Monday Motivation: Lettering with Chris Piascik

Hello State Bicycle Co. blog readers! My name is Chris Piascik, I am an illustrator residing in MA. I’m responsible for the last 5 Motivation Monday posts on the State Bicycle Co. Instagram, which I am going to assume you are all following. If not, stop reading this right now and go follow them. 

Oh, you’re still here? Cool, I’ll carry on then. I’ve been bike crazy for most of my life. It started with BMX, which is still my number one jam, but I love riding all kinds of bikes. For a number of years I lived in Boston and got really into track (fixed gear) bikes. I commuted everywhere on my bike, all year round, through nearly all kinds of weather. Now that I live in the ‘burbs and work from home, I still try to ride as often as I can.

After seeing State post photos and videos of their fat bike line I decided I needed to try one out for myself. Through the magic of the internet and my partnership with State, I was ripping around on a Megalith in no time. It’s been a blast running everything over and turning everything into a sweet jump. If you’ve never ridden one of these, I highly suggest giving it a shot! 

I’ve been posting a daily drawing on my site since late 2007 and a good portion of those drawings revolve around lettering. These Motivation Monday drawings became part of my daily drawing series and provided a nice new challenge. Typically I start my drawings from scratch as opposed to working with an existing photograph. It was a lot of fun figuring out how to work my letters into the compositions. State provided me with amazing photos which certainly made this a great experience. 

In the past I always drew everything in black marker on plain paper and then added color digitally after scanning the drawing. Last year, I switched over to a Wacom Cintiq which allows me to draw directly on the screen. This setup proved to be perfect for these Motivation Monday pieces as I could work directly on the photos in Photoshop. 

I hope you enjoyed seeing these as much as I enjoyed making them. If you want to follow along with all my new daily drawings every Monday through Friday you can find me on Instagram and Twitter @chrispiascik or on my site chrispiascik.com.