Pin-up T shirts available

I have added 2 new men's T shirts to the Kent Designs website:

Pin-up back

Pin-up front

 Pin-up design is 5 color back/ 1 color front printed on white only. (Sizes S-XXL) I did a few long sleeves for this design too. Sleeve design will read: The "K" stands for quality. That part still needs to be printed. 

Logo design back

Logo design front

Logo shirts are 3 color front/ 3color back printed on Irish Green shirts only. S-XXL
Either shirt can be ordered here for $17 (shipping included) http://www.kentdesigns.com/apparel/kent_pinup/kent_pin-up_shirt.htm

A portion of every sale will go to support The Kent Family Worm Farm, so please, be generous.

I Got Worms

I’ve been up late the last few nights studying up on worm composting. Yeah, I know that watching YouTube videos of worms at 2 AM is more than kind of sad…it’s extremely sad. The guy working at the pizza place where I eat lunch (often) has a degree in horticulture and got me going on the idea. (That’s totally Santa Cruz- everyone has a degree in something that can’t be used, and as a result, they work 2 jobs that are totally beneath them to survive.) All my searching of articles and forums gave me a real good idea how to build a continuous flow vermicomposting bin, so I sketched out a plan. Materials and time spent constructing this thing made the “Can-O-Worms” pre-built stacking bin seem quite sensible. I live in an unincorporated area of Santa Cruz County, and residents like me are offered a bin for only $25 delivered, so it’s hard to beat it.  The same bin goes for around $125 plus shipping online.  So the bin is on it's way, now I need to score a couple pounds of worms.  My daughter is very excited about this and wants to go get them right now.  Worms go for around $20 a pound, which, oddly enough is the same price as Fillet Mignon. How weird is that? My wife was absolutely correct when she said “you don’t have the free time to be fucking around with a worm farm.” I’ll find the time.

Red Wigglers

Guido Roofing Screen Print

Printed these up last night and cured them this morning. Black and Royal Blue shirts, polos and sweat shirts. This is a reprint order, but the first run was done only on blue shirts so the character’s blue hat and shirt and the blue of the sky was not printed…just a knock out. This was a way to cut costs for the first run. Black shirts require a blue screen to be added with a white under base under the entire circle. All that under base sucks up the white ink pretty quick. I was adding more ink every 4 shirts. I think this image looks real nice on black. Everything pops better on black.

7 color print still on press



Flipped for your viewing pleasure



Solar post hardening of screens


When I was setting up, the sun actually came out for a bit. This was the fourth time this happened all summer, so it was kind of a big deal. I was able to post harden my screens the fast and free way! Post hardening toughens up the emulsion after your initial exposure and washout. This second dose of UV rays makes the stencil hold up better for a long run, especially when you use a very thin coat of emulsion like I do. Thin emulsion=thin stencil=thin layer if ink laid down=soft final print. This was set up on all 110 mesh screens, except the black was my usual 230 mesh

The rise of Laundry-Bot 5000

I was really in a so-so mood until I looked in the liquor cabinet. I was expecting to mix up a vodka something or other, but found that my mother-in-law left me a bottle of Jim Beam! Oh man, do I feel better now. Beam and Coke wins every time.

The second most exciting thing going is Laundry-Bot 5000. Laundry-Bot was delivered yesterday and has brightened our lives already. Let me give you a little back story:

5 or 6 years ago we bought a crappy washer and dryer when we moved to Aptos. The woman moving out of the house we were moving into was one of Melody’s co-workers, and if memory serves me correctly, she was moving to Mexico. She needs to sell, we need to buy, the machines are already in place…you get the picture. These junky machines work surprisingly well for about 3 years. Then clothes start getting burns on them in the dryer. We get it repaired but it happens again 6 months later. We buy the house we are in now and another crappy washer and dryer are already in the garage. We’ll call these set B. These suck less than our other ones (but not much) so we keep them. I wheel crappy set A to the curb where they are taken in literally 20 minutes. A couple weeks ago the timer gives out so the dryer won’t shut off by itself. I try to talk Melody down, but it’s no use. The first day we have off together without the kid becomes appliance shopping day. You can see who won that battle. This new rig has a stackable Voltron-like ability that opens up a couple more feet in the shop. As far as space goes, things are getting better and better out there. The hot water heater was originally right where Laundry-Bot stands now, with the old side by side units to the left of it. My father-in-law Vince owns McDonald Plumbing in Sacramento. He moved that hot water heater to the right corner and had it all strapped, plumbed and vented in like less than 2 hours. Amazing. Side note: Now, whenever he comes to visit us for a weekend trip the first question he asks us is “what tools do I need to bring?” It’s usually a long list. Next project: move that fluorescent light on the wall to the ceiling where it belongs.

Art Checks

First item: Bad Brains posters will be on sale this Saturday morning (September 4th) at 8 AM Pacific time. These are 4 color prints hand printed on 100# matte ultrawhite cover stock, signed and numbered edition of 70. Orders will ship out starting with #1/70 on a first come first serve basis, so move quick.
http://www.kentdesigns.com/poster_gallery.htm

Second item: I need new checks made because I’ve been using the old ones with the wrong address for over a year now. So my wife and I start looking online at various designs. There are literally thousands of designs to choose from and they all suck. I was about to go with the Marvel super villains when I found an option to upload your own photos as check art. Hmmmm…I like that idea. I threw together these designs from old stuff I had done, and I got to say, they look pretty cool. Here they are, you can do the same. First person to pay me with one of these checks gets a bunch of free crap. That’s a promise.

Sample off the website

 

 

Make sure to open each up full size before you save it.