Archive – Bill Prochnow

2000

Small ads for a senior exercise program, ca 2010

1990s

Playing with letterforms, ca 2016
Sketch. 2011, From 2001 to 2017 I would sketch while having coffee at Caffe Puccini in North Beach on my way to work.
For 15+ years beginning in the mid 1980’s I illustrated Jerold Lowenstein’s articles in “Pacific Discovery”, the California Academy of Science’s quarterly publication. I was given free reign (against some editors’ wishes) and I was a “loose cannon”, each illustration style was completely different. This one, about the search for a cure for AIDS, was especially disturbing to the editors since I wrote a parable.
Over the years I have been in various life drawing groups. This is just one drawing that came out of a 1990’s sessions. Marav was one of our favorite models. Pastel on Paper, 16.5 x 18.25″, 1993

1970s

Watercolor, ink, Paper — A true story, original lost

Scratchboard drawings for the Santa Cruz Sentinel newspaper’s special section promoting an Easter Parade. ca 1974
Theater poster for a theater group in Santa Cruz. The group had little money. This poster, “Conquest of My Brother” was printed at a High School printing class. They did not have a camera large enough to photo the artwork so the image, headline and text block were designed to fit their camera specs separately. To get the red hand prints, the director and I spread the posters out on the floor, dipped our hands in red paint and slapped them on the black and white printed poster. Each of the 100 posters was different.

1960s

In College at Arizona State University my degree was split between “Commercial Art” (as Graphic Design was referred to at tha time) and photography. I spent many hours in the darkrooms.

portrait, black and white photography — My brother Ernest. He and I visited San Francisco during spring break in 1965. We drove our dad’s old Dodge pick up truck.