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. Throughout the rest of my youth, I became more aware of signage, decals, posters and logo related advertising. I was interested in the use of fonts and color, and how it was integrated into all the various graphics I discovered. I continued to draw cars, trucks and monsters. Of course 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 but hey, it was all part of the budding artist in me.

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. After high school, I enrolled in the printing and publishing program offered by the local tech school. Seeking further development of my graphic design/rendering skills, I attended 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. Initially, I worked in the pressroom printing, ink mixing and color matching, but was soon transferred to the art department because of my design 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 sliced up with an x-acto knife. Clients included Harley-Davidson, Caterpillar Tractor Co., Miller Brewing Co., Coca-Cola, Mack Trucks, and many other national and local industries. Next, I spent several years creating art and working in pre-press producing retail and concert tour tees for the corporate music and entertainment industry. Sony, NiceMan, Brockum, Disney and Universal studios were our major clients. 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 16 years, I've held the positions of Creative Director and Senior Artist in the screen printing industry. Subject matter has run the gamut from Indy Car/Nascar 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 awards for my t-shirt designs and color separation techniques. I currently freelance, designing logos and creating artwork for t-shirts, decals and all sorts of interesting substrates. I use Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop almost exclusively to produce the majority of my work however, I still enjoy working up thumbnails at the table 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 pencil drawings. I produce commissioned portraits of vintage muscle cars and limited edition digital prints of my original art along with a return visit to the construction equipment I loved to draw so many years ago. Over the years, I have had the good fortune of developing my craft under the eyes of several seasoned mentors in the graphic arts, not the least of which was my uncle, Bob Slater, who was a long time successful graphic designer in Milwaukee for more than 4 decades.

Copyright 2009-2010 Tim Huchmala All Rights Reserved