"The Milwookie character that is synonymous with these shows so initially I wanted to experiment with creating a piece focusing in on him.Along with Original print (Artist Edition run of 60) that was available at the shows he will have a small run of “Emerald Green” color-variants (Artist Edition run of 35) available on October 29th at 11am EDT. Both prints will have a limited run of foil variants for each, (Original – run of 30… Emerald Green – run of 25) also releasing the same day.
The overall layout was a nod to classic beer labels and I thought this was a perfect opportunity to include a “Hop Eye” appearance."
It being the Fourth of July weekend, there was plenty of patriotic nuggets to pull from in terms of concepts. This being my 21st poster for String Cheese, at some point you need to worry about keeping it fresh and not repeating previous imagery or color schemes. I am a fan of the old 60’s artist, Peter Max and his use of vivid colors and wanted to attempt something in that vein. Immediately the idea of a kind of Mad Hatter/Uncle Sam hybrid came to mind.The final poster is a 6-color screenprint (18″ x 24″). Matt will have his run of Artist copies including a small run of Rainbow foil variants available on July 10th at 11am EDT at http://scrapedknee.com/ in his store.
I was psyched to get the Nashville gig as the vibe of the city tends to allow the art direction a bit of a different look then most of their other stops. A bit more of a rustic, Southern feel. I know the rooster has been used by them in the past but I wanted to give my take on it and have been dying to try some of that “hot chicken” they got down there. As I was working the melty/flame like elements of the design I realized I could work in some foxes and give the overall image a bit more of a story quality to it. From there the concept came together pretty quickly. MLThe show edition was a print run of 350 prints & he will have an Artist Edition of 65 prints (Signed/Numbered) available on Wednesday, September 13th at 11am PDT. To keep with the rustic vibe there will be NO FOILS available for this print, instead he tried a “wood veneer” variant On a wood patterned veneer paper for the 1st time. In total there will be a run of 40 of these (signed/numbered)
I originally drew some inspiration for the concept from the original name of the venue, Metropolis. It has a very art nouveau-vibe and led to a bunch of early sketches that touched on the French element of the area. The club eventually changed their name to MTELUS, which I’m not sure what that means but in keeping with a lot of their current tour posters I wanted to push the trippy space vibe. From this I came up w/ our current headdressed space beauty / cosmic mistress. The colors originally reflecting the red & blue of Montreal but eventually i said screw it for a more eye-popping cosmic neon color palette.The show edition was a print run of 113 prints. Matt will have an Artist Edition of 50 prints (Signed/Numbered) available on Monday, August 20th at 11am PDT. Along with the regular edition he will have 3 different types of foil variants available
The current crop of Foo posters ran heavy with space imagery which made me think back to one of my favorite old video games, Joust. The imagery associated with that game was a perfect mix of fantasy, sci-fi and felt like something that would appear in Heavy Metal magazine. The idea was to give my own cosmic take on that theme. Randomly someone would later inform me that jousting is actually Maryland’s official sport which was a crazy happy accident.This poster has a print run of 350 (signed/numbered) which were made available by the band at the show.
The Dead has a lot of traditional imagery they like to use (Dead bears, roses, Uncle Sam, etc..) but I have always been keen on their surf imagery over the years mostly provided by artist Rick Griffin in the 70’s & 80’s. The beachy vibe of the venue being down in the San Diego area felt like the perfect setting for me to try and give my own surfy spin on the Steal Your Face.There was a print run of 550 and Matt will have 50 copies available (#51-100 Signed/Numbered) on Thursday, July 12th at 11am PDT in his store at http://scrapedknee.bigcartel.com/
Ever since one crawled past my studio a couple years ago I have been wanting to work a possum into a print and this was the perfect opportunity considering the locale. From the start I knew I wanted to do a family of trippy Awesome Possum. Or is it Opossum…. no one knows. NO ONE!!! -MattThis print has a run of 175.
Obviously when coming up with concepts for the poster working imagery from the film was important. The previous years posters had been more portraits of characters from the film and I wanted to try a different route.The poster has a print run of 200 (signed/numbered) which were initially available at the show & Matt has about 25 copies (#175-200) from the run. Before people start asking,… there are NO VARIANTS of this print.
The typewriter plays a huge roll in the film and was an easy starting point for me. I thought using it to represent Jack, especially from the “bar scene” where he truly starts to lose it was perfect and tried to use smokey filigree to work in other imagery (twins, axe, etc..) including a “fleur di lis” representing Mardi Gras.
