Showing posts with label adam. Show all posts
Showing posts with label adam. Show all posts

Monday, January 25, 2010

Oh yeah--

I also have a day job! Here's some signs celebrating early 2010 holidays.




The manliest sign I've ever made. I have no idea what those X's and O's mean-- I just copied them from a Google search. This sign is so busy it drives me nuts, but after making painstaking grass for fifty years last week I was somewhat forced into commitment.


The girliest sign I've ever made, and by far the most pink I've used... ever. On anything. I did have a blast making the feathers though.



A metallic and dolphin gray cardstock "disco ball" -- part of our New Year's display. This took approximately 55 large hot glue sticks.


An icy-toned board that accompanied said disco ball. The '5' is 40 feet high (almost)

These are all from the last few weeks-- we don't celebrate holidays annoyingly early like most grocery stores-- we don't have the space!

Speaking of work, my good friend and former coworker, Adam, is currently in the midst of an epic Great American RV tour with his lovely boyfriend, Joel. They're keeping a really amazing little blog of their journeys at The Bunny and the Burrow. If you're longing for a road trip, they're a great pair to live vicariously through.





Thursday, June 11, 2009

Celebrate Summer

We always pull together a 'look' for the store entry for each new flyer-- this time we decided to go with 'Celebrate Summer' because it was nice and simple and we're just so glad that the sun is finally here!

I cut down a truck-load of triangle flags from four shades of textured cardstock in fantastic beach-side colors-- and then we hot glued each one to white string at 4 inch intervals and hung them up in long, graceful, 'county fair-like' swags. Adam made all of the signs-- from hundreds of gathered paint chips.


Its really simple, but came together so beautifully.
I love the negative space on the sign.

Here's a closeup of the fabulous paint chip job.



love this 2!


we carried the flags throughout the store. they were the perfect punch of color-- easy to make and effortless to hang. we'll definitely be revisiting them again, maybe with scantron sheets and old lined paper for back to school!


This seemed fitting to post tonight because I'm off to celebrate summer myself-- our first camping trip of the year starts tomorrow! Chris and I are meeting up with our friends Andy and Holly on Lake Michigan for a long weekend. I will be back next week with photos!

Tuesday, May 12, 2009

A creative activities update!

I've been out and about this past week-- the options for passing time are much more plentiful now that the warm weather has returned! I have managed to sneak in a little work and have also developed a really fun eye twitch in response to the work yet to be done!

As promised, here's the super exciting theme for the new flyer at the store:



We wanted something really fresh because green is shooting out of the ground like crazy, so we went with sprouting. My coworker Adam created the sprout from foam board and wire, and then applied multiple layers of felt on top before nestling it in this little shadow box behind plexi-glass. Several components of the actual sign were cut from paper that was applied to the chalkboard-- a totally new way of working for us that we'll definitely be coming back to. The rest of the store is filled with downed branches that we covered in kraft paper tape and little paper leaves.

In my own work, I'm happy to announce that I have a new favorite material-- his name is Mr. Burlap.

(click for texture bliss!)

I purchased this organic hemp burlap a few months ago, but just got around to using it this weekend. I love the effect when a somewhat modern image is screened on top-- the contrast is heavenly.



The only problem with Mr. Burlap is that he's really thirsty. These prints require at least 4 times the amount of ink required to screen a regular print-- the dried burlap weave is like a sponge! I haven't decided yet whether or not to charge more for these prints-- either way, I'm in love.

This reverse technique (where the negative space is screened in) is going to play prominently in the prints I pull in the next few weeks I think-- I'm hoping it will be a fun way to breathe some new life into successful images. At the same time as the burlap prints were created I pulled another Ladder Fern edition where the brown negative space is screened on top of a variegated panel of greens.





For this effect, I cut the screen opening to just under the size of my piece of canvas, and then dollop on a few shades of green in random spots and pull the ink across the whole panel. Then I screen the negative space on top in brown. I already used this method last winter with the Huron River Bed series, which I'll be bringing back in addition to these Ladder Fern prints and some Honeycomb style prints also using this method.

That's on my to-do list between now and the next show, in addition to (as always) pulling lots and lots and lots of woodcut prints. I have my work cut out for me!

Friday, February 6, 2009

Custom Orders

shh.. its past my bedtime! I had to squeeze in a quick post about two recent orders though.

The first print was created for Jason Rozen of Grinding Tapes Recording Co. Jason originally ordered a single Honeycomb print and then we worked together to create an entire grouping of Honeycomb prints, the larger one with a zoomed in feel that proportionally works out perfectly when hung next to two smaller prints.



It was a challenge creating this larger print-- fitting together images on two different screens was quite the exercise for my often neglected left-brain, but it came out just lovely despite an evening filled with expletives! The larger print is 17x17" and is also stretched (tight as a drum!) onto a custom made frame. The canvas in larger pieces can dent much more easily than the 8x8"s I usually sell, so stretching it as tight as it can go and using lots of staples is much more important.

I also recently finished a project for my dear friends Adam and Joel. They have these adorable matching yellow kayaks, so we thought it would be cute if I appliqued them onto "Someday the Waves"



I embroidered in a hearty brown split stitch onto hand-dyed 'safety yellow' cotton and then used fabric bonder to apply them to the canvas. I'm so glad I used the thinner cotton-- I love how you can see the ghost of the waves underneath! I also fell back in love with embroidery a little bit while working on these prints-- maybe it'll show up in the shop again sometime soon!

I found myself out and out pining for a summer day on the river as I worked on these-- Michigan winters are torture! This week its been exceptionally nasty frostbite-through-gloves kind of cold.

All right, to bed!

Friday, November 28, 2008

Plugging Away & My Day Job

I am switching gears tonight and working on woodcut prints. I tried this method prior to the last show-- where I amass a pile of screen prints and then focus only on woodcuts, and it worked really well. The hope is that I make around 200 5x7 prints between today and tomorrow. Those sold the best at my last show, and I'm thinking this next one will be very similar.

I have one more day off to really pump them out, and then back to the day job for another 40 hours. For those of you who don't know me very well, I am very fortunate to have a really wonderful and creative day job, so you won't hear too many complaints from me on that end.

In addition to spending the last few months selling prints in shows and online, I also work as a sign designer for Trader Joe's. If you're wondering what that entails, its probably a safe bet that you haven't been in the store. Trader Joe's is a kind of wacky gourmet grocery chain-- there's around 300 stores in the US, most of them around metropolitan areas. Each store keeps a small staff of local artists on who make every single sign in the store by hand. In addition we've worked a lot on the visual merchandising end this year-- giving the store an entire new look with a community theme and creating and working within cohesive brands and images for events. Right now we're about to hang huge hand-made ornaments from the ceiling for the holidays. Here's the theme introduction to our Thanksgiving-- its the first thing you'll notice as you walk in:


This setup is a collaboration between myself and Adam, by colleage and creamate. For those following along at home, a creamate is a soul mate in the creative realm, and yes, I just made it up. I will post more about Adam and his many amazing talents later. We spent around 4 hours at 4 thrift stores putting this look together. The shadow boxes are made with black foam board and old wood frames and they're so perfect that we're going to recycle them as gift boxes for our Christmas display.

All right, I'm fresh out of stalling material-- time to get to printing!