Soul Clap & Dance-Off at Spare Room

Here's a new one I whipped up right after I completed the Haunted Hop poster. With all the busier looking posters I've been making lately I decided to get back to the minimal look that we used to have for the Soul Clap posters. I had mimicked this aesthetic before for one of Jonathan Toubin's posters I made for his elsewhere residency back in 2018 and wanted to take another run at it. Plus it helped with the quickly approaching deadline I had.

Jonathan is currently touring the west coast and will be stopping at the Spare Room in Portland, OR on November 11th. Tickets are $10 and the dancing will go from 8 til late. And, in case anyone is curious, I based this drawing off a classic pic of Portland's own, Ural Thomas. Process pics below.

 

"Please Mr. Postman"

Here we go! Month number 2 of the Soul Clap & Dance-Off residency at Elsewhere in Brooklyn, NY. Jonathan Toubin got La Luz to headline this month so we decided on using another all-star, all-girl group for this month's poster: The Motown hitmakers, The Marvelettes. Really enjoying drawing all these people bustin' moves in the background and always love working up a good pink/green color combo.

I was moving my studio in the process of finishing up this illustration sooo, things got a little bootleg on the kitchen table. All worked out though in the end.

Jackie Shane and the Soul Clap & Dance-Off

Jonathan Toubin's Soul Clap & Dance-Off is going to be throwing a special holiday extravaganza at Brooklyn Night Bazaar this December and it looks like it's gonna be a doozy of a show. We immediately decided on using 1960's transgender soul singer, Jackie Shane, for this events poster. I recommend reading up on Jackie Shane's life after this and checking out her albums. There's also a great new box set out of her work,  put out by The Numero Group, which you can check out on Spotify, or go out and buy, your choice. 

There's gonna be some guest DJing by Don Bolles and Alix Brown, performances by Breanna Barbara, Surfbort and Animal Show, in addition to your chance to shake it on the dance floor for some cash money. Be sure to scoop up some TICKETS for this show.

Originally thought these stripes would be this kind of cool,  shimmery, curtain-esque thing behind Jackie but, this was a tight deadline and we try to keep the color palette very minimal for these posters so gotta save that for something else.

As you can see from these two images there's a definite change in the look of the poster. As fun as it was to do and definitely an homage to old soul revue posters, we felt there couldn't be a bunch of dudes dominating the poster and I knew I couldn't fit a portrait of every performer on there. This was a moment for me where I was reminded that even when I'm making an illustration, I need to be very aware of who I'm placing in there and who I'm unconsciously ignoring, especially when there are 3 bands performing, all led by women and a female DJ performing.