William Marchant

The Best Mistake I Made Learning to Screen Print

Up until last week, I had been using 3M Injet Transparency Film on my Brother MFC-5890cn to print transparencies for my screen printing process. I had been quadrupling them up to get darker black areas.

In an effort to cut some costs, I found a much cheaper injet transparency film made by Apollo.  My costs for transparencies were substantially cut!  $50 for a 50 pack of the 3M stuff went to $14 for a 50 pack of the Apollo stuff!

So the new transparencies arrived and I ripped open the package...only to look at the specifications and find that they were not compatible with my Brother printer.  Tiss tiss for not looking into that before I ordered, right?  But, I tried printing a few anyway...only so my Brother could completely eat each page.

I sat there for a few minutes letting set in the fact that I was stuck with 200 transparencies that I couldn't use.  And a thought came to me!  They were compatible with HP printers and I had an old HP printer collecting dust next to my desk! 

DECEMBER UPDATE: W Marchant Ilustration & Design

My blog hasn't been updated for a while so I figured it a good idea just to explain why.  Why is because I've been busy as EVER!  While I've gotten only rejection letters back from a few of my picture book submissions...the design side of things has been great!

One thing I've been busy with is a lot of renderings and other design for a company in New York called Populate: Drawing People In.  I can't really talk about the projects I did for them because each involves 2011 ad campaigns for some major companies.  But I will say that a major soft drink company, a leader in dress pants, and a technological giant have some really cool campaigns coming soon and I am glad to have had a hand in pitching them! 

Other projects that I can only "mention" are the work I did for the CDC (Centers for Disease Control & Prevention)...but there is some neat stuff going on there too!

Some stuff that I can actually talk about, for one, is all the stuff I've been doing for MSI (Motor Service, Inc.).  I've been handling a rebranding of their company since early this year, which has included everything from new business cards, to truck decals, to merchandising items, to carbonless forms.  It has been a well-rounded project to say the least.

With all this design work, I feel lucky to get away from the computer screen every now & then...and some recent t-shirt screen printing orders I've gotten have helped that! 

Also, in whatever spare time I get, I have been developing a mini-comic or zine that is nearing completion (that's the cover above).  I will be targeting some underground comic stores and indie bookstores to sell some of these things so look for them soon!  If you want to pre-order a copy just shoot me an email.

And the last thing is always my side project RockScratch...I'm always adding new stuff there so check it out.  I'm running a 20% OFF Holiday Sale...so now's a good time to take a look!

Well, I think that covers most of what I've been doing lately...I'm going to get back to it, but have a happy Christmas season!

Bis dann!

My First Batch of Screen Printed Posters...

I just finished with my first screen printing run...and for a first attempt, I think they turned out alright.  An experienced screen printer will see the obvious mistakes that I made, but the posters will look okay to an average viewer.

For my first run, I chose to do posters for the Black Keys concert I'll be going to on June 10th at the St. Louis Pageant.  The printed posters are seen at left...I did 15 black and 5 blue (and I completely botched 10 others).  I wanted to do something with a lot of detail and a couple different colors just so I could see how well it came out.

Rather than laying out instructions on the screen printing process (which you can find like I did by Googling "how to screen print") I'd like to offer some general ideas that I worked through. 

New RockScratch Illustration:"The Black Keys & Danger Mouse"

Ahh...what a beautiful day (at least in the midwest) for the release of the new Black Keys album Brothers.

In anticipation of the new album, I did this illustration which depicts producer Danger Mouse lighting the spark on a Black Keys rocket/firework.  The track "Tighten Up" off Brothers being DM's second collaboration with the Keys (the first being the entire album Attack & Release), I wanted to show the effect he is having on the band.  "Tighten Up" has the potential to appeal to a much broader/mainstream audience than the band has ever before...thanks in part to DM's production influence.  Sure the band has sold rights to multiple television shows and movies to use their songs...but for the most part, much of mainstream music listeners still do not know who the Black Keys are.  With the release of Brothers and the promotion of the single "Tighten Up," I personally feel that that is about to change drastically.

With that stated, this illustration is supposed to be reminiscent of my first Black Keys illustration from several years ago.  It is the same backyard scene, only the duo is no longer breaking out by themselves...they have already broken out...Danger Mouse is rocketing them to greater heights.

Prints should be available later this afternoon on www.RockScratch.com!

BUT FIRST, I'm gonna go buy the album!

Art St. Louis "Seeing Red" Exhibit Now Open

Who's Your Audience? is the Third Work From the Right

The 54 original artworks featured in this multi-media juried exhibit focus on the color red and/or address the theme of "Seeing Red," i.e. annoyance, frustration, and related issues of heated emotions, controlling anger, etc.

Join me at the Opening Reception this Saturday (May 16th) from 6-8pm!

555 Washington Avenue, #150 • St. Louis, MO 63101-1239 • 314.241.4810

CLICK HERE FOR MORE ABOUT ART ST. LOUIS

Work Explanation: "Do You Realize?"

This is a scratchboard & gouache work that I did a few years ago.  It is a portrait of Flaming Lips leader Wayne Coyne...but more specifically, it was greatly inspired by their song "Do You Realize?"

I depicted the two major qualities that drive Coyne as an artist...he is both a child and a space cadet.  So, as my illustration shows, he is floating in space with a bunch of stuffed animals...pretty straight forward.  BUT...if you really look at it (especially while listening to the song) it sort of "floats" and elicits thought.  I do not mean to be pretentious in the slightest way (something I absolutely hate!), but my goal was to further direct the viewer/listener to the powerful meaning of the song.

Do you realize...?

CLICK HERE TO BUY THIS ON ROCKSCRATCH.COM

"Colin & Bozy Battle the Binky Bugs" - Comic Art

This is an idea I got while visiting family in Mississippi when their eldest son, age 4, told me that a bug stole his binky (or "packie" as they call it down there).  So I came up with the idea for a book (or possibly book series) called the "Binky Bugs."  I chose to do the first illustration in more of a comic format for the Foundry's upcoming Comic Art Show.  In further development of this idea, I will try to create a balance between comic-style layouts and more classic page layouts...much how Lincoln Agnew laid out Harry and Horsie (by Katie Van Camp).

The child in the illustration is obviously much younger than age 4...I went for a "Harold & the Purple Crayon" type character.  He is actually based on a photo of their youngest son who is only 8 months old.  For the bug I went for a gnarly-lookin' fly type bug...that is creepy looking but is sort of cute in other depictions.  The character "Bozy" is based on my girlfriend's childhood doll, which was called "Cozy Bows."  She still cherishes it to the day and I try and work it into my illustrations when opportunities arise.

I do not "love" this illustration...but I think it gets across my idea and is a fitting addition to this show and to my portfolio.  I am still playing with the mat color...for now, the light blue is winning.  Also, I think I might need to add some "wing flapping" to the bug.  I will update the image if any changes are made.

Another One From Dan Zettwoch

I was looking through Dan Zettwoch's website further and saw this poster of Mike Shannon.  Dan showed us the sketches for this...but it's cool to see it actually finished.  Sadly this poster is out of print.  I would have definitely bought one.  A great work.

CLICK HERE FOR MORE DAN ZETTWOCH

SLAG - February 2010 Illustrators Section Meeting

Last night, I attended my first meeting of the St. Louis Artists' Guild Illustrators Section.  I didn't really know what to expect going into it since I have been distant from the Guild for a few years.  But, I immediately felt welcome after being greeted by section coordinator, Bill Vann.

After going over some upcoming Guild events/worshops/etc, the meeting turned to the guest speaker of the night, a local artist by the name of Dan Zettwoch.  Zettwoch got his start in illustration doing instructional illustrations, diagrams, maps, etc...basically the stuff you see in magazines where they have those computer generated instructional diagrams of different places/scenes.  While doing this, Zettwoch worked with groups to produce underground comics and screenprinted posters/t-shirts/etc.  His screenprinting work is where he started to boom.  He began getting work doing poster illustrations for everything from famous St. Louisans to a Festivus shopping poster to illustrations for the Riverfront Times (RFT) .  It's hard to go further with explaining what Zettwoch does...because he does everything.  He still does the occassional map or instructional diagram...but his true passion is his screenprint work and comics (which he still does occassionally for RFT.  Zettwoch's drive and explosive creativity is...what can I say...inspiring.  YOU JUST HAVE TO CHECK OUT HIS WEBSITE!

It was truely wonderful to be able to get a chance to candidly see a successful artist share his sketches, sketchbooks, finalized works, etc with us.  The entire meeting I just wanted to start drawing...AND I have to learn how to screenprint.  I have been going about printing my RockScratch  stuff the wrong way...screenprinting is definitely the way to go.

Other than discovering the greatness of Dan Zettwoch, the meeting was inspiring simply for the fact that I found out there are others like me.  Men and women who get their start working out of basements in Missouri.  The biggest thing I got from this first meeting is the feeling that I am truely not alone.  I am definitely not the first one who has done this...and there is a chance that I can be successful if I just keep going with it.

The next Illustrators Section meeting, March 9th, will feature a representative from Liquitex.  I look forward to some great product samples/demos as well as the best part of the meeting...being with like-minded artists!

Picture Book Illustration: "THAT ONE BIG ONE"

I wanted to give you a glimpse of a children's picture book that I wrote and am now illustrating.  The full title is "Fishing for THAT ONE BIG ONE (my own way)", but my hope is that people will just refer to it as "THAT ONE BIG ONE."  I'm going for a long Lane Smith type title like "The Stinky Cheese Man and Other Fairly Stupid Tales" where people just call it "Stinky Cheese Man."

So far, I have the cover and pages 2-13 illustrated.  I am steadily building my portfolio as an illustrator and several of the pages from this book will be a major part of it.  I am meeting the right people and learning a lot...so hopefully it will soon pay off when I begin sending my stuff to publishers and agents.

The cover seen at right is not totally finalized, but it is very far along.  I am still playing with lighting to get the pages looking exactly like they do in real-life...but, the lack of natural sunlight the past few days (because of this grey/rainy weather) is making it difficult.