Frank Zio Ratatat Poster Pomona

Frank Zio has printed his first gig poster in over 2 years and it came out great! The poster is for Ratatat and the Fox Theater in Pomona for Goldenvoice LA, and it was printed from his parents' garage in Irvine. It is the largest and most badass poster that Frank has ever printed by hand. He recently purchased all new inks and screens and they performed exceptionally. This poster is 23x35" and printed with the finest water-based inks from TW Graphics, based righ in Socal. Frank has also made the switch to environmentally friendly drain-safe ink wash and reclaim solution, so you've never seen a more eco-friendly poster from Zio.

The artwork for this poster features fully hand drawn linework including all relevant text (excluding his tagline at the bottom). The central image is a snarling leopard printed in gold referencing the album art for Ratatat's seminal "Classics" record. From the mouth of the leopard are swarming monarch butterflies, printed in luxurious black and a glowing yellow to red split fountain, propelling them into the foreground. Each adorable little butterfly has a white skull resting above its wings. Behind the "wildcat" are blackbirds bursting into flight, with their varied yellow to orange colored wing-spots on display. Yes this badboy glows under the sun and under the blacklight. A note about the gold ink: It is actually made from a synthetic polyester pigment, so it wont tarnish even though it's water-based ink.

This poster has extremely limited edition of 42, and is on sale at www.FrankZio.com at for $60, shipping included.

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Frank Zio Flowernators Stencil Prints

It's been a long time since I heard from Frank Zio but he has returned to the US from Serbia. Frank was there for a year, and though he was in Eastern Europe for sports-related reasons, he never stopped producing illustrations and graphics. His first large-scale project has been in the works since early December.

The overarching title of the 3 piece set is "Flowernators," with the individual title breakdown as follows: "Sun-Dragon," "Hummingbird-of-Paradise," and "Honey-Rose." Each of these flowers are the product of layering eleven 100% hand drawn and handcut stencils (except for Honey-Rose, which is ten, and the only one to overtly use the natural color of the birch in the composition). Each stencil is rendered in vibrantly colored Rustoleum® spray-paint including at least 4 metallic colors, all on beautiful birch panel. The pollinators, which have been included as separate 3-color layers on each, are done exclusively in bold metallic colors. The exterior dimensions of each piece are 15x30x1.25". In addition, each painting has been treated with a layer of clear varnish that is designed to protect the colors from the ravages of the sun, so fear not, and hang these in a bright room.

In addition to the handmade nature of the paintings, the frames are custom-built as well, made by Frank from hardwood poplar, constructed with love, sanded to fresh-jar-of-Skippy® smoothness, stained with a deep ebony, and then buffed to a svelte shine. These frames are then installed onto the painting, setting the painting back into the frame and really emphasizing the 3D color interaction as well as lending a super-clean presentation. Ready to hang! No additional framing necessary!

These pieces are on sale at his website www.FrankZio.com as sets, of which there are FIVE available. There will be five more sets coming soon, making the total edition out of ten. Each painting will be labeled for authenticity on the back, and signed and numbered. The sets will go for $500 each plus $50 for shipping to anywhere in the continental US of A. If you can pickup in Irvine, use the code "LOCAL" on checkout to forgo the shipping.

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The Naked and Famous Poster at The Warfield Poster by Frank Zio

 Details from Frank on the poster :

Greetings all! I know it has been long and tortuous in coming (that's what she said) but I finally have some new art for you, and it comes in the form of a brand new gig poster for New Zealand band The Naked and Famous. Not only do I love this band's music, and have for a long time, but they are the nicest guys (and girl) and put on great live shows.

The first time I met TNAF was actually back in 2009 when they played a free show down in San Jose at the Blank Club, a tiny-assed little venue known more for karaoke night and air guitar contests than amazing bands. They thought they were going to be playing an acoustic in-studio show, but ended up playing a full set at a club gig. As a result they didn't have half of their gear, no drums, or bass. They ended up putting together a great set by providing all the band's members with keys and samples, and threw the whole thing together in just a couple of hours. Seeing them play a full set at the stellar sounding Warfield theater in SF was a nice step up. 

The poster I was privileged enough to create for them is a six color silkscreen on natural finish uncoated paper. It measures 29" by 17" and each color is printed 100% by hand. The subject of the poster is the nude from Boticelli's "Birth of the Venus" (famous) with a kiwi-bird's head transposed where her human one should be. The illustration was rendered in ink with a brush. This poster features all the dazzling metallic inks you've come to expect from a Firehouse-printed poster, as well as air-tight printing. 

To get one for your very own please visit frankzio.com

Enter code NAKEDANDAWESOME for 10% OFF your entire order!

The first person to purchase this poster and at least one other will receive my original pencil drawing. The original ink is also available.

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New 311 Poster by Frank Zio on sale

Details from Frank on his latest poster :

I have been fortunate enough to be able to do a poster for my favorite band again. I've been on sort of a hand-illustrated kick lately, and for this one I wanted to make sure that not only was the poster drawn by a loving hand with real ink, but also that the screenprinted poster and the original illustration looked as close to each other as possible. So I drew everything together, foregoing my usual "safe" process of drawing the elements separately and then combining them on the computer.

The original linework is drawn completely with pen and ink, with the writing meticulously hand shaded. The central image is of a shark and a dolphin frozen in motion in a position that conjures the yin-yang. Anyone familiar with the band will recognize the distinctly Eastern philosophy that permeates much of their later work. The animal motif was also drawn from the artwork for their latest album, Universal Pulse, which features an assemblage of vaguely psychedelic natural and animal imagery. Since the show was in Santa Barbara, I chose to continue this motif using marine animals, knowing full well that UCSB's students spend as much time studying the surf (and various other liquids) as they do anything in class. The added fact that the summer tour is called the, "Unity Tour," compounded the appropriateness of juxtaposing two animals historically thought of as nemeses in what could be a dance or mosh pit situation (despite the fact that moshing is a somewhat endangered past time at 311 shows these days).

For the printing of this poster I used bright colors and metallic silver ink, along with a silky black. I wanted the colors to match the previous poster I printed for them at the Bowl, so I used the same palate. These saturated colors are also great summer colors.

I have a very limited quantity of artist proofs available for sale. Anyone who orders from my art list will get the poster for $30 out the door. Paypal right here to effzio@gmail.com

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Frank Zio Cal Berkeley National Champions poster

Details from Frank :

So, some of you may know that in another life, by another name, I swam for Cal Berkeley. I had some great teammates and we were always very competitive, but we were never able to attain that elusive goal: The National Championship. Well, this year, and for the first time since 1980, the Cal Men's Swim Team won a national title! I flew out to Minneapolis and had the privilege of being there among over 60 Cal Swimming alumni to watch our boys do what had not been done in over 30 years! Not only that, but I had watched our women do the same thing one week prior, giving us an unparalleled dual-team victory!

Naturally, I wanted to celebrate this momentous occasion in the only way I knew how, by making a rock poster! So here it is, to any Cal fans or collectors of the disordinary. The Cal Swimming Victory Print, complete with the names of all the swimmers and coaches who were part of both of these historic teams.

The print itself is a almost totally metallic foil 5 color silkscreen. It was printed with all the care and dedication that a project of this personal importance deserves. Give yourself a little piece of Victory for $35, shipping included.

If you want one shoot him an email at effzio () gmail.com Change the () to @ and no spaces.

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New Cosmic Wonder from Frank Zio featuring a Ghostland Observatory Poster

So here we have the latest piece of printed poster preeminence from prince of the press, Frank Zio. Enough of this pointed posturing, on to the particulars!

This poster was created for Ghostland Observatory. It is the second poster done he has done for them, and is compositionally, although not thematically, related to the first one he did for them at the Warfield. He contacted them when he saw they were coming to town, the Regency Grand Ballroom specifically, and they were enthused to have him make them some new art.

When Frank contacted Aaron from the band, he asked him to give him 3 words from which he could begin to formulate their artwork. He gave him six: "Outer Space Native American Peyote Dance." Needless to say, Frank loved this. He spent a sleepless night creating the illustration and layout, and then another sleepless night with his buddy Tony printing this 6 color monster. Its layers are, in order, a deep-blue to bright-blue blend; next an overprint fading from true red to florescent red. Next was his radioactive green for the peyote, the same color he used for "corpse green" in their previous print. 4th was the silver in the ring of dancers and the headline, followed by my glow-in-the-dark ink, which was a first for me. This manifests the dancers in silhouette in the dark, and makes up the outer glow of the peyote planet. Last was the best, richest black I know of. To finish off, he cut all of these in a "Star Wars" style trapezoidal fashion.

Send him an email if you want one effzio@gmail.com

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Ghostland Observatory at The Warfield poster by Frank Zio

Artist Frank Zio created a 6 color silkscreen poster completely hand illustrated and printed on uncoated Cougar 100lb. stock for the Ghostland Obesevatory concert at The Warfield in San Francisco, CA on August 20, 2010. This poster measures 14″ x 25″ and comes from an edition of 160, signed and numbered by the artist.

What we have here is a beautifully grotesque 6 color silkscreen, 3 colors of which are blends, meaning that the ink is mixed in the screen to create a (hopefully) nice, smooth gradient. It is definitely my cleanest print work, with air-tight registration and sumptuous color. I went all out on this one, the art for the poster being completely hand drawn with ink by pen and brush. I also ordered some special natural white uncoated paper stock, made with 10% post consumer waste, so feel good, O Patron of Posters! – Zio

Buy it HERE

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Frank Zio Social Distortion San Francisco Poster on sale details

The artwork for this poster is large, at 18x24, and is almost the same size as the finished poster, which measures in at a hefty 22.75"x29.5". After days of hunkering over the drafting table with pencil, pen, ink, and brush, Frank was able to scan this drawing in 8 parts and recombine it to create his final composition. With a few last minute changes called in by The Director Frank was scrambling, but finally ready to print. This baby is printed with custom colors, mixing up a bright Candy-Apple Red and a shimmering yellow-gold to lay down underneath a supple, petroleous black.

The subject of the composition is a lone man in black slinging a guitar off of a bus in a faceless town. If you listen to the new Social D, Hard Times and Nursery Rhymes, and look for clues, the town's name can be determined.

Frank went to both shows as well and they were excellent. Mike's band is rockin' and everyone sounded tight. Mike was joined at times by an accordion, as well as two female backup vocalists, one of which, Ijoma, is the lady behind the pipes on the track Hustle and Flow. he was most impressed, however, with the intensity of the mosh pit. It seems everyone came out excited for Social D and remembering the viscerality of participating in a show with bang of body, and check of shoulder. It was good to see so many people moving around, as opposed to just watching with their plastic cups, as seems to be the case more and more often with these aging rockers.

The posters in the paper edition number 150 and Frank has an extremely Limited edition of 3 of these printed on birch plywood. The paper poster is $30 shipping included, or $20 if you can meet him in San Francisco for a face to face exchange. The wood prints will go for $75 and shipping will be added in if it is necessary.

Shoot Frank an email effzio>atat<>

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Danko Effin' Jones Babay! Poster by Frank Zio

Hello fellow party-people, rock-nuts, art-dorks, headbangers, hot-mammas, and pimp-daddies!

Here's the latest from Zio! Busted out in a mere 4 days and printed in 4 high quality specially chosen colors, this hand-illustrated gem will get your motor running. A tribute to Danko, learner and teacher of the Lovercall, he was born a lion and is shown here in his true form. Frank wanted this poster to be as rock-nasty as he is, and Frank likes to think that he came close... and so is she!

Send Frank an email (effzio at gmail.com) and get this one for a measly $25 including shipping

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Ghostland Observatory Poster by Frank Zio

Greetings from the land of Zio. Here's the latest:

I recently completed printing of my newest poster, which was created for the Ghostland Observatory and the good people at Goldenvoice Productions. I have wanted to do a Ghostland poster since I first saw them play at the Mezzanine, and it has finally happened! It was a great night, they loved the work and were super cool, the best an artist can hope for when meeting revered musicians humbly bearing the fruits of one's toilsome and thankless labor (OK so I'm being a little dramatic, whatever!)

A "little" about the print...

What we have here is a beautifully grotesque 6 color silkscreen, 3 colors of which are blends, meaning that the ink is mixed in the screen to create a (hopefully) nice, smooth gradient. It is definitely my cleanest print work, with air-tight registration and sumptuous color. I went all out on this one, the art for the poster being completely hand drawn with ink by pen and brush. I also ordered some special natural white uncoated paper stock, made with 10% post consumer waste, so feel good, O Patron of Posters!

If you want to purchase this piece from Frank for $40 out the door, with shipping included shoot him an email address is below. And check out the band, they are stellar and the coolest Tejanos around!

Visit frankzio.com for more detailed shots!

Paypal address is natasleazio (at) gmail.com

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