The World of Jasper Morello

Tonight, Monkey re-watched "The Mysterious Geographic Explorations of Jasper Morello." This animated short was a 2005 Academy Award Nominee for best Animated Short. I highly recommend checking it out if you get a chance, as the animation is simply stunning.

An interesting stylistic mix of rendered 3D mixed with paper-cut-out-like silhouettes, the first time Monkey watched this, he was hooked. He recently visited the Jasper Morello site and was pleased to find out that there (in theory) are more shorts slated to be produced.

All in all, Monkey freely admits that this film was a huge inspiration for his book arts project of his silkscreen portfolio class last Fall. After a lengthly lack of posting, hopefully he will put scans of the project up very soon. In the meantime, if you can get your hands on the 2005 Academy Awards shorts program, do so now! Most of the shorts are great!

Monkey's Silkscreen Book, pt. 1

So in Monkey's last semester of study at the Academy of Art, he took a silkscreen portfolio class. Never having attempted to work on a single project an entire 15 weeks, Monkey was often frustrated and wanted to do other projects. While he ended up doing lots of prints on the side, he nevertheless buckled down and finished a twelve double-sided page looseleaf book (so 24 pages in all).

All the pages pinned up for the final class.

The book is a reproduction of a fictional biologist who lives in a world (Buuterra) that has just discovered flight. Centered in this world is a huge mountain range that is too high for anyone (until now) to climb. When the scientists (including the biologist's mentor) on the maiden voyage of the first airship goes missing, this biologist is recruited to go after them to find out what happened to his mentor and what strange creatures lie beyond the foggy peaks of the mountains.

The map of the Heart of Buuterra, where the story takes place.

Part fractured novel, part naturalist's sketch book, Monkey's book project was printed in an edition of 10, with 1 Artist's proof book. They are bound loose leaf in a faux leather portfolio. The books run for $330 and will be up on Etsy within the next week or so (which really translates into: sometime before the new year).

Stay tuned for part 2 of this post that will have scans of many of the pages, including the full text of the first two pages which set the background for the entire story.

In other Monkey news, Seal just gave Monkey a haircut, as he was growing more and more woodwose/wildman like, and needed a trim. Many thanks to Seal for doing a great job at grooming the Monkey!

A quarter way to Cousin It.

Trimmed and back to civilization.