This year for Day of the Dead melanie and me decided to make posters that we could sell at the Mission Cultural Center for Latino Art’s (MCCLA) yearly celebration. I had made three Day of the Daed posters in the past when i worked at the Center, this was a big tradition for Mission Grafica (the screen printing studio at MCCLA). in the past Rene Castro and Jos Sances created many posters for Day of the Dead, this tradition was continued by Juan R. Fuentes the rest of the Staff at Mission Grafica, including Calixto Robles and Ali Blum.
In the past I made a Calaca Zapatista, a Calaca Palestina and a poster those who have passed away while crossing the US/Mexico border. This year I wanted to do something different, something that used bright colors associated with Day of the Dead. In the end I decided to take the poster in the direction of a psychedelic rock poster. The central image, i found when melanie was looking for the picture she was going to use for her poster, is of a Danzante in his traje. i was amazed by his penacho full of feathers and his skeleton mask, I thought this image was perfect. Once i had the image I began working on the design. First was the lettering and the small designs in the corner which were all drawn by hand. Next i put everything together, the background, the colors, the danzante. Everything just came together so beautiful in the end.
Take a look at the pictures to see the printing process.
