It's been a while since the last series of sugar skulls but I'm glad to report that the next series is ready. Each print is hand-pressed on The Cranky Pressman's classic Vandercook, with vegetable based ink on Crane & Co.'s Lettra line of letterpress-specific paper stock. With magnesium plates and 110lb. 100% cotton paper this series is faithful to the first so if you have a print from my first series, these 12" x 12" prints will fit right in. This is a limited edition, five designs, 50 prints per design, hand-numbered and signed.
If you got a print in the presale, thank you! More importantly, your print is in the mail. Please let me know how your print arrived, I put more into packaging after seeing how the post office handled the last series.
Prototype:
Production:
About Series 2
This time around I'm working again from my childhood icons, but this time with a focus on my Japanese upbringing. While these icons might not be as popular in the US, some of them have influenced my aesthetic from very early on. Others, like the Domokun, are a nod to the continuing influence of the Japanese kawaii-cuteness in the modern dialect of commercial symbols and this thing called the Internet.
The artwork for the first skulls in this series were done just after I sold the last and after getting the illustration work to The Cranky Pressman, Japan was struck with the most devastating natural disaster in its history. I decided to add five blinds of each design as a visual moment of silence to honor those who lost their lives in the event. A blind deboss is a pressing without ink, the result is an impression in the paper but no inked surfaces. These blinds will be auctioned as a part of this series, each signed and numbered in an edition of 5 per design, with 100% of the proceeds going to the relief effort in Japan.
Previously on the web:
Wareground: This Ain't Daddy's Sugar Skull
USA Today: Sugar Skull Art, So Yummy!
Craftzine: Sugar Skull Art, So Yummy!
OMG Posters: Pop-Culture Calavera Prints by Jonathan Koshi
Monoscope: Jonathan Koshi: Sugar Skulls
BoingBoing: Dia de los Muertos skulls of Kermit the Frog, Alien, Pac-man, etc.
WIRED: Sugar Skull Prints Put Day-of-the-Dead Spin on Geeky Icons
