Mexico

Added on by Lara Hoke.

Ben and I just returned from a week on the Mexican Riviera.  A short flight, but a world away.

We had a series of adventures up and down the coast, including surfing lessons in the tiny beach town of Sayulita, cracking fresh lobster using a tin plate and a plastic table in Yelapa - a beach accessible only by boat - and placing bets on whether some pairs were father/daughter duos or romantically entwined...

Here is a sampler of photos from our time in Mexico.  I've included more in the Photography section of this site.  Enjoy!

     

WPA Posters, Fine Art or Graphic Design?

Added on by Lara Hoke.

Between 1935 and 1943 the WPA's Federal Art Project printed over two million posters in 35,000 different designs to stir the public's imagination for education, theater, health, safety, and travel. I love these posters. They are great examples of the very gray space between graphic design and fine art, if such a space exists. 

Thanks to Ranger Doug Enterprises, these posters are available for purchase with a percentage of each sale going to returning these posters to the public domain. He has also added several contemporary poster designs to this collection at the request of the parks: Devils Tower, Bryce Canyon, Denali, Olympic, Mesa Verde and Hawaii. 

Ben and I are working with Kim Vanderheiden of Painted Tongue Studios  to translate the style and imagery of these posters for our Yosemite wedding invitations.

 

 


Work In Progress

Added on by Lara Hoke.

Some of the work I'm most proud of lives in the pages of my sketchbook.  Over the past several years I've tried to recreate the qualities of those drawings in various ways including projecting transparencies on canvas and photo-etching.

Below is my latest attempt, and, in my opinion, my most successful.  In these new pieces, I'm working on toned gessoed boards with pen and ink, using paper towels and water to create atmosphere and a feeling of history. The greatest advantage of this medium over my previous attempts is that, like a sketchbook, it's transportable.  I can work directly from my subject matter (as I do in my sketchbook) rather than using reference images.

Pen and ink on gessoed board.