Wet Plate Love

So many people in my life know that i love westerns and the look of all things old. There is something about the look of an old photo that silently speaks to my soul. i hold them in my hands or look at them in antique stores and stories start unfolding and growing in my mind. There is so much character in these old photos that is lacking in much of present day photography.

Julie and i are lucky enough to be friends with a wonderfully talented photographer. We call him Fly. Though the rest of the world probably knows him as Harry Taylor.

The shoot for these photos was a totally awesome! If your interested in getting some make for yourself shoot Fly and email and he'll give you a quote.

For now he has posted a couple of my wife Julie and i over at his blog along with plenty of other great wet plates. Hop on over and check em out. I love how ours turned out!



Also if you have time to visit a site and stroll through some photos check out Shorpy.

Till next time

Doc

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• Photographer's antique camera turns Seattle upside down (seattletimes.nwsource.com)

IF: Early

So, i have been following the Illustration Friday blog for a while now. I've never really having the time to post or complete the challenges within the week.

I finally am able to post one for Early. I am sure that there will be pleanty of people posting with birds hitting the theme of the "early bird..." The last few weeks my days have been starting with wake up calls from the birds that we invite on the weekends by filling the bird feeders. We do see a bit more squirrels than birds but its the birds that wake me up early.



Hope you enjoy. Thanks for stopping by.

TTFN
Doc

More Morvil

The past few days i worked on some more screen printing action for Morvil. This is where i live 9-5 Monday-Friday. A publication that we started running some client ads in is putting together a "goody bag" to give away at a function this coming week.

Being the crafty folks that we are, we jumped on some ideas to help drive home the importance of good graphic design and advertising. The coasters have playful and simple messages on them to encourage good design/advertising in their lives.

Our goal is to encourage people to "Shake Things Up" in there advertising. Help them to try looking at advertising from another angle. "Leave Your Mark" on your audience. Creating a memorable brand that over time people know they can rely, respect and trust your company. While remembering "Don't Water It Down".

Allowing for good, strong, well thought out design and advertising to grow and inspire your patrons and employees, is plan good thinking.










Of course, most of the real fun happens back at the office putting them together! Maria found these great rubber band balls that had black rubber bands in them. We thought they would go swimmingly with the designs on the coaster.

Spike, found them wonderfully enjoyable and yet an enigma. Teamwork helps everything go by quickly. Brian F, Spike and I sorted and packaged them for the "goodie bags" the publication was handing out.

The Show

The Thermals show was a whole lot of fun. It is wonderful to have bands come through and hit up littler town venues and rock out for us. Really enjoyed meeting the guys from both bands. If you get a chance to check them out, do and enjoy!

Here are a few pic before the camera battery died on me. Boy did i feel like an amateur when that happened. Not really even enough time to get used to the lights to find what worked.

Later
Doc

The Thermals Are Coming! The Thermals Are Coming!

Well i have had lots of things on my plate as of late. With that i do have progress to update on. I finally got some time carved out and got down to business on a gig poster for the band The Thermals. They will be stopping by the Soapbox downtown Wilm NC, Monday April 5th (strike that, it's the 12th). I got really excited about it and it was just the excuse i needed to print some gig posters.

I had done a sketch of the singer and intended to follow up with sketches of the drummer and bassist. A poster triptych, where the faces would change but the type and info all stayed the same. Needless to say that i ran out of time and was only able to get the one design pushed through to production. Here is the starter photo, sketch and digital sketch to kick this project off.







There were quite a few changes from this point to the final. A major one was to drop the line drawing altogether and just use shapes to convey the subject. Probably the biggest change is turning you home into a printing space. Setting up is a hassle when you don't have a proper space for your printing projects. Your kitchen/living room/den end up looking like this. I'll probably be cleaning up for a few more days after this.



Here is a shot of the Blue positive (dark black part of the image) over laying the magenta (lighter grey).


The blue screen with the image burned and ready to print.


Printing with friends always makes this wonderful process even more enjoyable. This brown bearded fellow is Brent Holloman. You should really check out some of his work. His photography is pretty close to amazing and his design skills are dern next to a brilliant match.


So here is the how the first color of the print went. Honestly, i'm really excited about how this turned out.


The magenta screen with burned image also ready to roll. Registered the second screen to the first print. Now just mix the ink and get to printing.



My buddy Justin Munn, stopped by to check out the process and lend a hand as well as pull a few prints. After a few mishaps with the magenta being to pink and the issues with the ink sliding under the tape, we were able to get the posters printed!





Personally i enjoy comparing the preliminary sketches to the finished piece and see where the creative journey takes you. Over all i am thrilled with how these came out. If you're able to stop by Wilm NC's Soapbox Laundro-Lounge April 5th (strike again, now mon the 12th) to check this show out you should be in for a good time.

TTFN
Doc

Over all I had a great time. I had started this post wed evening and checked Friday afternoon to show a friend some more dates at the soapbox only to find there was no Thermals show Mon. Needless to say i was a little panicked. It's frustrating when dates happen to change on you. When you're making posters to make posters and exercise the creative juices i guess it doesn't matter in the long run. Might just walk around with sticky notes to all the posters i hung to correct this change in schedule.