Herve Mons@PLM

Gooey Goodness! Herve Mons "Camembert". (The reference photo was a stock image, so who knows which delightful soft white rind cheese this really was!?)

All chalk marker, done on foam core, so it will live forever, and never need to be erased :D By Jen and Tegan!

Sunset Fishing Vessel

Hello crafty people. It's Plymouth Meeting again.

Here is the latest and greatest collaboration of Jen and Tegan. The best thing about this chalk is how easy, fast, and how nice this chalk turned out.

Our technique: We started by painting the background. We used many layers, very wide paintbrushes and finished off with some sponge painting. We were very pleased ;)

Second half was drawing the black silhouetted ship against our lovely sunset sky. We did transfer many lines for clarity and time's sake, and then finished up by looking at our reference photos.

We hope you like it as much as we do, and for any chalk artists out there looking to paint a complex sea faring vessel, this is the way to go!

Gran Queso Chalk

Here at Plymouth Meeting, our biggest chalks that regularly change out are our Specialty department chalks. We have three total, but we try to limit the changes to one per month. This partly due to the level of work that goes into each one, and the other reason being normal time constraints.

This is our latest one that incorporates hand drawn lettering by Jen Kelly and three separate illustrations by moi. My hope is for all of my illustrations created from now on is to save them (by avoiding drawing directly onto the chalk) and creating them on black foamcore/foamboard.

It is definitely a tricky technique; the foamcore sucks up the paint like a sponge, and due to the heavy moisture saturation into the foam and paper material, the illustrations start to warp like a pringles potato chip. The solution is coating the back of the foamcore with an equal amount of chalk paint, usually black, and after it dries, then compress with heavy weight, overnight is best.

Without any further ado, the Gran Queso chalk:

Slammin' Salmon!

Hey fellow artists! I'm coming close to my year anniversary as a signmaker here in WFM Cincinnati and I just wanted to show off one of my latest boards!

Feel free to check out more of my work at http://instagram.com/dgoebel00

Roland! The Master of Printers!

Hello Artist Alley. Wanted to post a photo from our sweet printer Roland. This was a digital print that was wrapped on one of the wood bins in produce!

Bunny 2013 at Plymouth Meeting!

Here is the latest in my chalk bunny installments.

New Store! It's been years!

Here's the most overdue post of all! A new store (Plymouth Meeting, PA), a new co-artist (Kelly Franklin) and so much new art! Enjoy!

teachin' illustrator

hey--just wanted to share some kick ass illustrator projects my students whipped out this year!

Mermaid Nancy

This reference was partly stolen, and if you can't tell from where, I'm not tellin'! But I like this piece--was done pretty quickly, guess that's why.

The Great Java Board

Photo by John Warner.

Coffee anyone? This board is hanging in the new Whole Foods Market in Annapolis, which opened this past May. The size alone was pretty intimidating, then to add all of that text, then to add an immediate deadline, Aaaaaahhhh! They say, "Sometimes it is best to grab the bull by the horns to see what you're really made of." I say, "Thanks bull, for the swift kick in the pants." - Laura Mazelis

Congrats Monica

Monica Kelly, formerly of the North Wales, PA store, just got the Store Artist position at the Jenkintown, PA store! Gooo Monica!!

I will miss her immensely, but she definitely deserves the jump up. (And she's also just down the road ;)


Here's one of the last boards we did together:

Biggest Chalk Board ever.

Check this out, I built this monstrous A-frame, the guy next to it works in produce and he is 6'5".  This thing is huge haha!

New bunnies!

Here are some art nouveau bunnies from Easter:

Tegan solo

Monica and Tegan combo

Pizza Cincinnati

Sometimes it doesn't have anything to do with pizza, but it's fun.

White Lightning Chicken Chili Board

Passover Poster

I am so intimated posting anything here, everyone is so talented. Really great work guys. I don’t do a lot of chalkboards at Old Town, I mostly do posters. Here’s the Passover endcap I created for the grocery department. I used the WFM woodcuts for the flowers and illustrated the rest. This was done in Illustrator and Photoshop.

And here‘s one of my old chalkboards:

Mike in Meat

Presenting Mike Richards in our meat department. Don't let the cleaver fool ya, he's really a lamb!

Pirate Ray, Matey!

Another one from the amazing Monica:
This is our Grocery ATL, Ray, as a pirate. For a good reason, of course.
Aye aye, Cap'n!

Rainbow Ladies

Here are portraits of the female persuasion....You'd think I took a course in the Lisa Frank school of art when looking at these!

First is Nancy Jane, a Whole Body buyer, which Monica co-artisted with me in the illustrating. (Yes. I know co-artisted is not a word.)

Second is Nicole, by far the pertiest seafood team member we have!

She's Alive!!!

..and thriving... Here's what Candace is up to out in Cupertino. By the way, she said it rains there, too.