arts Association conference in the San Francisco Bay Area. The title of the discussion group was "Herding Cats: Instructional Strategies in Twenty-First Century Book Classrooms" and of course you need a Patron Saint to herd all those cats!

Her halo is made from overarching qualities all book artists need to possess. The cats' tags all have terminology that is also important in the world of book arts.

Celebrity Portraits

I finished Celebrity Portraits! and am now putting them online!

 Alec Baldwin

 Jeff Bridges

 Lady Gaga

 Lindsay Lohan

 Mulder and Scully

Sarah Michelle Gellar

The reflective quality of the transparencies depicting Danny and Shelley Duvall in the Jack Nicholson piece wouldn't allow for a good photo. But, it didn't change any from the "in progress" post before. You'll just have to trust that it's great!

Lil' Lindsay Lohan

I was invited to participate in the annual mini-print for the University of Utah's printmaking department. It is a fundraiser to raise money to send the printmaking students to the Southern Graphics Council convention. Last years exchange was probably the best I've been in. Here is this years (last years is still up from December, 2009).

  

letterpress printed from linoleum blocks, photopolymer plates and wood type; glittered heart necklace

Here are 95 of them strung up on our "drying rack."

that's a lot o' Lohan

SCREENPRINTING SET-UP / Saltgrass Printmakers Fundraiser

We have finally set up our screenprinting studio!
Our excuse was for the Saltgrass Printmakers annual fundraiser. Max and I were asked to participate this year by printing on prayer flags. The open house is Dec. 4 and 5th at Saltgrass.
This has been in the works since before we moved into our current apartment. Our studio (which is also our living room) is only about 100 sq feet so we had to be creative. Our "drying rack" is a hot-pink clothesline zigzagging across our ceiling and my desk doubles as a screenprinting table. Unfortunately, we haven't built our dual exposure unit/coffee table, but we'll get there soon. For the time being we are just using work lamps and washing out screens at the car wash. Here are some pictures of the set-up and our prints.

Max printing his flags

Printing mine, they were on the same screen to save emulsion

 

Here is our set-up. Max's print is the bowling ladies

My print was of my cat Charles

We also printed on shirts. It was an experiment that worked well. We are planning on printing more shirts with many more designs. Stay tuned for those as they come.

THE SMOG SHOW

I was invited to participate in the "Smog Show" at the Bay Leaf Cafe in Salt Lake City. The show focuses on the crappy air quality in Salt Lake City. It opened on March 5th.
With these pieces I really explored this new cut-outs idea I have been thinking about. I made 5 mixed media, cut-out pieces using watercolor, colored pencil, regular pencil, and glitter. They are each a drawing of a specific landmark in Salt Lake City that is being attacked by a smog monster. The clouds and cloud elements are done with colored pencil. The drawings of the buildings are done in regular pencil. The backgrounds and hands are watercolored.

"Smog Monster!"

"Smog Monster II: Revenge of Smog"

"Smog Monster III: Smog Harder with a Vengeance"

"Smog Monster IV: Son of Smog"

"Smog Monster vs. Mega-Smog Monster"

FRIENDS OF FRIENDS: WORKS ON PAPER

I forgot to post my 8 fold books in the last post. There are 5 of them. Only 4 were photograph-able, but you can see the layouts below the photographs. Click the thumbnails to enlarge. They are also for sale, so contact me if you are interested in purchasing one.

 "8 Things I Like About You, Alec Baldwin"

"I Was Born, and Then Some Things Happened, and Now I Love My Life"

"A Little Book About Monsters"

"This Thing Happened, and Now I Have Seizures"

And here are the layouts (click to enlarge in new window):