A long time ago, in a graphic world far, far away from the digital one of today, I used to make images with pen and ink, and the occasional bit of white-out. Print was my intention as the final manifestation of my images, so I didn't care about using some white out now and then, if I needed to. But it was never ideal as ink does not sit well on top of lumpy white-out.
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Blonde joke from the eighties: How can you tell if a blonde has been using your computer? There's white-out on the screen.
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I worked in black and white partly because printing in black and white was so much simpler and less expensive than printing in more than one color or CMYK full color. I was also influenced by illustrators of the 18th and 19th century whose work I admired.
These images were photographed by a stat camera to make a printing plate. That mechanical technology was much closer to the drawn image than a digital translation. A line was a line, not a bunch of pixels. The two-color posters below were separated by hand.
This poster marked the beginning of Lamb & Lion Studio, though I didn't call it that until a year or two later. The first printing was 18 x 24 inches. Later I reduced it to 11 x 14, as well as to a 5 x 7 notecard.
Another all pen and ink drawing except for the very delicate border which was another ancient tool called 'border tape.' Fancy stick-on stuff . . .
This two color poster uses a small amount of screened color. The words 'ONE PLANET' is 20% black to 100% of the blue. This is also true of the darker blue areas on the earth. And I think there is a blue screen under the black to make it deeper and blacker.
This poster has been reprinted many times, and every time I print it I agonize over what blue to use. Sometimes I go with 100% cyan, and sometimes I use a color that has a slightly greener tint.
One of the more interesting comments I have received about this poster is that it uses too many fonts. I see the point, but it's sort of funny when everything is hand-drawn. I have also been told that it shouldn't say 'the' earth, because the name of the planet is Earth.
More hand-lettering, and that handy dandy border tape.
This two-color poster was also created the old-fashioned way, with a black and white ink drawing, and then a rubylith overlay in which the white areas were very carefully cut away with a swivel knife. There was a craftsman's eye-hand coordination necessary for this kind of work which went beyond the control needed for computer graphics.
