What do we have HERE?! We have pretty much every notable human character(haven’t seen the Fox movie) from all of Wes Anderson’s films lovingly encapsulated in the aesthetic of the Sgt. Pepper album cover which is my print in this years Wes Anderson devoted art show entitled: Bad Dads put on by Spoke Art. This is my FIRST EVER GICLEE PRINT, a limited edition of 100, measures 18″ x 24″ and since they’re printed in California the prints themselves are not signed BUT you will receive my first ever CERTIFICATE OF AUTHENTICITY, signed and numbered! Available for purchase now.

I don’t know why I thought this would easy, maybe because it’s conceptually simple but the execution was a pain in the ass.I had a bunch of ideas for Bad Dads floating around my head, certain aspects or characters in Wes Anderson movies I wanted to focus on, I had one about Alec Baldwin(free idea, I’ll probably never do it) who narrates The Royal Tenenbaums, he’s also in this print by the way but I was looking for some concept to tie it all together…I don’t know how I landed on Sgt. Pepper exactly but once I did it just seemed to fit.

“BAD DADS” is six letters like “BEATLES” and they both start with “B” and end with “S” which jumped out and slapped me in the face right away and then I was like “oh and I’ll make Wes that important looking statue there in the foreground…” and it all snowballed from there, felt like it would be easy, a cute slotting in of this person here and that one there but I got really anal about where exactly everything would go, I wanted to match similar faces and or poses wherever I could from the Peppers cover.

It took forever but I think I included everything and it turned out well. Aside from all the film characters there are also appearances by familiar musical contributors to the Wes Anderson universe, Cat Stevens, Ray Daivies, David Bowie and others, buy a print and find them all!

2011 is already awesome, things are gonna change I can feel it. Everything ground to a halt toward the end of 2010 due to having too much shit happening at the same time but it was still a good run, I liked it. A damn site better than 2009 that’s for sure.

Long story short, having a day job and working on overlapping deadlines at night during football season is suicide. I fucked myself on a couple projects, I would go into vivid detail but I’d be here all day.

But anyway that mess was in December and things are snapping back into shape, yknow like in Christine when the car rebuilds itself.

I’m going to Los Angeles on Friday(maybe that’s today depending on when I post this) to attend the opening of “Is This thing On?” a group show at Gallery 1988. Jensen was gracious enough(or drunk enough, zing!) to ask me to design the official poster for the show:

I’ve done a couple prints for 1988 in the past and have one more coming up, I’ve never been down there so I’m really looking forward to it. The other show I speak of is “MULTIPLAYER” the video game themed group show opening January 15th at the new Gallery 1988 location in Venice.

Speaking of which, while I’m in L.A I’m going to get over to Venice and check out some of Jim Morrison’s old haunts. Ha! That’s a joke…..but it’s…true. I’m going to do just that if I can.

Shit! I gotta go, my dad’s giving me a ride to the airport(I let him do it, he loves it…) which means getting there 3 HOURS EARLY.

Oh and speaking of comedy posters, here’s that Doug Stanhope poster I did. Illustration/design by me, concept by Rob Jones:

Alright I gotta hop in the shower. Love you, talk soon! XOXOXO

I’ve been meaning to hop back on the blog since I got back from Renegade Austin in May and here it is the week after Renegade San Francisco. Doing two out of town shows in one summer has been a bigger pain than I anticipated and I don’t mind saying I came up short on both occasions. I think I covered my expenses(travel etc.) in Austin but I got my head handed to me in San Francisco. Came in guns a blazin’ and got creamed, you remember the end of Butch and Sundance right? Like that.

I’m over it but I bitched up a storm about it of course you know all about that if you follow me on twitter or facebook. As per usual all my caterwauling is all in good fun, I use my twitter account as free therapy, dumb joke depository, shit talking sounding board amongst friends and lastly a venue to dispense news on new prints/design and such. It’s synced straight to my facebook, I rarely check in on facebook itself.

If I wasn’t counting on making my rent money in San Fran it wouldn’t have been as big a deal to me, I don’t want anyone who came out to Renegade San Francisco or anyone involved with Renegade to feel slighted by anything I said….well, except the DJ. The DJ was spinning a mix tailor made for Kindergarten nap time, I mean you go to a Grocery Store and they at least play something with a consistent tempo. Keeps people engaged on what they came to do, introspective Neil Young or sad bastard Leonard Cohen slow jams are counterproductive to say the least. That DJ was not helping the atmosphere….though I like Wings as much as the next guy.

Jesus, speaking of bringing the mood down…to the bright side we go! I hung out with Tyler and Michelle Madsen of Love Nail Tree in San Fran, after meeting them initially in Austin. We’re going to try and collab on some shirts in the future, excited about that but god knows when that will see the light of day, fall probably. Anyway we saw Dinner for Schmucks the night before I flew back, fun times.

Also in San Fran were the usual poster suspects but I’m not going to list all the Two Rabbits, Kevin Tongs and Nate Duval‘s of the world, they’re all overrated anyway. ZING! LOLZORZ but working my booth myself I didn’t get out and mingle at all really, I think Regan Smith Clarke the shirt designer from Boston is the only non-poster new person I met. His buddy helping him at his booth looks like a young Seth Romatelli from the Uhh Yeah Dude podcast…anyway Regan Smith Clarke, solid guy. Traded him a print for a nice Tank Top. Oh shit, I also met the dudes from Fuzzy Ink, they make shirts too. Nice guys, met them while drunk(..ish) with Mike from Two Rabbits in lower Haight.

Leading up to San Francisco I needed to finish a design for Spoon and get it approved, the time crunch due to finishing new wood prints(more info down the road) and boxing up 100 lbs of my wares and display paraphernalia forced me to spend most of my Friday once I landed in my hotel room slaving over a hot laptop finishing up the design. The design ended up being rad and it was approved:

The print however did not go quite as I had hoped, more on that later. Flukey weird shit, hardly ever happens but…like I said I’ll address that later.

Moving right along, printing this week will be a 3 color poster for The Black Keys(strangely playing the same venue as Spoon in the above poster)  this Friday in Columbus, Ohio.

To recap my trip to Austin in May, it was a great time. Austin always is. I stayed with Tim Doyle (of Nakatomi inc. fame), his wife Angie and darling son Rocko! I’m bad with baby ages but he’s a little guy, got a lot of bam bam in him. Also met Nick Derrington(awesome illustrator) and his wife, if I had 5 minutes to concentrate on it I’m sure I could remember her name but she made this amazing Peach Cobbler. One of the greatest foodstuffs I have ever partaken in. Anyway Tim lives right down the street from where they shoot a portion of my favorite guilty pleasure, Friday Night Lights. Driving through the neighborhood I always felt like I was in the opening montage.

Also hung out with Clint Wilson, yeah he’s a Wilson from Austin I’m sure he’s related to Luke and Owen Wilson…and the other brother, future man whatever is name is. Didn’t hit too many places other than fine eateries which meant I had to stop by Geof Peveto‘s joint: FRANK. It’s Peveto’s world, we’re just living in it…hats off to you sir.
This is getting long already, I’ll just keep blogging throughout this and next week. There’s new stuff up in the store plus the aforementioned Black Keys poster will be available soon and there’s a whole wave of new art prints I can’t even get into right now which will be going up in my etsy store as soon as I can get to it. But designwise right now Ghostland Observatory is on the front burner, need to get some shirt designs and a tour poster done pronto! Before Flatstock at Bumbershoot of course. I’ll be back in a couple days, thanks for stopping by.

In other news I will be picking up the remaining pieces from the Something’s Better Than Nothing show this week and making a few selections available next week, which will include some one of a kind pieces from the “OUTSIDE THE LAW” print run. Stay tuned for that.

I believe I have found my next interviewee(but I’m keeping it secret until posted this time), pretty big deal as far as I’m concerned. Big fan of his work and it’s not someone I know as well as Todd Slater or Brad Klausen, I’m stretching my wings internet! Fly with me won’t you?

That’s it for now. Have yourself a fine Thanksgiving, internet. And if you don’t happen to be American and want to get in on the Thanksgiving action: take the day off work, pour gravy on everything you eat for the day, wear your most festive sweater, argue with your family, drink some Egg Nog(spike it), take a nap and force yourself to watch the Detroit Lions…you might have to youtube that, Good luck!

Greetings internet. For those of you in Seattle, I officially invite you to join me this Friday night at The Greenwood Collective for the opening of an art show I’m putting together with my pal Owen. There will be new prints, test prints and new prints made from test prints, you’ll have to show up to really see what I’m talking about.

It’s Art Walk this Friday in Greenwood anyway so there will be other folks in the house with purty new art all over the place anyway and word on the street is that Mad Rad are going to be performing upstairs. I have no idea what to expect but it ought to be a fun night.

The week leading up to Flatstock here in Seattle is always long and tedious. I wanted to get a new art print done to have on hand, didn’t happen. Wanted to publish the second half of the Todd Slater interview, no time, but I can guarantee it’ll be up on Tuesday.

I did just update the 1982 Store with a couple Test Prints from Spoon and Black Keys posters.

A reminder again, if you’re in Seattle you can check out the The Seattle-Moscow Poster Show for FREE tonight. Open from noon til 7pm, the Shaw Room, Seattle Center.

That’s about it for now, I did want to include some kind of sneak peak at the Ween poster I just finished. Should be available next week, the show is at the Sunshine Theater in Albuquerque on Saturday. Here’s your cropped sliver of imagery:

The time has come my friends! The Seattle Moscow Poster show is happening this week!  The third and final intalment of the poster series highlighting the thriving poster scene in Seattle and politically contrasting cities the world over, this might be the best one yet. Features works by my lovely self of course and other neat Seattle designers including Jeff Kleinsmith, Andrio Abero etc.

Official word from the Curator, Daniel R. Smith:

COME TO THE PREVIEW
Attend the Curator’s Preview on Sept 3 in Fremont at Adobe HQ. I’ll show slides from Moscow, Tehran & Havana, talk about the process & sort out what it all means. Purchase advance tickets at:
http://aigaseattle.org/events/index.asp?include=September_2009#3

SEE IT FOR FREE
The Seattle-Moscow Poster Show opens Sept. 4, noon – 7pm, the Shaw Room, Seattle Center. The final exhibit in this series of city-to-city poster shows (after Havana & Tehran) Moscow is the largest exhibit yet. This is the FREE Bumbershoot arts preview day—no bands, no crowds!

GET THE CATALOG
The Seattle-Moscow catalog is the biggest & best yet. Dual-language, full-color, only 500 copies. Available at the exhibit & preview for $10.

VOTE ON-LINE BEFORE END OF DAY MONDAY
The poster series has been nominated for a $10,000 “grant for change” from Nau in Portland. The top 5 vote-getters will be interviewed for the grant. I am current at 9th place out of nearly 300 projects. To vote, register w/ Nau & then click on the “rate/share” tab:

http://www.nau.com/collective/grant-for-change/daniel-ryan-smith-423.html

I just voted myself, you should too!

So they asked me to punch up a bio for myself, it was last minute so I replied with what came to mind in the few seconds I had. So of course  it was a little sarcastic and goofy. I give them mad props for using the whole thing:

http://screensnspokes.blogspot.com/2009/08/screens-n-spokes-09-jon-smith.html

But anyway, it’s a benefit and they have rad prints by great artists like Jay Ryan, Leia Bell and my boy Doovs. Check that shit out!

Here’s what’s in the works: Nate and I getting the 1982 store up and running very soon, should be this week.  My Screens N Spokes print is done along with another art print that will be released in the near future. I’m helping my roomate do his first screen printed gig poster ever for a Girl Talk show….I have some art space booked for a show in October. I’m registered for Flatstock at ye old Bumbershoot.

Aside from figuring out how many prints I can get done before said Flatstock, I am working behind the scenes on some fresh new content for this site. I need to beef up the Flickr account and add a fresh header graphic but I’m working on something way cooler than that, that should pan out in some consistent content for all you poster freaks out there. Stay tuned!

Until the next update(which should be toward the end of this week) enjoy my rejected concept for a Kenny Rogers poster from about a year ago. It was for a show at a Casino down south, the design was rejected immediately. This is 100% real, I had it all setup for a metallic silver to gold blend with a layer of glow in the dark on black paper but y’know…true genius is not always embraced in it’s time.

Fresh news from Daniel Smith(no relation and as far as I know he’s not the Art Supply store guy), curator/visionary of the Seattle Tehran Poster show:

“Hot off the presses + just in time for the Iranian Festival at Seattle Center, the exhibit catalog for The Seattle-Tehran Poster Show is ready! The full-color, dual-language (English-Persian), 36 page catalog documents the first exhibit of contemporary Iranian graphic design in the U.S. It will be available for $10 at the festival. Proceeds will go to the IACA (Iranian American Community Alliance).”

The Festival is tomorrow, June 20th.  http://iaca-seattle.org/iranian-festival-seattle-center

The Seattle Terhan show debuted in 2008, you may have caught it if you attended Bumbershoot. The Seattle Moscow Poster Show is in the works for 2009, I believe the selections of my work in the upcoming show are my Black Angels and Ghostland NYE posters. These shows are very interesting and offer a fresh perspective on the poster world, literally. Check out the links below to see what it’s all about.

http://www.seattletehran.com

http://www.seattlemoscow.com

and it all started with 2007′s Seattle Havana Poster Show.