SF Zine Fest this weekend!

Hey all, we just wanted to remind everyone that we'll be at the SF Zine Fest this weekend from 11-6 (both Saturday and Sunday) at the SF Country Fair Building in Golden Gate park.

There are a ton of really awesome creators signed up, and after looking through some of their websites and what not, we're really looking forward to checking it out! Additionally, Monkey is currently prepping for the two workshops he's teaching, and Seal is proud to announce that we will be selling our new postcards as well as our "You're Not Alone Anymore" narwhal x unicorn t-shirts! We just shipped out all the pre-order shirts today, and Monkey had quite the trip to the post office! Thanks to everyone who pre-ordered! If you missed the pre-order, don't fret, as the shirt is now up in our store!


As incentive to come to the Fest where we are unveiling our postcards, which are all collaborations between both of us, here's a photo of them! You've only seen cropped previews before, but here's the real deal.

These postcards are especially cool (at least in our mind) as they're the first series of collaborations that we've worked on. Monkey + Seal usually work on their own pieces, but we've decided to try to start working together more and this is the outcome! They will be priced affordably, and you can pick up all four of the series at a discounted rate! Stop by the table, check them out, and let us know what you think!

Overcoming Difficulty - Silkscreening T-shirts

I totally needed a beer to handle this job...

Hi everyone! Monkey is here for our 200th post(!!!) and will be talking about the process of silkscreening the new "You're Not Alone Anymore" shirts aka the "Naricorn" (narwhal + unicorn=naricorn) shirt for short.

Hey all, so I won't be going into too many of the technical details of silkscreen printing here,because if you are interested, I'll be running a FREE demo/workshop on screenprinting at the SF Zine Fest, starting at 3:30 this Saturday, Sept. 4th. More details can be found here. So if you want to talk shop, I'll be there (also at the Monkey + Seal table the entire fest!).

Anyway, so on to the post. Overcoming difficulty. This past week, I have been a bit crazed, as trying to print 30-ish t-shirts with fairly tight registration with water-based textile inks when a)you don't have the right emulsion, b)you're used to printing with either water-based inks for PAPER, c)if you do print on shirts, you've only used plastisol inks, and d)you're out of screen opener. If this makes any sense to you great, if not, just know there were a lot of hurdles to making this shirt.

a)wax paper is not as good as freezer paper, b)my float coat was waaaay to thin for what I was doing

Besides only having one type of emulsion that doesn't hold up well to water-based textile inks (ie the stencil gets eaten away by the inks), the rest of the issues weren't so big. The main issue was that the emulsion (which our shop usually uses fine with plastisol inks). For those that have never screenprinted before, basically the emulsion is what is used to create a stencil of sort on the screen that prevents all the ink from seeping through your screen. Instead of a big huge flat of ink, you only get the parts that you want (the design) on the shirt. If you have holes in your emulsion, you'll get ink that you don't want onto whatever you're printing on. Thus, having ink that eats through your emulsion is a huge issue.

I had never used this current emulsion with the water-based textile inks, so I didn't know this might be a problem until I actually started printing. So with a screen with emulsion slowly degrading, I started to lose hope. I was frustrated at myself for not even considering the possibility, for not planning earlier (I was supposed to ship out the shirts the same day), and for not having all the supplies I needed to make the process easier.

The screen for printing the white layer

Thankfully, after a long day of experimentation and failure and being a bit of a rude jerk to Eve, I realized that being all upset was not going to solve anything. I apologized to Eve when I got home that night and started problem-solving. I started looking up emulsion comparisons and manufacturer's data sheets. I then started cross-referencing good emulsions with any local stores that might carry them. I then took care of the customer service issues, as many of these shirts were pre-ordered and I wanted to let our customers know what went wrong, and offered them a refund if they wanted to cancel. Finally, I took down the phone numbers of all the local stores that could possibly carry professional-level screenprinting supplies (speedball doesn't cut it! Sorry!) and then went to bed.

The next morning was spent on the phone trying to figure out where I could get some emulsion, and while I waited for a few return phone calls, I started systematically going through the process I had used to burn the screens, and realized that there were a few steps that I could have taken to potentially extended the life of the stencil. I then went to the studio, experimented again, and managed to find a way to use the emulsion I had (since I couldn't get the stuff I needed in a reasonable amount of time and at a decent price) and the shirts were printed!

The white layer printed!

White + blue layers = finished shirt! Now I just have to heat-set it.

The reason I wanted to share this story with you was that there were a lot of points where I wanted to just give up and refund everyone their money back. I wanted to curse the screenprinting gods and just kick a hole in my screens and knock buckets of ink over. I even contemplated outsourcing the printing to some other print shop. But I didn't. I stayed (relatively) calm, and by assessing and reassessing the situation, thinking outside the box, and going back to the basics, I was able to get the shirts printed!

The final shirt. Whew!

Panicking and freaking out is never going to make any situation any better. Stay rational, think creatively, and sometimes the most simple answer might be the one you're looking for. Anyone else with any good tips on how to handle adversary? Please share in the comments!

Buy our shirts!!

Hi everyone! So we've decided to spread the love and offer our fabulous shirt "You're Not Alone Anymore" to all our lovely bloggy readers. You can pre-order this lovely shirt for $5 off the regular price! Part of the proceeds will also go to a charity (La Casa de las Madres) that provides resources for survivors of domestic violence, so you can rest assured that the shirt purchase is doing good for the world. Go here now! No seriously, now! We'll wait.

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Oh, back? Sweet, thanks for ordering! Anyhoo, many apologies for getting this post up so late, by now most of you are probably pretty liquored up and enjoying your Friday nights, but alas, Monkey was getting his teeth drilled, filled, and all that good stuff, so we've had our hands a bit full.

Anyway, we really appreciate everyone who has already bought a shirt - the t-shirt fund is our way of fundraising for Monkey's dental work. Thanks again!

PS - We want to do more shirts, so we'd love to hear suggestions of stuff you want to see. And yes, Monkey is already working on a zombie design. Hooray!

SF Etsy Trunk Show - Woot!

The #1 biggest danger for Monkey + Seal when they hit up craft fairs is that they are introduced to other artists and crafters with totally awesome things that we end up wanting to buy. There is always usually a little bit of down-time at any show, and naturally, we like to see what other people are doing. This is when the danger beings.

At the Artist Xchange gallery (at 3169 16th St x Guerrero), the SF Etsy Street Team had a Trunk Show on Saturday. Fortunately, Monkey + Seal were juried into the show (by the founder of the space, Scott Mitchell!) and we had a little mini table (there was only space for 20 vendors...but each space was only 3 feet! Eeeeep!). We managed to make do (leaving our larger prints at home) set-up wise, but the small space made for lots of looking around. Not only was there some good art on the walls (Monkey especially liked this Western Addition painting by Jon Ching), but the rest of the SF Etsy team brought their awesome stuff, and we ended up splurging a bit (although it was super reasonably priced) on Heathered's frickin' awesome narwhal hoodie pictured above (apologies for the lame phone camera photo).

We were also tempted by a whale print by muddipuppy, and by our friend Alana's (of Etta + Billie) darned awesome soap, but we managed to restrict ourselves to the hoodie.

Overall it was a really awesome experience as we got to hang out, meet, and bond with other team members. A special shout out to Jen (from Mama's Magic Studio) and Kendra (from Kendra Renee Jewelry) who did most of the organizing of the event, and to our neighbors Lauren of Crooked Sister and Jeanine of CraftyGirl05!! It was great spending an afternoon with everyone, and thanks to everyone that stopped by!

PS - If you missed yesterday's special Tuesday post about Chris Guillebeau's Empire Building Kit, you have until 9am PST Thursday to buy and still get the special guide to local markets! You can read a more in-depth review here!

Halloween 2009 - Rise of the Narwhals

This Halloween, Monkey + Seal decided to go as narwhals. "Nar-what?" you might be asking. Well, narwhals are cetaceans (the Order which includes whales, dolphins, and porpoises). They live in the Arctic and have a huge (~2 meters long) tooth that sticks out of its face. Males mostly have the tooth, but some females have it as well. Some narwhals even have a double-extended tooth!

So Monkey wore his costume all day to work, and was often questioned as to what he was dressing up as. This is natural, as he does look pretty silly, and by silly, we mean awesome. Many people assumed he was a unicorn, which is actually pretty coincidental as narwhal teeth were often traded in the olden days as unicorn horns by sly tradesmen who would get more than their weight in gold for them. These teeth were thought to confirm the existence of the mythical unicorn. So, just as the tooth of a narwhal was mistaken for the horn of the unicorn, Monkey's costume of a narwhal was mistaken for a costume of a unicorn.

Monkey created the costume by finding two gray hooded sweatshirts at the local second-hand and thrift stores. He then cut the hoods off but left part of the shoulders intact. This allowed for the tucking under of the hood into a shirt or jacket, which gave it more stability.

The horn was created by a larger cardboard tube and a toilet paper tube that had been crushed and tapered on one end. The two tubes were duct-taped together, then Monkey sewed the cardboard into the hole he had cut on the top of the hood. By cutting tabs into the base of the horn and poking holes with an awl, he was able to created a flanged horn that could be sewn in.

After sewing the horn to the hood, Monkey gessoed the horn and tape, and then painted the spiral pattern with acrylics.

All in all, Monkey and Seal had a great Halloween, and hope that you did as well. If you had a really great costume, we'd love to see it! Email it to us at info (at) monkeyandseal.com and we'll post some up on the end of this post for the world to see!