i was already impressed by the cover. i had no idea this publication was going to be so…well, like a real book i guess. not that i thought it would be some stapled xerox copies, but i didn’t expect it to be so substantial. but man, this thing looks great. the paper, the scale, the type, the design..all look fantastic, really nice quality all around.

then i opened it up to see how my drawings looked.

holy cow, they looked better than i’d imagined!

the print quality was really nice. the drawings are rapidograph on mylar, and on some of them i used spray paint on the back to fill in some of the black areas. so naturally when you look at them from the front, those spray paint areas have a sort of frosted look to them. that look totally comes across in the printing – and the paper that was used for the book has a similar transparency to the mylar used for the drawings, so the printed drawings look really close to the originals.

and the rest

so yeah, i’m very pleased with how the book turned out. the only thing i’d change about the design of the book would be to replace all that superfluous text on the back with the bird and beckett logo (a very nice logo).

by the way, not only do i love the title “amerarcana”, but “bird and beckett” is a great name for a book store.

want to own one? check out the amerarcana website for more info. thanks for including me nick, i’m proud to be a part of your debut publication.

and check out bird and beckett books and records while you’re at it.

click (below) on this scan of one of the originals to go to my flickr site where you can see scans of all the originals plus larger versions of the images above.

ps – hey, i guess that makes twice my work has been published in a book.

i can’t even say i drew this the old fashioned way. type designers of the eighteenth century probably had more sophisticated tools than i used to create this drawing. i had fun with it anyway.

after it was done i scanned it, took it into photoshop, filled it in, and then utilized the old copy and paste to “type” it into a word. “decography” isn’t the name of the font – just a word that popped in. i’m still working on what to call it.

turned out pretty cool, i think.

can anybody help me take a pencil drawing of a font and make it a typable reality?

with my recent move to a new apartment i decided i’d rather have no furniture at all than crappy hand-me-down furniture. so, needless to say i’ve got a lot of boxes of books, cd’s, and records sitting in the living room. i need storage. but i can’t bring myself to even think about buying another damn piece of ikea particle/fiberboard, flimsy, disposable, crap-garbage-puke furniture. “i can’t, i won’t” – jerry.

so, i guess i’ll just have to build it.

and while some people, like my buddy nick (a fine conceptual design illustrator), are using fancy new computer programs* to sketch their designs – i enjoyed drawing these plans the old fashioned way.

when it’s done (ie, when i have the money to build it) this plywood and steel credenza will be the baddest piece of furniture i own. (next to this little number of course).

*i’d actually really love to try googles new free program sketchup, but i don’t think my wimpy little emac could handle running it.  guess i’ll wait til i get that shiny new 24″ imac i’ve been drooling over.  which means i’ll be doing quite a bit of waiting.  pff.

it took me 4 attempts to get this painting done! the first 3 attempts i mention in the previous post. on that 3rd attempt i made a mistake that screwed it up again and had to start for the fourth time. i got it right after that. here’s the result:

the colors are slightly off in this photo, and there’s a very subtle fade coming off of all the arrows that you can’t really see here. also, this design is based on one of the first arrow deco drawings i did from about 4 years ago.

second bit of news. *sigh* someone robbed my studio of about 30 cans of spray paint that i just bought. FUCKING BASTARDS! i guess i can be thankful nothing else was taken and none of my art was messed with…but damn! KILL!

and finally, to offset the extreme rage of being robbed…i sold a piece! woohoo! a man from atlanta, who obviously has impeccable taste in art, happened upon my site and fell in love with my “city block” drawing. thanks again dan. here’s what he purchased:

i’ll be kind of sad to see this one go, it’s one of my favorites. however, i’m never sad to get paid.

over and out.

** robert irwins piece “Who’s Afraid of Red, Yellow & Blue³”

on these first three i drew the paint marker lines first at random, and then i did the graphite lines to bring it together.

the texture of this paper is cool:

macro, just because: