“Hunter is such an interesting person. Chances are good that you’ve probably read something of his or heard one of the many stories about his life. So I’ll just let this print try to pay tribute to him. This print took days of work to complete. It’s by far the most elaborate piece I’ve done. It was a blast. Each print has it’s own unique splatters and sprays.” – Zeb Love
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We recently sat down and talked with Zeb Love about his unique printing style and his latest print an homage to the good Dr. Hunter S. Thompson.
1xRUN: So we have had one other print from you (with Kurt Vonnegut) but we also have seen you do a few explorers and scientists, what’s the idea behind memorializing these historical icons in these prints, how did it all come about?
Zeb Love: The first ones were historical people that I thought were cool, like Tesla and Amelia Earhart. Then just I kinda wanted to keep a set of three, that’s why I did three explorers. I remember them from social studies class and stuff, back when I was in middle school. I thought it might be cool to kinda revisit them because I feel like they don’t get enough recognition. They’re kinda easily overlooked.
1xRUN:As far as the process goes, it kinda seems like a block print, they look like they could have been made 100 years ago. How do you come up with these prints?
Zeb Love: I do it in Photoshop with a rough sketch of their outlines and then I just go back in line by line with a pressure sensitive pen and do it all. Target the shadows and the contours to fit without making lines that are… I dunno, I’m not very good with explaining it, I just do it.
1xRUN:Alright that’s the quote of the day. To expand on the social studies class love , one day you just decided to turn that into a print? How did that happen?
Zeb Love: I think a year ago a friend asked me to be a part of a gallery show and I hadn’t done any prints up until that point… So I said yea I’ll do some prints. It was kind of a weird science. I just took some figures and they were supposed to be a little different, that’s why Tesla was holding his head and Earhart has wings, Lincoln has a raygun. Out of the ordinary stuff, I like the style of prints old engravings and old woodblock prints, so I thought I’d do a spin off of that. It just kind of stuck.
1xRUN:Yea, it’s definitely formulated your style as a print maker. It seems as though these wouldn’t even resolve as a painting, like their only life is as a print. Do you think that’s accurate?
Zeb Love: I’d definitely agree.
1xRUN: The print format is definitely amazing, but what kind of other art did you create before this?
Zeb Love: I did mostly album artwork and photography stuff. I’ve been doing that for about 4-5 years now. This sort of came out of nowhere. These are the first prints I’ve done in this style. Everything else I did before was more of your standard line drawings I guess.
1xRUN:We look at lot of prints and these things are unique pieces of art, it is pretty amazing, we’re very happy to bring this to our audience.
Zeb Love: Yea it’s really exciting because I haven’t had this opportunity before. I’ve been doing this for a little bit on my own, just scratching by and not selling any, but now that I’ve got a chance to reach a little bit larger of the audience. I like doing stuff that is hands on. Doing stuff on the computer is whatever, but doing it and seeing it come to life is really exciting.
1xRUN:We love helping artists, getting your hands dirty creating the art. I think a lot of “creatives by day’ want to still be creative when they get home, while it’s a transition it still fufills your creative needs.
Zeb Love: Definitely it helps you grow as an artist too. I love doing these prints and I’ll keep doing it as long as I can.
We’re looking forward to rolling out more of Zeb Love’s upcoming works in the following months so please stay tuned for more. Check out Zeb Love’s hand painted acrylic silkscreens at 1xRUN.com & leave a comment below to let us know who you think Zeb should immortalize next with his hand painted silk screens.
– 1xRUN