From around the age of 6, I've always loved to draw. Subject matter consisted of the usual observations at that age - noble but dreadfully elastic renderings of cars, trucks, animals and icons of whatever holiday was approaching, be it Halloween, Christmas or the 4th of July, loosely executed using crayons, pencils, pens or watercolors. Whenever I'd be riding around in the family car or walking to school, I began to take notice of the many different road signs, billboard advertising and construction barricades scattered about. I was struck by their generous display of color, the variety of shapes and sizes, as well as their extensive use of bold, no-nonsense fonts. Even though baseball card collecting was the rule of the day, and I was not immune, I was more intrigued with the look and beauty of drag racing decals with logos advertising a particular brand of motor oil, premium fuel or factory race team, so I began saving those instead. It was an extension of our boyhood infatuation with building model cars and collecting Hot Wheels Redlines at the time, but I was hooked on the graphics! When I was 7, I spent an incredible day with my dad watching a Bucyrus Erie 22B Cable Hoe dig the basement for the new house the folks were building. By 1971, cable operated excavators were becoming obsolete as they were being replaced by the newer hydraulic based machines, so witnessing this behemoth doing the deed sent me into orbit! Shortly thereafter, a thrilling ride on a Caterpillar 955 midsize track loader took it even further. Impressed as I was with heavy construction equipment, but not being old enough to operate them, I did the next best thing and that was to draw them.

I'd seek out local construction sites, spend hours observing the various cranes, scrapers, and bulldozers, then go home and draw what I saw. I would set up scale road construction dioramas using my Matchbox cars, Mighty Tonkas, Legos and cardboard. This obsession went on until I was about 12. During this time, I was also discovering and admiring the artists in Mad magazine, the wonderful artwork of the peerless Norman Saunders for Topps Wacky Packages product parody stickers and yes, collecting more racing decals, bumper stickers, posters and logo related advertising. The outrageous car designs of the Tom Daniels Monogram Model kits and crispy pen & ink drawings from Ed Newton and Robert Williams at Roth Studios, along with the Donruss Odd Rod stickers were also a treat. I thought it was great stuff, however the nuns at school would give me a somewhat concerned look for drawing a one eyed screaming ghoul piloting a 32 Ford Street Rod with huge slicks and flames shooting out from the bottom. They need not have worried for I was also practicing my serious drawing skills. These were produced when I was 14.

By the time I was in high school and having a drivers license became a reality, muscle cars from the late sixties and early seventies, as well as automobiles in general, began to occupy my time. I have the dad to thank for my wrenching skills. He would maintain the family vehicles and I would learn how to fix 'em when they needed fixing, so I began to work on them whenever the need arose. It came easily to me so to this day, I do just about all of my own vehicle maintenance.

Shop class in high school introduced me to Mechanical Drafting, photography and a wide variety of printing processes, not the least of which was screen printing. I was intrigued by the fundamental process of creating art as a stencil, adhering it to a fine mesh screen tightly stretched to a frame, then pulling ink through it with a rubber squeegee blade onto t-shirts and poster board. In college, I initially set out to learn fundamental graphic design techniques and print reproduction processes at the local tech school, but wanting to hone my drawing and design skills, I enrolled at the Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design. In 1985, I began working at a commercial screen printing company. Predominantly a textile printer, we also screen printed iron-on heat transfers, decals and posters. I worked in the pressroom providing Pantone color matching, ink mixing and printing, but within a year I was transferred to the art department because of my background. It was all key line and paste-up, Letraset press type, triangles and t-squares, a huge stat camera, airbrushed artwork on illustration board and miles of Rubylith cut with an x-acto knife. We produced designs for Harley-Davidson motorcycles, Caterpillar Tractor Co., Miller Brewing Co., Coca-Cola and Mack Trucks, among others.

After 5 years, I began to freelance a bit, providing art for car shows, retail point of purchase displays and the corporate music industry. That led to me to my next position. I joined a screen printing firm that specialized in retail and touring garments for the music industry. It was a fast pace, deadline driven multi-million dollar business. Utilizing all manner of traditional art techniques, we pumped out hundreds of t-shirt designs for everyone from Clint Black, REM, Ringo Starr and Bob Marley, to Alice in Chains, Barry Manilow, the Black Crowes and Aerosmith. Someone somewhere probably has a well worn Van Halen tour tee I designed tucked away in their dresser drawer!

For the past 14 years I've held the positions of Art/Creative Director and Senior Artist in the screen printing industry. Subject matter has run the gamut from Indy Car racing teams to health care clinics, local town festivals to high school football teams, car shows and corporate brewery advertising to everything in between. Along the way, I have won several Screen Graphic Imaging Association Golden Image awards for my t-shirt designs and color separation techniques.

Desktop publishing has single handedly replaced the board and t-square in layout, proofing and pre-press applications. I remember using some of the earliest graphics software back in the late eighties. It was only good for typesetting and not much else, but these days, just about everything printed or videotaped is assembled, drawn and produced on a desktop computer. I use Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop almost exclusively to produce the majority of my work. Computers streamline the process somewhat but it can be a myth and a truth simultaneously, depending on the desired end result. It can take thousands of mouse clicks just as it can take as many paintbrush strokes or Rapidogragh pen strokes to render an image. On the other hand, choosing a font, assembling image elements, changing size, and checking color options may only take minutes. In less skilled hands, it can produce a digital mess, but utilized accordingly, the "electronic box" can be a wonderful tool anyway you look at it.

As much as we use the computer for graphic design, I still enjoy working up thumbnails in pencil or applying paint or an ink wash to a fresh piece of illustration board. I'm also quite fond of producing clean, pen & ink illustrations as well as tight, graphite drawings. The organic feel of a handcrafted piece of art has an essence all it's own. I'm continually amazed and impressed when I discover a brilliant new piece of commercial illustration or fine art, be it a magazine ad or a screen printed decal, a movie poster or a hand painted sign. It doesn't matter if it is a simple one color logo or a full color illustration, the heart of successful art and design is inevitably strong draftsmanship, logical color or font application, and an overall flow and balance. I continually strive to perfect my craft as we humans are never done learning. As with any chosen profession or natural talent, it needs to be nurtured and my influences have sometimes led me on some wild graphical interpretations, but the discipline of adapting multiple styles enables me to diversify and hopefully develop a pleasing piece of art that I am satisfied with and also meet a client's specific needs.

Copyright 2009-2010 Tim Huchmala All Rights Reserved