The other week I took some pictures in to get framed at my favorite framing place, Technicraft. My friend, Colleen Kimball is the Business Development Director, Art Consultant and Ringleader at Technicraft and I always let her figure out creative ways to frame the art I bring in and she always does a spectacular job.
While I was there she told me that they had just acquired a 3-D printer that is capable of printing layered textures onto boards and other surfaces. I had never heard of such a thing and after looking at some of the samples I asked if they could do a 3-D print of the new Marty Monologues poster designed by Chelsie Tamms of Lettering Works. Colleen said of course they could and so that’s what we did and you can see the whole process below!
As a precurser to this whole event, let’s get in the mood by watching one of my favorite SCTV episodes, “The 3-D House of Beef!”
The 3-D House of Beef
The 3-D House of Technicraft
Here we are at Technicraft in beautiful downtown Peoria. Let’s go in and start this 3-D afternoon!
This is the reception area and there’s a photo of the entire Techicraft staff. From left they are: Tom, Colleen, Annah, Stacey, Patti, Paul, Theresa and Karl. They’re all friendly and fun people and the mood in here is always festive!
In addition to providing all sorts of graphic services including print and design work, this place is also art gallery. There’s art all over this place and here’s a small sampling on this wall. The middle Grateful Dead inspired painting is by Bob Whitaker and the one below that is a painting by local artist (and Colleen’s husband) Kelly Kimball. Check out Kelly’s facecrack page and his website to see more of his wonderful art.
The Ringleader: Colleen Kimball
Speaking of Colleen, here she is behind the front desk! Colleen is the Ringleader here at Technicraft and check out the Marty Monologues button she has on!
A Behind The Scenes Tour of Technicraft
Colleen offered to give us a quick tour of the back rooms of Technicraft where all the printing, framing and creative work is done. There’s all kinds of printers, light tables and computers back here. I love all the art on the walls it’s like a giant in-progress mural of colorful images.
That’s Paul in the last two photos putting together one of my framed pieces that Colleen put together. You can see more of that in the bonus section of this blog if you keep on scrolling!
The Artist: Chelsie Tamms
We invited Chelsie who designed the new Marty Monologues poster and Colleen said they’d print up a 3-D poster for Chelsie as wall as myself, how nice is that?
Chelsie is all bundled up and below her are the poster and social media art she designed and created for the new Marty Monologues show. She also did all the art for the first show and I’m so happy with what she came up with.
The show is going to be stories about growing up in the ‘60’s and Chelsie successfully gave the art a colorful ‘60’s feel and I love it! You can see more of her work at her facecrack page and the Lettering Works website. She also has started blogging and you can see the Lettering Works Blog right here.
The Printer
This is the 3-D printer and it’s the only one in Peoria. It’s a Canon UV Flatbread printer there’s only about 25 of these in the entire United States! This is definitely cutting edge technology we’re about to witness and it’s quite an impressive looking machine. The machine prints to foamcore, dibond and plexi, but it can also print to a door at your house or business, a box or just about anything you can imagine.
The Videographer: Raphael
Today’s 3-D event is going to be part of a film that’s being produced about Technicraft. That’s Raphael on the right, who’s the producer at Videogenique, a local video production company that is a multi-faceted video business. Colleen is on the left and that’s Zoe in the center who’s assisting Raphael in today’s filming.
That’s quite an impressive camera that Raphael has there! You can follow the adventures of Raphael and Videogenique right here at facecrack. When the Technicraft film is finished I’ll put up a link to it here on MBIP, stay tuned for that!
The 3-D Texture Technicians
That’s Annah in the top photo and Karl below who are in charge of today’s 3-D printing process. Karl’s holding an example of one of the textured 3-D prints. In the bottom photo you can see the raised texture and it looks and feels like a painting instead of a flat print. This is so cool!
The Printing, Part One: The Layering of Textures
It’s time to start the 3-D printing process. The poster is being printed on a piece of foamcore and there I am! This is the first of many layers that are printed for the unique texture on the print.
The Excitement Builds!
As you can see, Colleen and Karl are very excited at this point!
The Printing, Part Two: A Poster Grows at the 3-D House of Technicraft
The texture builds up as white and black layers are added to the poster. In addition to Raphael filming, everyone is taking photos of the process. This is really fun to watch!
Suddenly...Joe Couri!
Suddenly and out of nowhere, Joe Couri appeared on the scene! I love it when that happens!
I haven’t seen Joe in a long time and it was nice to catch up with him. Joe’s a photographer and local musician. Check out his photography and music at his website and listen to his new song, “Don’t Start” by clicking here. He’s also produced a video for “Don’t Start” and you can watch it on YouTube.
Great to see Joe and now back to the 3-D printing!
The Printing, Part Three: The Color
This is the magic moment, it was so cool to see the color get laid on top of the textures and watch the poster come to 3-D life! More photos are being taken for this fantastic moment in time!
The Finished Product!
Here is the Marty Monologues in all it’s 3-D glory! It’s hard to capture with a photo, but this looks unbelievable in person! Even the little green dots are raised up! Colleen said that while most art is not supposed to be touched, these 3-D prints are meant to be touched and it’s art you can interact with. I love it!
Here’s Chelsie and myself with our beautiful 3-D textured posters! Thanks to Colleen and everyone at Technicraft for the ultra-cool posters and for letting us be part of the 3-D printing process!
Meanwhile, Back At MBIP World Headquarters...
I put the poster in a place of honor above my CD shelf unit. It’s standing tall between two halves of the face of Amy Winehouse!
I have to go now, I still have to put this show together and I have exactly two months to go!
If you’d like to have your art, logo, business poster or just about anything reproduced in a textured 3-D piece of art, contact Colleen at Technicraft, the contact information is right below this!
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419 Elm Street
Peoria
309-495-5245
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Related Posts: Framed! (At Technicraft), Takin’ Care of Business @ Technicraft and Marty Monologues Day.
This whole thing started with a trip to Technicraft to get some art framed. I always give carte blanche to Colleen as far as what kind of frame is suited for each piece of art and she always comes up with unique and fun framed creations that compliment the art perfectly.
Here she is with the four pieces I brought in and I love each one! I’ll explain each piece of art and showcase the frames below as they get placed in the MBIP World Headquareters! Thanks for the wonderfully creative work on these Colleen, they are fabulous and I love them!
This is a piece of art by Jeremy Berkley influenced by this John Belushi skit on Saturday Night Live.
I bought this print back in 2016 at the Artist & Comc Expo, so it’s about time I finally got it framed! I thought a fitting spot for it would be next to the refrigerator in the MBIP World Headquarters Kitchen and Tasting Room.
These are the three different posters that Chelsie designed for the first Marty Monologues show. I put it on my bedroom wall, which I like to call the wall of ME! It’s all framed press clippings I’ve acquired through the years and a self-portrait that my brother Jim drew of himself.
This is my writing area and I look at all this stuff a lot and get all full of myself and then I look at my brother and I can hear him saying: “Quit being such an asshole,” and then I go back to work.
I love the way the way the three posters give me my own, “Marcia, Marcia, Marcia!” moment!
The final two pieces of art I put on my collage wall that Colleen designed for me and you can check that out by clicking here.
I highlighted the two of them in yellow as to where I placed them on the collage. The top one is a Marty Monologues magnet that Chelsie had made for me (thanks Chelsie!) and the first and last tickets from the show.
Below that is a card that my friend Amber created for me when I had heart surgery last October. She made me this heart card and it meant a lot to me and both Colleen and I agreed it was our favorite of all the frames!
I love the gold frame within the frame that she put together for this special piece of art! Thanks to Amber for this heartfelt piece of art and thanks again to Colleen for the wonderful framing ideas and work!