PBR Crate - Final

I finally got a chance to get these photos and scans up on the web here. I finished the Pabst Blue Ribbon vintage crate a couple weeks back. Thanks to my buddy Gravy for his patience and Pabst's generosity for all the sponsorship they've given me and the Philly Cartoonist Society over the years. I drew all the images on sticker paper, inked them with waterproof Micron pens, then colored them with waterproof markers, like Prismacolors. I also used some white colored pencil for highlights. Then I cut out the shapes with an razor and stuck the pieces to various sides of the crate. Then I used waterproof ink for the "Pabst" lettering on the top of the crate and the ink coming from the pen of the "Jeff" cartoon. Thanks to Joannie for challenging me to be a little more careful with the ink and not settle for laziness. When I was finished laying it out, I sealed the whole crate with about five coats of high gloss acrylic polyurethane. Since the sealant was water-based, I had to use all waterproof materials on the initial drawings. I used the water-based so it didn't yellow the sticker paper. Anyways, below are the final scans and then photos of how they look on the crate. Now I just have to get it back to Pabst...

Pabst Old Tymie Beer Crate # 1

Pabst Blue Ribbon has always been good to me. I think I have stated on this blog several times that I like how they do business. Instead of putting a commercial on during the Superbowl, they handle most of their advertising in a sort of grass roots style, through art openings and independent rock shows. I think the biggest marketing campaign I've seen them tackle in recent years are the billboards, and even those are pieces of art from lesser known working artists. I'm much more comfortable with capitalism when it's handled man to man. I know it's still capitalism, and it serves and meets the same end. But Pabst is a company that has always had a face and name accountable when I've dealt with them. Plus they always donate free beer to my art openings and book releases. For that I'm very grateful.
So when the local rep, Gravy, asked me to make a piece based on one of these old tymie crates, I happily said yes. With the school shutting down, I'm getting to it later than I wanted. But I didn't want to do a rush job on it, especially since Pabst has been so generous to me over the years.
I decided to do the blog covering this project in stages because it's kind of a large project. I am doing all of the art on sticker paper, using Micron pens and Prismacolor and Chartpak markers (mainly because they use waterproof ink). The sticker paper reacts nicely to these tools. You don't get the bleed you usually get with the markers. I assume it has something to do with the adhesive on the back of the sticker paper catching the marker ink.
I am going to draw myself drawing a lot of happy folks drinking PBR from all walks of life. This is all I have so far, but I will update the blog with more photos as I progress...