How I made a poster (Snip Snip Haircut)

December 11, 2020

So I had this idea to make a poster. It was based on a drawing I did one night. I called it Snip Snip Haircut. It was dark outside and I was sitting in my painting studio. I started drawing while listening to some old music. Or maybe it was part of TV show about Elvis and Memphis music scene in the early 1950s. 

I just started drawing without thinking too much. Usually that’s the best way for me to draw. And example would be when I’m on a phone call with somebody in my mouth and my mind are talking but my hand just starts to drawing.

So I drew this picture and thought it was pretty good but I didn’t ever do anything with it and it just sit on my painting table. In the middle of the summer I had a sale and I sold some old drawings on paper. I sold the Snip Snip Haircut drawing but I always had in mind to do something else with it because I thought it was good and I had plenty of people ask me about it. 

So I made a screen with my silk screen burning skills in my basement. I was thinking about the best way to do it and I really didn’t know but I decided it might be good if I put down a white layer of ink first. I would use that layer to tell me where to paint my colors that would be the background. I made a color prototype and then I used it for all the other ones. I suppose I made 15 to 20 of them. Perhaps I made 19 of them. So I went through and added all the colors to all the fancy paper.

One note on the paper, it was colored green and sound was yellow but not too many people wanted to buy green and yellow paper so I spray painted it white. Time is money and so is paper so I decided I should use it.

After all of the papers had all of the colors of paint and all of them are the same but all are more little different then get ready to do the black line work. For the step I would silkscreen the original sketch with black ink over all the hand-painted elements I put on the papers. For a non-professional screen printer it went fairly well. I then went back and touched up a few spots, signed them all and numbered them.

I think they’re beautiful and I’m really glad I went through all the work I did. It’s something new for me, using this style to re-create an original drawing into a series of screen prints. I can’t wait to try it again. Excuse me I need to go get a snip snip haircut now.

You may ask what is the painting or the drawing about — and I’d say it seemed like a scene in a country store where they give haircuts, maybe after hours on a Thursday night where they are let their hair down and got out the guitar. Some fella had a bottle of fancy juice and an old dog that was brown and hairy and his name was Clyde. The dog got up and started doing a little jig and before you knew it they were all having a real good time. Then one fella got out his haircut scissors and Tommy over in the corner looked like a new man after that. Shaved up real clean like.  

Watch this little film I made about the Snip Snip Haircut posters.

See you soon,

Kyle BlackCatTips Brooks