Jake Early’s work as a graphic designer and printmaker has made him America's favorite fine art serigrapher. A native son of Chico, California, Jake's work reflects the landmarks and history of California's coast, mountains, and urban landscapes.

"All of my work begins as a simple illustration using an ink pen and paper. I usually draw all the different elements individually and assemble them on a board, eventually working it into the final illustration.

All of my serigraphs are printed on heavyweight, acid free printing paper. I use 130 pound cover stock in "natural white." I hand-cut all my color separations from rubylith using an x-acto knife (except for the type, which I have output digitally).

My inks are specially formulated, oil-based silkscreen printing inks for use on paper. I keep five primary colors of ink in my studio and mix all the specific colors I use from those. They are 'air dry' inks and take between 1 and 3 hours to cure (depending on humidity and temperature in my shop) before the next color can be applied. My metallic inks are also hand mixed, using pulverized metal powders that I mix into a clear ink base.

The silkscreen process uses a squeegee to force the ink through a fabric mesh to make the impression on the paper below. I use three different types of silkscreen mesh in my shop- ranging from a coarse weave to a very tight weave- and choose them according to the color ink I'm printing.

I've used the same pencil to sign and number every single print I've ever made.

I take print #13 out of every edition and keep it for my personal archive. During a visit to New York City when I was really young, I discovered most tall buildings never have a 13th floor - they always go from 12 to 14, and I thought that was the coolest 'secret' of all time." ~Jake