wertz

silkscreening resources (updated 1.18)

this is a very quick list of stuff. there's so much more on the webs than there was when i first made this list (2007)! * first off:

buy yourself a copy of this book. andy macdougall also created squeegeeville. take a look.

* local shops:

the grease diner

bloom press

the w.o.r.k.s.

creative screen technologies

* online tutorials

here's a tutorial about reduction screen printing by artist Jim Winters.

an online (comic) pdf called diy silkscreening.

how to silkscreen posters and shirts

psprint's history and resources

screen a t-shirt at home

* materials

dick blick screen supplies page

tubelite

need a detailed screen burned? ask the kind folks at creative screen technologies. you can even email a black and white jpg to be made into a screen!

cheap tee shirts

* inspiration

gigposters. a very active community of artists lives here.

reinventing screenprinting

the little friends of printmaking

flatstock

dan mccarthy

The Wertzateria Redbubble Shop : we're live

I ruv roo.

I ruv roo.

Exactly one year ago we adopted this 56-pound ball of pure energy named Blue. The photo on the left was taken by Amanda Jones about a week after we had adopted her (for a cover shoot for The Bark magazine), and we were still getting to know her. We still are. She is affectionate, exuberant, lovely, goofy, and frustrating. You know: a puppy. It's lots of work (naturally). Well, (as my dear Grandfather once said) Blue is two years old now. It's time that she get herself a job. Since she has no thumbs, she's going to have to get creative. To pay for her care and feeding (read: trail walks), I've started a redbubble shop featuring some of my designs. I've ordered a few of the products, and I'm happy to report that the quality is top-notch. Peep some samples below.

Queen For Two Weeks: Book

Friendlies: are you sitting comfortably? Good. Let me tell you a story.

Back in 2011 (my, how time flies), Jim Winters and I set out to make a follow-up book to his artists' book Queen for a Day. Jim Worked up a set of coats-of-arms, and I did portraits of my favorite queens. We hand printed the whole shebang at Inky Oxnard Studios on Rives BFK and trimmed and glued the prints into accordion-folded books. Behold.

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On the left, my queens (interspersed with Jim's coats-of-arms) :

The B-52's. Siouxsie Sioux. Elizabeth Taylor from the movie Boom. Lynda Barry. Helen Lawson from the movie Valley of the Dolls. Pepper LaBeija. Rosalind Russell from Auntie Mame.

If you don't know who they are, then you haven't lived.

These are the colorful, talented, quirky, smart-as-a-whip ladies who inspire me to keep on making stuff every day.

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My thanks.

Subscribe to the Wertzeen

Friendlies: I'm attempting a little experiment over here. We (the royal we) have created a monthly inbox zine called Wertzeen. If you sign up, it will arrive, like a magic mist, in your email inbox. Once a month, and no more than once a month. It is a zine without the paper: a zeen. We’ll keep you informed not just of our illustrative scribblings and meanderings but also of the happenings of the Bay Area creative community. It will be good fun, and it means you no harm. It is free and easy. If this interests you, click on over to this page.

I'm posting issue #001 tomorrow, and I can't wait.

wzeen

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Oakland Pride Poster

.. and when I say LOVE you best believe I'm in LOVE L-U-V. A one-color poster design for the Oakland Museum and Oakland Pride. I'll be with the OMCA's "mobile unit", teaching folks how to screenprint their own take-away posters at the Pride festivities. We'll be close to the intersection of Broadway and 14th. Come say hi!

Oooh, Sheila E. Love her.

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special ghosts at the burlington hotel

friendlies, our little uke band special ghosts (it's andy, isabel, and yours truly) is playing the burlington hotel on july 18th. if you haven't been to port costa yet, it's time to treat yourself. be sure to have dinner at the bull valley roadhouse before the show.

here's a flyer, and some images of isabel and i screenprinting little stuffed ghost pillows for sale at the show. thanks to bloom press for hosting.

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a blast from the past : when the studio was in the basement

Friendlies, I unearthed these 2008 CVB posters a few weeks back and put them back up in the shop so I thought I'd unearth the video of me making them in the basement. In the most hoopty sweater-and-haircut combination possible. See also the final poster and the sketch for the Cracker record that inspired the poster. Enjoy.

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the day lassie went to the moon poster : in the shop!

Dear Friends of Music, this is a project that I've been working on for a while now, and I'm glad to finally see it on paper. David Lowery from Camper Van Beethoven asked if I'd consider making the song The Day That Lassie Went to the Moon (one of my favorites) into a kid's book, and I thought it was a great idea for a poster as well as a book (the book is still to come!). Well, a bunch of hours of sketching, drawing, and printing later, here she is. Have a gander, and if you'd like, head over to the shop to buy yourself one. Printed with love by yours truly at Bloom Press in Oakland with the kind assistance of Nat Swope.

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Montclair Mural: all done!

Dear Friendlies, I had the pleasure with working with Ron Rifkin at the Design Office and Daniel Swafford from the Montclair Village Association in creating street banners and this mural dedicated to sweet little Montclair Village in Oakland, California. Yesterday was the dedication ceremony. More about the mural (and the kind folks who made it happen) here.

Here's the completed illustration. This image was used for banners that were (and are!) flying over Montclair.

This is Pam Consear from Rare Bird and the Skyline High Art Club, who spent weeks and weeks painting the mural.

Ta-daa!

Guess who came to the Dedication Ceremony? That's Daniel, Ron, and I, plus Oakland Mayor Jean Quan and Councilmember Libby Schaff.

Chris Rathman's Bead-A-Mation for La Costa Perdida

Wow. I'm stunned. Chris Rathman has taken the cover art I created for Camper Van Beethoven's La Costa Perdida and has done stop-motion animation with plastic beads to create this super-groovy video. There's lots of great CVB in-jokes that whiz by. You'll have to see for yourself. Behold:

Peaches In The Summertime - Camper Van Beethoven (Full Bead-A-Mation) from Chris Rathman on Vimeo.

Apparently, this took Chris six months to complete. Stunning.

By the way, have you checked out the artwork I did for the new record? Here's a taste.

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2014 calendars in the shop

Friendlies, the 2014 calendars are here & up for sale in the shop. This calendar is a collection of screenprints I've made since 2003. Also in the shop you'll find both the winter tour posters I just completed for the CVB/Cracker family. Enjoy!

Thank you and hugs: Carolee, Wayne, Isabel, Kristy, Nat Swope at Bloom Press. Big thanks to my sister Julie Wertz for making this happen every year, and to the fine folks at Lee Wood Press in San Francisco for the amazing printing job (as usual).

2014_calendar

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