Strawberryluna

New poster released: Moe. Snoe.down 2010

My new screenprinted poster for Moe.'s Snoe.down 2010, 4-colors (click for more info or to buy)

This is our newest poster release all new and ready to go home with you:

It’s the good time winter fun fest of  Moe. and their huge Snoe.down Festival jam. We’re super excited to be working with Moe. When they contacted us, the mission was to mix things up from their previous posters and produce something fun, child-like and fresh. So, we Let loose & had a snowy good time with it for them. Wheee!

Snoe.down is the all-ages annual winter music festival hosted by moe. and not only features multiple sets by Moe., but in 2010 also playing are funk/soul group Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings, jam-grass favorites Railroad Earth, Assembly of Dust, and Hot Day at the Zoo, southern rockers the Bridge, up-and-coming jam-rockers the McLovins, and the Heavy Pets plus Leroy Justice, Lynch, and Moon Alice.

This is my 4-color, hand screenprinted poster with snowy light blue, warm orange and black hand-mixed, non-toxic water based acrylic inks. Super secret magic: transparent baby blue & orange inks = light brown, magical overprints. (Overprints are when semi-transparent layers of ink combine and overlap to make another color.) I will have a very limited number of this poster for sale, as most of the edition was sold by the band during the Snoe.down festival. Size: 18w x 24h inches. Edition of 675. Paper: acid-free & archival Cougar 100 lb White, cover weight. $25

I design and hand screenprint all of my posters and prints. Let me know if you have any questions! Unless otherwise requested, all orders are shipped within 5 business days, though usually much sooner. I like stupid little toys, hopefully you do too because there will be one or two in your tube.

My new Moe. Snoe.down Festival poster is now available for purchase, click this link for my website or on the image above.

Paper Cuts, The Art & Science of Rock Posters show

Paper Cuts gallery show at Athenaeum (including my Dashboard Confessional poster, lower right side.)

I’m proud to be a part of a new poster  show called Paper Cuts: The Art and Science of Rock Posters that features Washington, DC area artists and venues posters. Paper Cuts will run from March 24 through April 25 at the Athenaeum in Old Town, Alexandria. Featuring a wide range of styles from a number of contemporary artists, the collection reflects the breadth and vitality of the DC Metropolitan area music scene.

My Dashboard Confessional poster (below) is among the posters featured in this DC-area posters art show.

My Dashboard Confessional poster, screenprinted, 4-colors, is in the Paper Cuts show. (clock for more info or to purchase)

To provide context to the art of these music posters, Paper Cuts will explore the science of the works by exhibiting artifacts from the process, including original drawings, sketches, studies, and printmaking ephemera. Additionally, the opening will feature live printmaking with Kristina Bilonick, where visitors can try their own hand at screenprinting!

Paper Cuts is organized by designer and printmaker Anthony Dihle, who also organized last year’s poster show Paper Jam at Civilian Art Projects, which surveyed the work of two dozen East Coast based poster artists.

Paper Cuts will feature the work of 16 poster artists including Hero Design Studio, Jay Ryan, John Foster, Marc Harkness, Zach Bryan, strawberryluna (that’s me!), Anthony Dihle, Todd Slater, Marq Spusta, Hatch Show Print, Dan Grzeca, Guy Burwell, Chris Cernoch, John Whitlock, Adam Saul, and Criminal Design

Show details:

Exhibition Dates: March 25–April 25, 2010.
Opening Reception: Sunday, March 28, 4–6 pm
Location: Athenaeum, 201 Prince Street, Alexandria, Va 22314

Hours: Regular gallery viewing hours are Thursdays, Fridays, and Sundays from 12–4 pm and on  Saturdays from 1–4 pm.

If you are in the DC / Alexandria, VA area do check out the show!

2 new art prints released: Lovebirds & Going To See My Baby Lavender

New 7-color hand screenprinted art print, "Lovebirds" now available. (click for more info or to purchase!)

 

 

Ok! This is a quick post as I really should be packing my clothes for Flatstock & SXSW in Austin TX (see this previous post for more info), so I will keep this one short and sweet.

I jammed out two brand new art prints this past weekend in a marathon printing run. 2 days, 8 screens, 13 colors, 1,000+ pulls, 200+ prints =  2 new prints. BOOM!

The first print is above, and it’s called “Lovebirds”. When we were working on our poster for St. Vincent, we started playing around with the flower illustration and found that it made very cute little birdies, we added a heart and ta-da! Lovebirds.

The second new art print is below, and it’s a fresh new colorway of my very popular “Going To See My Baby” print, now in Lavender. I love that lemony cloud action. I have to say as well that it’s kinda funny that both new prints feature hearts and love and romance quite prominently. Spring is here!

New 6-color hand screenprinted art print, "Going To See My Baby Lavender" now available. (click for more info or to purchase!)

It’s been really awesome getting to work out of my new studio space, rockin’ out to music and watching movies too while printing. In fact, I did a little Twitter contest while printing “Lovebirds” and asked if anyone could name the movie that I was watching in the background of a Photoshop mock, and wouldn’t you know it? Someone (@kurometarikku) got it right on the money by identifying “The Great Race” from a terrible screenshot. Amazing! Check out the photo below:

The Great Race in the background. Goofy, yes. But Jack Lemmon never disappoints.

And here are a few process shots of each print, sorry that they are not up on Flickr yet, but they will be next week! Apologies for some of the greyed out light. I do live and work in Pittsburgh, PA afterall. The actual prints are on lovely & crisp white paper 🙂

1st color of my new hand screenprinted art print "Lovebirds". (click for more info or to purchase)

2nd color of my hand screenprinted new art print "Lovebirds". (click for more info or to purchase)

3rd & final color of my new hand screenprinted art print "Lovebirds" drying on the rack. (click for more info or to purchase)

1st, 2nd, & 3rd colors printed of my new colorway "Going To See My Baby Lavender" art print.

Colors 1,2, and 3 of my hand screenprinted art print, "Going To See My Baby Lavender, with color test smears of inks on the right. (click for more info or to purchase!)

4th color down (black) of my hand screenprinted art print, "Going To See My Baby Lavender". (click for more info or to purchase!)

All done! New hand screenprinted art print, "Going To See My Baby Lavender". (click for more info or to purchase!)

Flatstock & SXSW: Here we come Austin, TX!

The strawberryluna booth at SXSW Flatstock '09, so come see us this year too. (click for more info)

It’s really Spring! And for us that means the first Flatstock of the year, in Austin, TX during the HUGE music festival SXSW. We’ll be working part of the time and having a blast the other. Come on and see us and close to 100 (that’s right) poster artists from all over the world, showing our work and talking shop with music industry folks, poster art fans and the wide open general public.

We will be debuting new posters and new art prints as well as bringing a slew of Test Prints too, so it’s going to be rad.  Come say hi!

Co-presented by the American Poster Institute (API) and SXSW, Flatstock 24 will display the works of more than 100 artists from across North America and the globe. Posters representing decades of styles, colors and techniques will be on display and for sale as well as additional merchandise. Show up early and be ready to be overwhelmed with amazing posters. (You might want to bring some dough since you won’t want to leave empty handed!) The exhibition is free and open to the public. Check out this year’s exhibiting artists.

Big ol' fisheye view of a Flatstock in Austin, TX, photo Jen Soto. (click for more info)

The best concert posters have always captured both the essence of the music they promoted and the spirit of the time in which they were produced. Flatstock provides an ongoing series of opportunities to see fine poster art in person and to meet the artists who created it.

Making SXSW a true music collector’s paradise, don’t forget to set time aside for the Austin Record Convention in the same exhibit hall and the Texas Guitar Show in the adjacent hall.

The legendary Smokey Robinson will visit Flatstock 24 on Thursday afternoon following his keynote address to sell his limited edition prints designed by Shepard Fairey. Swing by to get your one-of-a-kind poster signed by both Smokey and Shepard.

Screenprinted art print of the legendary Smokey Robinson by Shepard Fairey.

The Important Details!

Schedule & Hours:

  • Thursday. 3/18  HOURS from 1:00pm – 6:00pm (includes Smokey Robinson & Shepard Fairey appearances.)
  • Friday. 3/19 and Saturday. 3/20 HOURS: from 10:00am – 6:00pm

Location:
Austin Convention Center Level 1, Exhibit Hall 1, on the Ground Floor.

About the API: The American Poster Institute is a nonprofit corporation dedicated to serving the poster artist community and promoting the art form. The Flatstock shows provide the American Poster Institute with a way to present poster artists collectively while showcasing the breadth of styles they represent.

About SXSW: The first South by Southwest Music Conference and Festival (SXSW) was held in 1987 in Austin, Texas. Despite the fact that Austin was not a Top 20 major market at the time, the background and character of the city made it a perfect location for the conference. SXSW’s original goal was to create an event that would act as a tool for creative people and the companies they work with to develop their careers, to bring together people from a wide area to meet and share ideas. That continues to be the goal today whether it is music, film or the internet. And Austin continues to be the perfect location.

New art print released! “The Lady and The Wolf”

My new 2 color, all hand screenprinted art print "The Lady & The Wolf" (Click for more info or to purchase.)

Been  busy busy busy printing like crazy lately! This is my newest art print and new release “The Lady & The Wolf”, a 2 color hand screenprinted re-telling of Little Red Riding Hood. But you know, for grown ups. Little Red Riding Hood here, is all grown up, but in no less danger.

This is the first print in an ongoing series of my interpretations of the folk & fairy tales I grew up reading, but for grown ups working with themes of sex, death, & the supernatural.

I’ve been fascinated and in love with folk & fairy tales my entire life. These days, many people know them best as tales for children, however many of our most loved fairy tales have much more brutal original tellings than you might imagine something fit for little kids. I read folk & fairy tales obsessively, the darker the roots of the tale, the more I love it. It’s super interesting how the same stories appear in similar versions and places for both children and (especially originally) for adults as well.

“The Lady & The Wolf” is my 2-color, all hand screen printed art print with scarlet blood red and semi-transparent midnight black hand mixed and non-toxic water based inks. Black over prints red in parts, blending the where the Lady ends and the Wolf begins. Edition of 75. Size: 16 x22 inches (39.4 cm x 55.9 cm.) Paper: acid free & archival Cougar, White 100lb cover weight.

If you have any questions, feel free to ask. This limited edition screenprint is now available on my website HERE.

And, if you like process photographs, check out my Flickr account page here (or click the images below) with photos of the print being made! A few selections are below for you.

1st color (red) screen and films for registering for my screenprint "The Lady & The Wolf". (Click for more info or to see more photos.)

1st color printed for my new screenprint "The Lady & The Wolf". (Click for more info and to see more photos.)

2nd color ink (black) in the screen and ready to print. (Click to see more photos or for more info.)

All done! The screen has ink for the next print, ready to rock. (Click to see more photos or for more info.)

I hope that you dig. If you wish to purchase this limited edition print click here, or have any questions or comments, feel free to leave them or ask them.

Cool Fairy Tale & Folk Tale links for you:

Sur La Lune – An ever growing collection of Fairy & Folk tales from around the world, complete with classic illustrations.

Professor D.L. Ashliman’s fantastic Folklore  & Mythology Electronic Texts page –  I took as many of his classes as I could as an undergraduate at the Univ. of Pgh. He’s super.

A brief history of the Fairy Tale, including their not-neccessarily-for-children origins.

2 new rock poster releases! St. Vincent & The Wreckids


My 6 color, hand screenprinted poster for St. Vincent's show wi/ Wildbirds & Peacedrums in Pittsburgh on 2/21/10. (Click to purchase or for more info,)

After taking the month of January off from printing to work on some big design projects, as well as recover and regroup from a fantastically hectic summer + fall + winter 2009 work schedule, we were finally able to really focus on getting my new studio up and running for real. Craig found the space in July ’09 and I signed the lease starting in September. It was love at first sight for sure. A blog post covering the set up and construction of my new solo studio (nicknamed Friendship Studio) is definitely due. And now that it’s been one week since completing my first prints and posters there from start to finish? I’m feeling really great about all of the crazy and hard work that we did. But, more on that soon.

For now, I’m really stoked to post these new releases, as they are the first posters out of my Friendship Studio!

First up is actually the 2nd poster printed at my new space : that being my poster (pictured above) for St. Vincent. I’m really proud to be a part of the tour series organized for this tour, with the super cool (& Swedish!) Wildbirds & Peacedrums. The show was…amazing. Definitely try to catch St. Vincent on tour at some point this year. The above is my 6-color all hand pulled screenprinted poster with bark brown, clear yellow & magenta hand-mixed, non-toxic water based acrylic inks. Super secret magic: Three inks & 3 screens were used to make a total of 6 colors utilizing lots of overprints. (Overprints are when semi-transparent layers of ink combine and overlap to make another color.) I will have a very limited number of this poster for sale, as most of the edition was sold by the band on the night of the show & on tour. Size: 16w x 22h inches. Edition of 125. Paper: acid-free & archival Cougar 100 lb White, cover weight. Click here for more information on my website or to purchase.

And next up is actually the FIRST poster that I printed in my new studio. Is it backwards posting this first poster one second? Yes. But cousin, that’s how I roll.

My 2 color, hand screenprinted poster for The Wreckids CD release show in Pittsburgh on 2/19/10. (Click for more info!)

This poster is special all over. It’s for our dear friends The Wreckids CD release party in Pittsburgh, and you need to know a few things. 1. They are the coolest. 2. They’re awesome. 3. This poster is ONLY and EXCLUSIVELY available through the band. Yep, that’s right. So if you like it? Please help support them and purchase a poster from The Wreckids directly via their Myspace page HERE.

The Wreckids are some sweetie pies in disguise. This poster is for their CD release party for the record “Singing You To Sleep But Giving You Nightmares”, and doesn’t that just about folktale style say it all? The above is my 2-color all hand pulled screenprinted poster with blood red and midnight black hand-mixed, non-toxic water based acrylic inks. Size: 16w x 22h inches. Edition of 25. Paper: acid-free & archival Cougar 100 lb White, cover weight.

And, I finally got to take some more screenprinting process shots, only these offer some sneak peaks into my new print digs. Holy moly! Natural light! Click HERE or on the images below for more information about my hand screenprinting process & to see more photos at my Flickr page.

St. Vincent poster process photos:

2nd color printed of my St. Vincent poster. (Click for more information & photographs.)

My completed hand screenprinted St. Vincent poster, drying on the rack. (Click for more information & photographs.)

St. Vincent poster process, 3rd color flooded in the screen backlit screen. (Click for more information & photographs.)

The Wreckids poster process photos:

The Wreckids CD release poster 1st color screen. (Click for more information & photographs.)

The Wreckids CD release poster, racked & done SON! (Click for more information & photographs.)

My above St. Vincent poster is now available in my webstore here.

Have questions about these posters or screenprinting? Ask away! It might take me awhile, but I always write back.

ModCloth’s Blog did a lil feature on me = the poster artist is ::blushing::

My poster for The Dandy Warhols in ModCloth's feature on Gig Posters. (Click to read the piece.)

One of my favorite online clothing and accessories stops (I seriously look over there weekly) is ModCloth. They’re awesome, and they really capture the mix of vintage and modern style that I adore with their selections.

ModCloth also run a blog, and to  my utter flattered and shyly amazed delight, their Lifestyle writer Natalie B. wrote a piece about Gig Posters and featured my work. (!) It’s always so cool as a printmaker and designer to hear about what I and others in our little field think about our work, both in a personal way and just generally. Especially since while many of us posters artists know each other, we tend to be far flung and each working in our own microcosmic corners of the scene.

Anyway, thanks so much Natalie & ModCloth! Below is the article, and you can also click the links in this post (like right HERE) or the image above to read the comments posted on the ModCloth blog post about my Dandy Warhols poster (available by clicking HERE) and other poster artists. Or, be awesome and post some of your own comments about poster art & artists here on my blog too. Don’t be shy 😉

Have you ever seen a flier for your fave indie act and thought, “That is too awesome to throw away”? Then you’re already familiar with the artistic allure of gig posters!

The 60’s spawned some of the first fantastic fliers, but today there are a plethora of places that you can suss out posters of beloved bands, from A Tribe Called Quest to Rachael Yamagata, as well as superior sites which feature vast collections, such as GigPosters.com, and individual artists’ sites, like Todd Slater’s. You could even ask around your city to find local haute handbill-creating talent, such as my favorite Pittsburgh poster gal — StrawberryLuna!

One thing’s for sure — if you’re a lover of music and appreciator of art, you will be captivated by gig posters. Do you have a favorite gig poster artist or fantastic flier that you’d like to share? Tell us about it!

“Dear Loser: Letter from the Comic to a Young Plagiarist”, an Object Lesson in design-theft caution.

Click to read Sara's amazing letter to a plagiarist!

And then…this happened, beginning a couple of weeks ago. Long store essentially short – a fantastic comedian Sara Benincasa (who is pretty much the coolest person on the planet to me now) contacted me about quite a sticky wicket. And hats off to her not only for her talent, but her quick moves and general coolness under what had to have felt like complete, well…crap.

The chain of events:

1.  Sara Benincasa, an up & coming comedian hired “designer” to make a promo flyer and poster for her one-woman show Agorafabulous. As it turns out, that “design” was (unknowingly to Sara) a ripoff of a poster that I was hired to do for the band Spoon. My poster is the first you see below:

My design done under commission for the band Spoon in 2007.

2. The ripoff poster (mind-blowingly) was nominated for a design award with the ECNY Awards. The ripped off design by a real Wang is below:

My design stolen and re-sold to Sara Benincasa as "original".

3. My design was recognized by a savvy someone who alerted Sara.

4. Sara then emailed me immediately & before I even knew fully what was going on. I was out running errands before the SNOMG 2010 round 2 hit here and started seeing Tweets about me, but not to me, so I was trying to follow the leads when I got her email about the situation. Amazing.

5. Sara had already started taking down all images from her sites ASAP, and also had the design DQ’d from the award competition, and we’ve been talking ever since.

6. We’re definitely going to work together soon on a couple of projects. So, really? It’s all good.

Does the story stop there? It should, but it doesn’t:

7. THEN awesomely (!) a couple of days ago the “designer” (thief) emailed Sara asking why “his design” was no longer in the running for an ECNY award.

8. Oooohhhhhhhhhhh good times. This girl is fierce! Please CLICK HERE or the below giant link to read Sara’s open letter on her blog to The Wang who stole art & tried to profit:


UPDATE 1: Well, as it turns out, the same Wang also tried to initially sell another stolen design, this one from our very good friend and extremely talented Dan Stiles. Unbelievable. Dan’s beautiful Zero 7 poster is first, with The Wang’s ripoff following.

Dan Stiles poster for Zero 7. (Visit http://danstiles.com to see more of Dan's work.)

The Wang's stolen "design". Unbelievable.

UPDATE 2: The theft was finally acknowledged, and the Wang apologized, which is really appreciated. Apology accepted. Please do not steal my work or the work of others again and we’re cool. This goes out there to every designer and artist who needs to hear it.

So you see kids, you WILL get busted for thieving designs. And to boot? Something truly good and just might just happen to those you’ve wronged. Thanks to a Wang, a designer and a fun client have found each other. Sara Benincasa rules the skool.

I love a happy ending.

Fresh Batch of 8 new Test Prints up in my Etsy shop!


Test Print 23, freshly up & available in my Etsy shop (click for info or to purchase).

Sha-bam! I’ve finally prepared a new batch of Test Prints for web sales. I love love making test prints, and the ever-rotating stack that I am working on & taking to shows is proof positive. Is it bad that I don’t often get a chance to put them up on the web for sale? I don’t know. It’s true that I usually only have them available for sale AT shows and in person. But, every now and then I like to add some of my favorites to my Etsy shop and the Gigposters.com classifieds for sale.

And hey, being snowed in under about 3 feet of snow this week made cataloging and preparing photos (taken well before the snows, as my driveway backdrop can attest) and descriptions a real possibility. So, I present, 3 of the 8 new Test Prints up, available, and ready for new homes, just like puppies.

Test Print 27, ready to go to a new home (click for more info or to purchase).

What are Test Prints? Good question Grasshopper. Test Prints, also known as Make-Ready, or Monoprints, are made from various layers of different prints from different print runs, sometimes as a way to check colors or help re-wet and open a clogged screen, or maybe to just goof around with alternate colorways, seeing how they look together, or to test transparency (especially useful if you print with transparency bases a lot like I do). Test Prints are spontaneously created and basically, magical. Hence once a test print is sold, that’s it, gone baby. They are fully one-of-a-kind prints. I always keep a few with me in the studio while printing and every now and then one looks suddenly nice & done.

Test Print 28, an oldie but a goodie (click for more info or to purchase)

So, these prints and 7 others are now available for purchase from my Etsy shop here. If you don’t have an Etsy account it’s free to sign up for one (and easy!) or if you don’t want to set one up, they will also be available for a limited time (about 30 days from today) in the Gigposters.com classifieds here. And, of course you can always contact me if you simply wish to purchase any of the Test Prints currently available online (all viewable in my Etsy shop without signing in or up) if you wish too, just email me at strawberryluna [ a t ] straberryluna dot com.

CANCELED – I Made It! Mine Market this Saturday @ The Union Project

Click for more info!

*  CANCELED  *

Due to the humongous snow storm that hit Pittsburgh 🙁

Awww, just in time for Valentine’s Day sweeties!

The I Made It! Market team has pulled together a great bunch of Pittsburgh artists and crafters for their first show of 2010. This Saturday (only!) check out the I Made It! Mine DIY crafts fair at the historic and always cool Union Project in the Highland Park neighborhood of Pittsburgh.

50 local area artists and crafters will be on hand selling their kickass handmade items and work and hanging out so that they can talk with shoppers and Pittsburghers alike about their process, craft and work. There is a huge local community of crafters in Pittsburgh, many of whom are a part of the fantastic Pittsburgh Craft Collective and this is a great chance to get to see their handiwork up close and personal.

So come check it out! For fun previews of who and what will be there, look over here at I Made It! Market’s Blog for artist spotlights.

The details:

What: I Made It! Mine Craft Fair

When: This Saturday (only!) February 6th, 2010 from 12-5pm

Where: The Union Project, 801 N. Negley Avenue (visit The Union Project website for more info here)

Why: On account of handmade being awesome!

Win this print at Design Crush!

Click on this image & enter to win my 6-color all hand screenprinted print: "Going To See My Baby Sage" from the blog Design Crush. It's free to enter. Good luck!

Free stuff is rarely this easy.

This week the fabulous Kelly from the awesome design & style blog Design Crush is featuring one of my prints in one of their fun Win It Giveaways (<–click for details and to enter.) Kelly is not only fun and funny and cool, but as it turns out, she is also from Pittsburgh, and now living in Oklahoma City, OK. Yinz rock!

Design Crush is a really super dupes blog, so definitely check it out while you are there. Kelly posts new things just about every day, and it’s all stellar picks from around the globe.

Starting yesterday Monday, January 25, 2010 (I’m late to post this, I know, I’m sorry! But there is still plenty of time!) and running through this coming Monday, February 1st at 9am CST you can enter into Design Crush’s Win It contest and get your very own, pristine copy of my “Going To See My Baby Sage” print. Just for you! And just for entering.

The entry rules are simple:

1. Head over to Design Crush to enter.

2. Post a comment THERE, as per Design Crush’s instructions, before the deadline and BAM! You are entered and ready for Lady Luck.

One winner will be chosen at random and that winner will receive my print (shown above). Yep! It’s that easy. I will ship directly to the winner, so no worries, the winner will get my usual treats and tricks in their tube too 🙂

There are already 73 entrants, so go on with your bad self. Enter today!

Artful way to help Haiti, beautiful print by Judge

Beautiful 3-color fund-raising screenprint for Haitian earthquake victims' relief screenprint by Judge. 100% of the proceeds are donated to help survivors. (Click for more info or to purchase and make a donation to help!)

Our good friend Judge, an incredibly talented illustrator and printmaker from Chicago, IL has done something awesome and in lightning speed. She’s turned her immense talents into doing something good to help the Haitian relief efforts for those millions devastated and effected by the January 12th earthquake and on-going aftershocks.

The above print is a limited edition, 3-color screenprint available at Judge’s web store here. All proceeds from the sale of this powerful print will go to help the victims of this overwhelming tragedy. Proceeds will become donations to 2 excellent charities:

Doctors Without Borders

Partners In Health

Also, for those interested in finding other ways and charities to help do the greatest good, check out the fantastic Charity Navigator site for in-depth information about over 5,000 US-based charities.

And, of course The American Red Cross is still utilizing the very popular and easy Text “Haiti” to the number 90999 to raise $10 per text with ALL proceeds going to help the Haitian people. For a really cool FAQ about that system please click here.

For more information, or to make a much needed donation purchase see below or click here for Judge’s website:

PRICE: $30 USD + shipping (note: buyers OUTSIDE of the US please e-mail Judge for a shipping quote)

SIZE: 13″ x 20″, EDITION: 130 signed and numbered, COLORS:  3 colors, PAPER: Brick red heavyweight

Judge uses a very distinctive and labor-intensive method for many of her illustrations and designs, (you might recognize her work from the numerous pieces that she’s produced for the musician Neko Case), and all of this work is BEFORE she gets to the also labor-intensive process of screenprinting her prints. If you would like to see a great step-by-step process thread about this piece, click here to visit Gigposters.com and read the thread, with photographs, descriptions and questions & answers about her work in this piece.

http://judgeworks.bigcartel.com/product/haiti-lunion-fait-la-force-poster

Detail of the 3-color, gorgeous hand screenprinted print by Judge, with 100% of proceeds going to help Haitian survivors. (Click for more info and to make a donation purchase & help!)

Twin Soul Art Studio & Chris Bryant Guitar School opening!

This is one of those stories about when two souls meet and see their counterparts in one another. It really is.
A couple of months ago I was contacted by a lovely woman & fellow artist named Jeanne on Etsy.com (check out her shop Three Paper Pigs here! and her beautiful collage below) who had some questions about a few of my posters.

"Circus Everywhere" by Jeanne of ThreePaperPigs. (Click for more info!)

After conversing back and forth, she placed a rather large order (to my amazement and delight) of posters and told me that she and her partner were opening up a brand new art & music space in Los Gatos, CA, in the greater San Francisco Bay area, in the form of a new guitar school and art studio. I was thrilled and honored that these two artists chose a bunch of my work, from all of the talent they saw on Etsy to help decorate their new endeavor.
At the time, they were still working furiously to completion, but now, it’s all done, ready, and up and running so I’d like to introduce you all to the Twin Soul Art Studio & Chris Bryant Guitar School.
Twin Soul Art Studio & Chris Bryant Guitar School open & ready for you!

Twin Soul Art Studio & Chris Bryant Guitar School open & ready for you!

Jeanne (an artist and designer) and Chris (a musician, ceramicist and guitar teacher) describe their new venture as a true labor of love here on Three Paper Pigs blog:
Chris and I just had our grand opening last weekend and it was truly a blast. We celebrated the opening of Chris Bryant Guitar School and Twin Soul Art Studio in downtown Los Gatos, CA. We had two weeks to prepare the school and studio before the celebration, so you can imagine how busy we were after Christmas until the day of the event on January 10th. I took care of putting up all the wall decals (Dali Decals on Etsy) and my sister helped me design the Twin Soul Art Studio logo as a main focal point for the back wall. I prepared the appetizers for over 100 people and loved how everything came together. My family was a great support and they flew out from Hawaii just for the event. The weather brought sunshine, lots of traffic, happy hearts and awesome music. Chris put together a five-hour playlist of Indie artists – The Decemberists, Black Moth Super Rainbow, Brett Dennen, Tristan Prettyman, Meiko, Joshua Radin, Belle & Sebastian, Matt Costa, Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin, The Dandy Warhols, We Are Scientists, Bishop Allen, As Tall As Lions and Ben Harper to name a few! And, I was happy to also put up tons of gig posters by the talented and down-to-earth artist Strawberry Luna on Etsy.

Artists an co-creators, Jeanne & Chris.

Yum! And so much natural California light too.

As you can see from their photos for the opening, they’ve created an incredibly positive and warm space to foster creativity on many levels. We here at strawberryluna wish them the best of luck and are so honored to have  such an array of our work gracing the walls of the Twin Souls Art Studio and the Chris Bryant Guitar School.
If you are in the Bay Area in California, please check them out! Get a guitar lesson, or schedule a time for a fantastic hands-on art learning experience. The new Twin Soul Art Studio & Chris Bryant Guitar School is located at:
644 N. Santa Cruz Ave., Suite #9
Los Gatos, CA 95030
40-354-7400

More details for you and websites about this rad couple that you should check out:
Chris Bryant Guitar School – all information about schedules, hours, Chris, the guitar school, directions and more are here.
Three Paper Pigs – Jeane’s line of custom stationary and her super cool collage pieces in mixed media and more.
Three Paper Pigs on Etsy.com – a good selection of Jeanne’s currently available collage pieces are here.
Three Paper Pigs Blog – you know what a blog is! Lots of great stuff to be found there.
Chris Bryant’s pottery can be found here.

Criterion Collection films now on Netflix “Watch Instantly”

Click for more info and full list of available films

And it’s pretty darn exciting. The Criterion Collection of films has been an outstanding aggregator & distributor of excellent movie-making from around the world for over 2 decades. Keeping pace with the advent of DVDs and now more online film viewing, Criterion has released 35 movies for Netflix online streaming tool “Watch Instantly”.

For someone like me, who uses the heck out of the “Watch Instantly” feature on Netflix, often while printing or otherwise working the studio, these releases are a welcome addition.

The list of Criterion releases is impressive and not at all a slacking one. The complete list (with links right to their corresponding Netflix pages) is here at the Criterion Cast podcast site (or by clicking the above & below images). It’s also worth noting that Criterion’s standards include routinely fantastic renderings of poster and cover art for their releases as well. Some of my favorites are below.

Hey Pittsburgh! It’s Handmade Arcade time!

Woohoo! Did I sign up to do back-toback big giant craft shows? Yes. But happily I’m closing 2009’s craft show season with my hometown favorite, Pittsburgh’s fantastically diverse and popular 6th annual Handmade Arcade at the Hunt Armory in Shadyside.

Over 90 crafters and indie arts DIY masters will be showing and selling their work. Last year over 8,000 people attended and came through the Hunt Armory to see local and nationally recognized artists and do some special holiday shopping. This year, with just one day for the Handmade Arcade on December 12th, 2009 is likely to be as busy and bustling as ever.

Wanna know who will be sending this year? BOOM! <– There you go. (Hint, I will be one of the vendors…) Plus lots of super tasty treats to eat will be available by a host of much loved Pittsburgh  eateries like Franktuary, Dozen, Coca Café and Coco’s Cupcake Café. So much yum! And DJs J. Malls, Pete Spynda, and Tanner will be sending out good music to the huge hall that is the Hunt Armory all day too.

Pop City wrote a cool article about the Handmade Arcade that you can read here. And of course, for more information, or to purchase Early Birdie passes (which get you entry at 10am – one hour before the public and a goodie swag bag) click the images above and below, or click here.

We had a blast last year and things were hoppin’. Hope to see you there this year, and have a fun time!

The important details:

Where: The Hunt Armory in the Shadyside section of Pittsburgh, located at 324 Emerson Street.

When: Saturday December 12th, 11am – 8pm

How much: Admission is FREE!

Why: ‘Cause buying local, supporting artists and handmade is pretty danged awesome. Silly.