Scraped Knee: The Art of Matt Leunig

I recently did some work for the upcoming Catalpa NYC Music Festival going down later this summer on Randall’s Island (July). It is being put together by Irish promoter Frisky and is the 1st year they are doing it. Line-up looks good so far and they plan to differentiate themselves from the rest of the schlocky summer Fest by including a number of Burning Man style structures and constructs. That means… fiiiiirrrreeee!!!!! Plus Snoop Dogg will be doing the whole Doggystyle album which I think most people my age have memorized.

This was for a oversized street print that should be blanketing the walls of the burroughs as I write this. The plan is to also do a seperate proper screenprint design to be available at the show. If your in NYC… check it out.

This coming Friday is the art opening for the new Blank Space Gallery show entitled, “In the Garage: Art Celebrating Geek Culture“ in Milford, CT. As you might recall I participated in their 1st show a couple months back, “Every Mistake: the Art of the Beatles” and it went well.  For this show, artists were chosen and given the task of creating a piece that represents nerdom from your past.  The piece I created is a 6-color (18′ x 24′) print entitled, “1986“.

I actually had a hard time with this concept, not necessarily the execution but rather whittling down the options to get to the final concept. The theme was a bit broad and made my brain flood w/ too many options… oooh games, comics, D’n'D, toys, 80′s movies…. too much stuff to choose from.   Should I do a Destro or an Orko piece? Maybe a super detailed Zelda print… Casey Jones?  Eventually I thought about it more and instead of just drawing a representation of some cool toy or something from my childhood I wanted to try and capture a moment from my childhood and I sketched out this idea….

I spent many a night sitting in the dark w/ the glow of the screen entranced by one NES game or another.  It was a big part of childhood.   My favorite toys were all there.  Looking at current state of geek culture I feel this year in particular had a major effect w/ its toys, games, movies, etc.

I just got the prints in yesterday and they look amazing. Lots of hidden nerd stuff in the background to try and find. 100 were printed and 50 (signed/numbered) will be available this Friday at the Blank Space show. The remaining 50 (signed/AP) will be available on this site in about a month. I’ll let you know.

A couple weeks ago I wrapped up a 2nd print for the current Eric Church tour. The show was last night, so I’m able to start pushing it. Taaadaaa. It was pretty cool to be apart of this series of prints. There are a lot of great artists attached and some really great prints. We’ll see… maybe another one will be on the horizon. Like the previous, this is a 4-color print.

Tupelo is the birthplace of Elvis and definitely loves to let everyone know that so I wanted to throw in some reference to that including the TCB (Takin’ Care of Business) krew. I also loved the idea of a post-bar fight image but didn’t want to go all out w/ broken glass, bodies everywhere, beer bottles. Subtlety my friend. An inferred story line. Below is the black & white for this piece.

Prints are available in the store.

 Print now up in the poster store.

I’ve been busy working on some new projects this week when I got asked to do a print for the “Bob Weir & Bruce Hornsby” 2-night show at the Fox Theater in Oakland, part of their Alone & Together tour. It was a pretty crazy turnaround time to finish it in but I happily excepted it… I mean, come on… it’s the Dead. How do you turn that stuff away?

Anyways, I was lucky that my buddy Mauz and Monolith Press in Alameda was available and helped me print these up. Due to the timing these are not signed & numbered.. so Boo Hoo all you collectors.

The piece started off a little different w/ a terrapin, and the bear was to be just was regular California Brown bear, no instruments kinda just sitting there chillin’.

Would I have changed or added anything if I had the time? Yeh probably… but I was happy to see I could crank something out that didn’t feel rushed or like I was taking shortcuts. I tend to overthink stuff and waste a lot of time so this was nice to just push through all that and work on first instinct.

Update –  This is now available in the store

A while back I did some art for SF-based band, Tokyo Raid with the ol’ Tapehead character and was pleased to see it now turned into a sweet drumhead.  Kick ass!!! (pun intended).  Nice job guys.

It’s been a while since I worked with them, especially since I moved from San Francisco but the Fillmore asked me to do 2 prints in the last month, which I obliged..

The first was for Philly boy, G. Love & Special Sauce. I wanted to make something that represented his Philly roots and had elements from his songs without going too overboard and cheesy. Apparently it worked as G. Love mentioned “…that’s our best Fillmore poster ever.”

Next up was Lucero, who truthfully I was a bit unfamiliar with their music. I knew they were from Memphis, and after listening to them had this image pop up in my head. Wanted to factor a dead Elvis in there some where but hey,.. that guys gets enough press as it is.

These will be up in the store section soon. Check back.

I recently got asked to do a piece for the current Eric Church tour. It’s kind of a departure from what I am used to doing but I think the final poster came out looking pretty cool. Great print job (4-color, 24′ x 18′, 143 print + AP’s).

The management wanted somehthing rustic & down-home but with a kind of beat up nature to it. I thought what better than an old Ford with bullet holes in it. Here are some early concept drawings and color comps..

Prints are available in the store.

The BandWagon show was a blast!!! Props to SCAD & BFG for pulling off a successful upgrade from last years show. It was in a new building and a slew of really interesting people showed up. The after party involved shrimps, drinking beer in the rainy streets and doom metal that I’ll leave for another day. I love Savannah and was happy to go back for a weekend.  This isn’t the most comprehensive recap but here are some pics & peeps from the show…

The curse of crappy weather struck for the 2nd BandWagon in a row as Saturday was pretty dreary. Large paper and water do not mix well but Sunday lived up to its name flooding the spot w/ rays and peoples.

Here is a view of floor with all the vinyl pushers. I purposefully kept away because starting to collect anything new is the last thing I need. Too much temptation.

Here was my setup during one of the few moments I was able to sneak away from it.

Martin of Cannonball Pressmoving and collecting paper.

Mike Davis of Burlesque of North America came down from Minnesota to show everyone how its done.

Design guru and all-around nice guy, Aaron Draplin of Draplin Design Co. was showing off his new Georgia print as well as his stash of Field Notes.

The folks of Bandito Design were in from Ohio and had a slew of sweet prints on display.  Good peoples.

Here is Scott from Standard Deluxe hiding behind his table. The boys from Waverly were next to my booth and ended up being the nicest guys in the biz, plus I snagged a bigfoot shirt from them… which is always a positive.

It was cool to get some hang time in with Anna & Sei Rey of Us & Them before they moved up to Brooklyn and get corrupted and go gangsta’.

Since moving to the East coast Half & Half. has been doing most of my printing for me so it was good to get a chance to talk shop and hang for a while. There were some weird hydraulic space dentist chairs lying around which Nick took full advantage of.

Nick’s better half Shannon held shop for a while.

The Soda Shope was setup on the other side of me and had recently opened up a new store in Savannah. They had a bunch of cool things going on including doing a live demonstration of making letterpress coasters. Cool folks.

The fine fellows of Ink Floyd representing.

Some bear…

Art by Morning Breath Inc

Art by Methane Studios

I’ll be taking the trek down to Savannah this weekend for the 2nd Annual BandWagon Poster Show. It is associated with the school down there, SCAD (Savannah College of Art & Design) and will also have a vinyl show accompanying it. I did the show last year which you can read about here, and had a great time. It looks like they stepped it up this year and got a good spread of artists and print houses involved that includes:

Aesthetic Apparatus
Draplin Design
Methane Studio
Us & Them
Wierhouse
The Half & Half
Henry & Company
Lure
Two Arms
Bandito Design
Halftone Def
Dwitt
Burlesque Design
Morning Breath
Subject Matter
Cannonball Press
Foxy Loxy
& myself

If you are in the area (or not) come on down, say “Hi”. I will post pics when I return but in the meantime, check my Twitter this weekend for up to date info and possible free prints for those at the show. Also, be sure to check out the official BandWagon twitter account as they will be live tweeting.

For more info on the show (location, events, etc..) check out http://attendbandwagon.com/