This year has been one of inspiration and determination. Dan and Melissa were getting married and they invited me to their wedding last September. I was to be their guest and photographer. It was a great experience. The photos turned out great, and I had a really fun time back in the South. Dan is connected to the lady at Mok Duk, who made these awesome invites. I got mine in the mail, and I was totally inspired, then determined.

Inspired by the sheer beauty of the printed invitation, and determined that this was what I was going to try to do.

Joy and Ray ( also friends with Mel and Dan ) asked me to shoot for their wedding, but that didn’t exactly work out, but I offered to do their invitations. Here’s some of my process.

I started by designing the invitation. I wanted to make something long, to fold and fit into the kraft envelopes. Their only stipulation was to use bright pink, yellow, and orange. We quickly agreed on a design and it was off to the print shop.

(more after the jump…)

I burned 3 screens at Laney College, and then brought the screens, ink, and other supplies over to KJ’s house.

I needed a rack to dry the prints on, so I made one out of USPS priority mail boxes. They worked great. I made just enough slots to have prints dry and then I’d pull them as I needed more space.

Here’s my setup: 6-pack of (dr)inks, screen and printing board, and elbow grease.

This is the orange-colored screen. (Not just the screen, but the ink that would be printed).

Screen with ink in it, starting the orange-color run.

The yellow and orange colors printed down. Notice how I printed the reply card all in one swoop as to save time/screens.

Getting racked.

Putting in the paper.

Pulling the print.

Rack in action.

This guy ( the squeegee ) is what I use to pull the ink through the screen. This guy’s looking a bit worn down, but he’s got some good color. Waterbased screenprinting can get pretty messy, so it’s helpful to have a place to put the squeegee, otherwise ink gets everywhere.

Pink ink.

Here’s a proof print. Check out the registration holes, and also the registration marks on the sides.

I punch holes into all of the sheets so they’re always in the same place each time.

Here’s the return card. I’m glad I printed it all in one pass. It’s important to plan out the printing so you can save as much time and effort.

All done!

Check out this set of finished prints. I ended up printing 75 of these invites. They really liked them, which made me happy! Let me know if you know anyone that needs custom invitations done!

It’s great to actually see the work in person.  I really appreciate the way his designs are really simple, yet really complex and humorous in design and content.  He does really to create posters for a lot independent bands who have unique sounds and followings.  He was also really friendly and we may possibly swap prints sometime.

( more after the jump…)

In other great news,  I went to the Depot today with Kimmy.  The Depot is awesome.  I think I pump 80% of my spending money into that store.  You can find all sorts of crazy stuff there, and a lot of times I’ll score on some really great are supplies for cheap.

Here’s the damage:

We had a set of these info cards when I grew up.  It’s old-school wikipedia.

Take off!

Landing.

Origami folds.  I liked these, but what do you do with them?  No buy!

All the Star Trek VHS you could want.  Check out: “Dagger of the Mind”.  Intense.

And finally, my score: transparent graph paper ( for drawings ), a two hole punch ( which i’ll use for registering my screenprints ), and a couple of woodblocks to help me print on wood panels!  Awesome.

A good thing about participating in East Bay Open Studios ( sorry it’s all about that in these blogs these days ) is that it’s really forced me to get a lot my work organized and prepared to show.  I’ve been learning about the other side of art making:  the organizational, business, marketing side of things.

(more after the jump…)

Today was that kind of day.  I went over to Mike Kimball’s studio in San Francisco.  He’s got a pretty cool set up over at Soma Artist’s Studios.  Mike’s got foamboard and plastic sleeves for prints, so I went over there to put a bunch of my prints together.  It took a long time ( about 2 hours!), but it was with good company, and it’s always nice to work and talk shop at the same time.  I’d have to say that talking about the pricing of art is a sticky subject.  When you account for all of the time and resources put into things, it feels like a zero-sum equation.  I’m trying hard to not let the money side of things bog me down, but it’s been on my mind lately.

Here are some pictures from Mike’s studio.

Looking into the studio from the door.

The back sink.

Lots of cabinet space for prints and books.

The main computer workstation.

Mike K. working on some stuff.

Afterwards, we went to SCRAP to check around.  I found some cool deals.

Wayne Thiebaud calendar.  He’s one of my favorite artists.

Glow in the dark ink!

Look at it glow.  Super cool.