Chicago in August

The first thing I saw when I got off the train

New print process

I just got turned on to this method of printing photographs using silk screens. Its CMYK color halftones, aka the little dot methods that you see in newspapers and old comic books. CMYK stands for the four layers of color that combine to create the finished picture: Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, and Black.

This is a print of a photo I took of my favorite stencil of Banksy's work in New Orleans. Here's how it breaks down. Note that the actual print is not as pixelated and patchy as this scanner made it out to be.



Cyan & Yellow


Magenta & Cyan

Yellow & Magenta

Black, the last layer on top
the original

Ancient prayers for todays problems

Here's another print I did recently this past year. You can see it weathered and torn up in that last post's picture on the same electrical box. There is a great translation of the Egyptian book of the dead in my school's library where this came from. The book includes the original hieroglyphics alongside the phonetic pronunciation with the english translation underneath it.

The top bar reads: I HAVE PASSED THROUGH THE FLOOD
and below says: I HAVE GAINED POWER IN THE WATER

FYI: That squiggly zig-zag was the Egyptian symbol for the Nile and all other things water related, which is why it is repeated so often here.

A trip to Chicago

I'm planning to leave for Illinois tomorrow to go to a printmaker's convention. So that has me thinking about the trip I took there last August that I never really did get around to breaking down on this here blog spot.

As with any large city, there are a million and one cool places to investigate and I kept my itinerary open for exploration. But one place I was sure I wanted to go was the Field Museum and see with my own eyes Charles Knight's murals.



Luckily for me a friend's sister worked there and she got me in contact with her so that she was waiting to let me in when I arrived. Unfortunatley I arrived late, with less than an hour before the museum closed. So Ariel, the friend's sister, gave me rapid overview of the collection and rushed me upstairs to "the hall of evolution" (or "the hall of life" or something like that) where the fossils are located and then said goodbye.

Here are some sketches I was able to pull off before the place shut down for the day. Many thanks to Ariel.

Flower Guy Speaks!

This is for the talk given tomorrow at Louisiana Artworks (just off Lee Circle on the Street car route). It is unfortunately scheduled right at the same time as Teresa Cole's talk about her trip to India. Thanks to her for turning me on to this event, in fact.

Along with Mr. De Feo, there will be Big Mike Dee whose always good to see, and Dan Witz, the surrealist stickerer.

Should be illuminating and/or dope.