Filtering by Category: New Store Goodies,Al Paulsen

We're excited to announce that we'll be showing a collection of work at the Super7 store in San Francisco, opening on April 23rd at 6PM. We'll also be debuting the first colorway of Leroy C., the newest member of the IC family! Super7 will have a limited amount on hand to take home.

We'll be sharing a collection of 20+ posters and prints, including a number of illustrations from our late grandfather, Alfred Paulsen. As someone who influenced our work tremendously and spent much of his young adult life in the bay area, we thought it would be fitting to include some of his work in the show.

We'll also have a few new limited Leroy C. prints available. Come out and say hi!

We recently completed posters for 2 events serendipitously taking place on the same night (January 22nd), albeit across the nation from one another. Aziz Ansari will be knocking the socks off of a presumably packed house at Carnegie Hall, while I'll be here in Seattle, in awe of White Lies and all of their glory. The Aziz poster is 5 colors, and White Lies is 2 colors, both of which feature metallic silver ink. In the store now!

It's been another fantastic year at IC, so we thought we'd share the love a bit. With any purchase over $30 until December 21st, you'll receive our new 11" x 14" Giclee print 'Snowballer'. Inspired by our recent snowmageddon experience here in Seattle, we thought it would be pretty neat to have a large orange pachyderm friend on our side in case that looming snowball fight with the bratty neighborhood kids does indeed happen. Tell your friends.

This has been sitting on my desk for 8+ years, so I've been meaning to post this for awhile. This is our Grandpa's old business card for 'Imaginators', his DBA for freelance projects.  I always thought 'Imaginators' was a great name as a kid and have since just assumed someone else has snatched it up. Turns out that I'm right, but it doesn't appear to be for anything substantial. I'm not 100% sure if Grandpa created the letterforms by hand or not, but I've always felt like it fit his style really well.

'Slide and Vu-Graph Illustration' - I love seeing that.

These 3 pieces are some of my favorite from the AP vault. Not only are they a fun batch of mix-n-match monster features, but visual proof that buried somewhere deep within my DNA lies that love of creating monsters. My beloved grandmother recently just turned 86, and as my mom put it - we are 'attempting to mine her memory as much as possible' in regards to grandpa's work. There is just a lot she doesn't remember. My uncle states: "I'm not sure what the purpose was. He may have used them as examples when he was negotiating or demonstrating options to a client". Ahh, character comps. Sounds familiar.

Grandpa was always larger than life to Ryan and I. His career laid the foundation for our love of art. Unfortunately during most of our youth, we lived in different states and didn't get to see him as much as we would have liked. We grew up in Central Oregon while our grandparents lived in a little town called Oroville, about 90 miles south of Sacramento. I remember the yearly visits and the family gatherings at Christmas, but like most families at that time, we didn't have the money to travel often. Unfortunately, my memory of art conversations with him are fairly limited. I just remember always being in awe around him. He had a deep, soothing voice that commanded the attention and respect of everyone nearby. And I remember him always smiling and laughing. I like to think that had something to do with loving his 'job'. But on the other hand, I'm not convinced that artists really differentiate 'job' from 'life'.

In 1989, my father landed a new job in Sacramento. Relocating from a sleepy town in Oregon to a larger city was a big culture shock for me. And ironically - shortly after that, grandma and grandpa actually relocated to Washington state. Grandpa passed away in 1995. I was 20.

At the time of his passing, I was playing music and touring. Being in a band was my life. Art (visually at least) was on the back burner . I knew that it was something I was going to circle back to, but it wasn't in my immediate future.

Now that I'm 35 and have been doing this 'professionally' for almost 10 years, you can imagine how many questions I wished I would have asked him. It's something I can't spend a lot of time thinking about because of the obvious reasons.

I am grateful to have most of his pieces that he left behind, and the many family members who are helping to remember/research where and when these amazing illustrations came from. Many, many, many more to come.

Thanks, grandpa.

Many of you know that our grandfather, Alfred Paulsen, was a gifted illustrator who worked for NASA for 25+ years. During his tenure there (and after), he dabbled in all kinds of fun freelance work on the side. Recently we've started unearthing loads of his work and will be posting it on the blog from time to time.

I'm not sure what this spot was done for, but couldn't help but crack a smile just looking at it. Circa sometime in the 70's.

Much more to come.

The sun is shining in Seattle and it appears that spring has come a bit early (if you're local, you're just as thankful as us). We also happen to have a ton of posters sitting in flat files that we'd like to send to you kind people. So, it occured to us that this would be a perfect time to slash prices (most posters $8-$10) and make room for some new art. We've been making posters for 8 years now and decided to put many in the 'blowout bin' until they are gone. Grab them now as this sale will only last a few weeks.