Art Swap with Sunlitrobins!

A little while back I had the pleasure of getting to know Robin Willems, aka @sunlitrobins on twitter. She's an artist who is just starting her studies at the Hauge and has a love for water colors and mixed media collage. We quickly hit it off, and decided that an art swap was in order. So I sent her a three pack of my hand screen printed pocket notebooks, some stickers, and a screen printed card. She, in turn, sent me this awesome custom water painting, that she titled "Leafy Donathon". I enjoyed the subtle washes, textures and color of the piece such that I've since framed it, and it now resides on one of my night stands.

I hope this is only the begining of our art swaps. You can get a print of "Leafy Donathon", or one of her many other great works, over at her Society6 page.

If anyone else out there is interested in a swap, hit me up!

Awesome Sauce

About a Year ago, artist, photographer, musician, Michal Garcia visited us. While he was here, the phrase "Awesome Sauce" was routinely used to affirm plans, actions, comments and pretty much everything else. So much so, that I found myself saying it after he left. This past May I had the chance to visit with him during my trip to Hong Kong. I found Michal as positive, friendly and as accommodating as he was when he visited us. He took the time to show us around HK, introduce us to new people and generally make sure we had an Awesome Sauce time while we were there. When I returned to Portland, I wanted to send him a thank you, and The Awesome Sauce poster was born.

This is a limited edition hand pulled screen print, that I both designed and printed at The Pull. The prints were made using non-toxic water based cyan and magenta inks. The violet coloring of the * pattern in the A was accomplished by overprinting the magenta on top of the cyan. There are only 21 numbered and signed copies of these posters around, the first of which I shipped off to to Michal in HK. The second, I framed for myself. As for the rest, dear readers, they are for you. You can find them in my etsy shop now

Harkin Family Retreat

Continuing our efforts at The Pull to make reunion shirts that don't suck, we present The Harkin Family Retreat shirts, hot off the press. Jessica and Matt Watson will be spending a weekend with Jessica's family, The Harkins, wearing these shirts that they designed. For those of you not familiar with The Made in Oregon/WhiteStag sign it's a rift off of this iconic Portland sign.


We also made some for the kids, I was able, with some rigging, to get this cute 12month t-shirt printed fairly successfully with the original full size chest print. Normally I'd setup another platen and burn another screen, but they only wanted one of these and I think the end result gave it a nice vintage feel.

Jessica has a total of 16 shirts made up in mixed sizes and styles. All the adult t-shirts were American Apparel 50/50 ( poly/cotton) Heather Blue in either the Standard America Unisex style or the Women's Short Sleeve, while the kids are American Apparel Standard 100% Cotton. Printing was all hand pulled using non-toxic water based inks. In the end the cost of each shirt was just under $18 per, and that includes a rush shipping charge to get the t-shirts here in time to print on.

Harkins I hope you love 'em and I wanna see a group shot from this weekends retreat!

I know family reunion season is almost over but if anyone wants/needs an unsucky reunion shirt let us know, we can print your design or help you create the perfect image to show your family luv!

Surf Skank

This weekend I was happy to have Rebekah Signh of SurfSkank come and make some t-shirts at The Pull! We had a bit of trouble with our water based inks as the late afternoon sun and heat set in on saturday, but we persevered and got this great batch of 4 color women's shirts done this morning. Thanks to Nick Wood over at @Ryonet for giving me some great suggestions for battling the heat. Speaking of Ryonet, I also got to use my new 16" x 22" plattens along with a new platen glue, that did an amazing job of keeping the shirts still despite flashing between each of the 4 colors and even after curing the shirts on platen. This stuff makes the spray mist stuff seem like a complete waste of time.

Let me know what you think of the prints below, the design was made for SurfSkank by Margarita Yerastova to see more of her designs check out: www.yerastova.com

And as always, if you've got an project or idea you'd like to see printed, or would like to actually pull your own prints on, let me know!

Talking to Myself

I started this drawing at a drink and draw with the Wonder Team gang, I've changed it a bit since, and colored it in... I think I'm gonna go buy some new pants.

Print Swap with Almost Monday!

I met Serena a while back at one of the many portland craft shows. She's a fellow print maker who loves doing linocut prints, and she's also an amazing portraiture painter. She's know on the web as AlmostMonday We've been talking via twitter pretty much ever sense and we met up this weekend briefly for a print exchange. I swapped one of my Bee Scarfs and a Penguin Pocket Notebook for a set of bicycle themed hand pulled linocut prints.

I'm super excited to have these prints, and if you wanna grab some you should really check out her shop, there's plenty of awesome prints there that I'm sure you'd love. Thanks Almost Monday for the awesome work, if anyone else is interested in swapping some prints or art, let me know!

A Good Man...

Wiegh In

This is the first post from my new Comic group, The Wonder Team. I'll be posting a weekly comic there on Fridays, that in most cases won't be posted here. There's also three other great Portland Artist who are posting there, Eriq Nelson, Seyoung Yeo ( who organized this effort) and Melissa Dalluhn. It's a great group, and I'm happy to be contributing along with them, so be sure to check it ( and them ) out!

Voicemail

The Run

Asleep at the Airport

I don't have many drawings of Laura and I, mostly because I always felt my doodles of her never did her justice. I found this doodle in an old sketch book as I was looking for some paper to do some drawing on. Last year around this time we traveled to Texas together, and then from there we went to NYC to attend a friend of mines wedding.

While we waited for our plane from Dallas to NYC she cuddled up and fell asleep on me. And there was something in that moment that made me feel loved, trusted and depended on like I hadn't before and so I wanted to capture that feeling. Finding this drawing now is a mixed bag for me. I'm glad I captured this moment, cause it's one I want to remember, it's just not one I want to remember right now.

Stuck

What now... Pt.1

Sun Break

Fathers Day

The Future...

Together Forever...

On my mind...

Walking in the rain...

Remembering...