New Deer Tick Poster

Here is a revised poster for the band Deer Tick, who are coming to SPACE on April 4th. This poster will be a 3 color screen print and ONLY available that night at the show.

 

Poster for Deer Tick @ SPACE Gallery

Just threw together this poster for Deer Tick who are coming to SPACE Gallery on April 4th. More to come on this later, it will hopefully turn into a limited edition screen print for this show and might be modified a little bit.

 

Picnic Photos

Last December myself along with Bryan Bruchman plus many other artists in and around Portland gathered for the first ever Winter Picnic craft fair. Some pictures of the event just went up online. Click here to check them all out.

 

Record Covers for Eternal Otter Record’s Split of TJ Metcalfe & Aly Spaltro

About a month or two ago I got the chance to design record covers for two of Portland’s finest musicians TJ Metcalfe and Aly Spaltro. Here is the result of that!
The record was put out by local record label Eternal Otter Records. It is available at these locations…
Strange Maine (578 Congress St), Time-Lag Records (578 Congress St, 2nd Floor), Madgirl World (275 Commercial St).

It is also available online at www.eternalotterrecords.com

 

Caspian @ T. T. the Bears

Yesterday I drove down to Cambridge to deliver the posters I made for Caspian at T.T. the Bears Place, where they were playing with Hadoken for their cd release show and (the) slowest runner (in all the world), who I think have the coolest name for a band ever. The show was awesome to say the least and it was a pleasure to have my posters on Caspian’s merch table next to all their other new tshirts and records. Even got the chance to see the first people who bought the poster! Here is a few shots of the table, and also some pictures from the show taken by Dan Gonyea over at Future Breed, definetly check out his site if you haven’t yet!

Click here for the rest of the pictures from the show.

 

Process Post for Caspian & Arms and Sleepers poster

Welcome to the process post of the Caspian & Arms and Sleepers North American Tour poster, in the post before this you will find the process of the making of the digital poster into a screen printed one. This post shows most of the action shots? of making a rock poster from the beginning to end. These first few shots are of the chipboard in which these posters were printed on, 1/32 to be exact. The poster is 15”-20”, edition of 153, 6 color screen print to be taken on tour and sold at the bands shows around the country.
As you can see chipboard is a lot thicker than paper, but holds up very nicely. I’ve always liked posters printed on kraft paper and chipboard. On the chipboard they are a bit more like a sturdy piece of art rather than a flimsy poster. You cannot roll these!
This poster was printed inside Pickwick Independent Press, which is one floor down from my studio in the Artist Studio Building, where Emblem Studio, “my studio” is.  Pickwick is brand new and will most likely be where I print my posters from now on. It has a lot more room inside it as well as other artists working inside it.
We also have a room dedicated to burning screens. The Dark Room” Which is much better than the dirty basement I was using before!
Sometimes cool dogs come in and help you print!
This poster has 2 different colorways. The first two layers on each colorway is different, on one there is 2 different green’s printed. While the other is a blue colorway. This way people can have options while selecting a poster. There is actually a white version as well, but only 5 posters were printed on white paper. Its always fun to throw in a few different colored papers while your printing an edition, sometimes they even turn out better than the colors you selected.

First layer of green!


Alot more Pictures and Process after the jump!

 

Process Post for Caspian & Arms and Sleepers poster – Digital

Recently I had the opportunity to design a poster for Caspian and Arms and Sleepers for their North American Tour, I’ve decided to document the creation of this poster, much like many of my other posters but this time take it a little bit further, lots more pictures and process pictures of the drawing and digital set up of the poster before the printing process.
Below are the different layers of colors on the poster. These are the color versions, in order to burn the screens I must turn each of these layers into black and white. Then I run the files over to kinkos where I print them out on larger size plain white printer paper, I do this rather than printing on mylar for the fact that it is cheaper and I have yet to find a reason why mylar works better than this method of oiling down paper. (which I will talk about more in the printing process post.)
This poster is a 6 color poster, This is the digital version which has been turned into a screen print. The post for the screen print process will be up in the next few days.

1.

2.

3.
4.
5.
6.
7.

More images after the jump!

 

Caspian & Arms And Sleepers American Tour Poster

Poster design for Caspian & Arms And Sleepers North American Tour - Kris Johnsen 2010

I recently had the opportunity to design the North American Tour poster for two of my favorite bands, Caspian & Arms and Sleepers. Both from Massachusetts, and are some of the best live bands I have ever seem, I suggest you catch them if they are coming to your part of the country. This is the final design for the poster and will be in the next 2 weeks turned into a 6 color screen print in which the bands will take on tour with them. First stop Cambridge’s T.T. The Bears Place, on the 27th of February.
All other Caspian dates listed below.
2.27 Cambridge, MA @ TT The Bears Place
3.9 Washington DC @ Black Cat **
3.10 Harrisonburg, VA @ Blue Nile **
3.11 Johnson City, TN @ The Hide Away **
3.12 Nashville, TN @ The Muse **
3.14 Orlando, FL @ Wills Pub **
3.16 New Orleans, LA @ Dragons Den **
3.17 Shreveport, LA @ The Rustic Cowboy **
3.18 Houston, TX @ The Mink **
3.19 Austin, TX @ SXSW Festival
3.20 Austin, TX @ SXSW Festival
3.21 Austin, TX @ SXSW Festival
3.23 Tucson, AZ @ TBA
3.24 Scottsdale, AZ @ Rouge Bar **
3.25 Los Angeles, CA @ Pehrspace **
3.26 San Diego, CA @ Che Cafe **

4.2 Denver, CO @ 3 Kings **
4.3 Albequerque, NM @ Winnings **
4.4 TBA
4.5 Austin, TX @ Mohawk **
4.6 Dallas, TX @ Lounge on Elm Street **
4.7 Kansas City @ Record Bar
4.8 Cedar Falls, IA @ Hearst Center **
4.10 Champaign, IL @ Mike N Mollys **
4.13 Toronto, ON @ Rancho Relaxo **
4.14 Montreal, QC @ Divan Orange **
4.15 New York, NY @ Webster Hall Studio **
4.16 Philadelphia, PA @ Northstar **
4.18 Cleveland, OH @ Grog Shop ^
4.21 Chicago, IL @ Lincoln Hall ^
4.22 Madison, WI @ High Noon ^
4.23 Minneapolis, MN @ 400 Bar ^
4.24 Omaha, NE @ Slowdown Jr. ^
4.26 Denver, CO @ Larimer Lounge ^
4.27 Salt Lake City, UT @ Urban Lounge ^
4.29 Seattle, WA @ Neumos ^
4.30 Vancouver, Canada @ Biltmore Cabaret^

5.1 Portland, OR @ Hawthorne ^
5.2 Eugene, OR @ WOW Hall ^
5.5 Groningen, Netherlands @ Vera #
5.6 Njimegen,Netherlands @ Doornrosjie #
5.7 Koln, Germany @ Gebaude 9 #
5.8 Karlsruhe, Germany @ Jubez #
5.9 Weisbaden, Germany @ Schalctof #
5.10 Bochum, Germany @ BHF Langendreer #
5.11 Hamburg, Germany @ Hafenklang #
5.12 Copenhagen, Denmark @ Loppen #
5.13 Aarhus, Denmark @ Voxhall #
5.14 Malmo, Sweden @ Debaser Malmo #
5.15 Warsaw, Poland @ Basen Artystyyczny # *
5.16 Poznan, Poland @ Pod Minoga # *
5.17 Krakow, Poland @ Lodz Kaliska # *
5.18 Prague, Czech Republic @ Chapeau Rouge #
5.19 Vienna, Austria @ Chelsea #
5.20 Wurzburg, Germany @ Cafe Cairo #
5.21 Leipzig, Germany @ Wave Gothik Theatre
5.22 Athens, Greece @An Club

** = with Arms and Sleepers
^ = with Red Sparowes
# = with Constants
* = with Ef

Poster design for Caspian & Arms And Sleepers North American Tour - Kris Johnsen 2010

 

The Portland Phoenix Best Of Poll

I’ve been nominated for The Portland Phoenix’s Best Of Poll 2009 for Best Visual Artist. This is pretty awesome and definetly a shock. Please help me out and take a few seconds to vote for myself as well as all of your other favorite Portland things. Including Hillytown.com for best blog.

 

Dead of Winter and Stand With Haiti process shots

This month’s posters are for Dead of Winter and Stand With Haiti. Dead of Winter is a 3 color screen print designed and printed by Kris Johnsen. Stand With Haiti was designed by Sean Wilkinson and is a 2 color screen print, also printed by Kris Johnsen.

Here’s some process shots of the Dean of Winter poster being created.
More pictures after the jump!