Building Momentum

Momentum in a project is always great. It helps pull you along, the fun and easy parts become even more fun and easy, and the hard parts seem no-so bad and they end up being a lot less painful than you initially thought. Riding the momentum feels great, but the problem always lies with finding that momentum in the first place.

In our experiences, momentum seems to come if we're lucky - most of the time you end up trudging along, and then sometimes things get better, sometimes they don't. However, we've found that the secret to constantly gaining momentum is by taking lots of little steps.

Even if what you're doing is sort of painful, like doing an illustration of something you hate for a client that's underpaying you, or having to design your great-aunt's business cards - for free, by taking lots of little steps, you'll eventually find that doing more and more little steps is easier and easier, and before you know it, you'll be done.

Breaking down steps into even smaller steps always helps, as the more tiny little tasks you finish, the more accomplished you feel, and the more momentum you'll build. The key is tiny, tiny tasks. The more painful the project, the smaller the tasks should be. If you're really struggling, you can make the tasks as simple as "get out sketchbook." Next task: "find pencil." Next task: "draw a monster for warm up." Take a break, make getting a beverage of your choice the next task. In this way, you can tell your brain "Hey look, I've already got four things done already! This is easy!"

Don't focus on what you have left to do, but what you've already done. When silk screening large orders of shirts, it's never fun to look at the huge pile of boxes and think, "Wow, I've still got 750 shirts to print." It's way more motivating to say "Wow, I've already printed 250 shirts, and it's still early!"

That said, if you're working on a project you like, still keep the steps in manageable portions. That way it won't go from "fun" to "overwhelming," which is how a lot of our projects can get if we don't make sure we're on top it.

So whether you're working on something you hate or you love, make sure to build momentum by taking small steps and you'll find that you'll finish quicker, have more fun, and you'll be (many) steps closer to taking over the world!

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!

AAU Print exchange

Monkey is taking part in the Academy of Art University's 2010 Print Exchange! He is very excited to receive prints from 29 other artists in exchange for his humble 3-color serigraph that he's made. To honor the fact that we completely forgot to do a process post yesterday, Monkey wanted to share a bit about the way that the prints tend to change from concept to actual execution. He's pretty sure that's not what's "supposed" to happen, but he doesn't care and likes that bit of uncertainty anyway. Take it away, Monkey!

So here's the original illustration, done by scanning in the background paper, and using photoshop to do the coloring:
And here's the final print (although the top green tape needs to be trimmed off):
As you can see, a lot can happen between the master sketch to the actual print. One thing I realized is that because I was printing on lokta paper, the pink vegetable dye actually seeped into my white paint, thus the stripes still show through. This gives it a sorta ghostly effect, which at first I wasn't into, but I think it reinforces the concept of being jailed by the expectations and fantasies via pornography (which is why I chose the striped paper in the first place...pink jail bars anyone?).

Also, I added a lot of line work, as when I was making the screens, I ended up wanting to sculpt the form of the woman's face a bit more. The pale blue made a good shadow, but I still wasn't happy, and after sketching out a new version with the linework, I decided it should stay for the actual print.

Finally, when I started printing, I wasn't 100% sure that I knew what I wanted the woman to be thinking. After talking it over with Eve and Carrie-Ann (who also was working on her print exchange print), I decided to go with the "*yawn*" as it makes the print more open-ended than I originally I was thinking of making it, and it also makes it funnier.

I hate it when people say "the new caption was better than what I thought originally" but never tell you what they were thinking, so here are the other possible captions:

-"I'm faking it for all my fans out there"
-"I'm faking it all for you, baby"
-"I wonder what's on tv"
-"to all my fans: I'm actually faking it"

If you disagree and would have rather seen a different caption: too bad!

Paper Hat Productions Features: Alyss Estay

Featuring Alyss Estay
She is an incredibly creative, talented and articulate artist. Her fine arts serigraphs have those hard-to-execute beautiful gradient washes, subtly-mixed muted palettes, and innovative scenes. And all of it is screenprinted! To produce something of this detailed caliber takes an unbelievable amount of accuracy in registration.

We are happy to have her on our March gallery show. March 12th 8pm at SPACE Gallery, 1141 Polk St.




If you are connected on Facebook, you can RSVP here.

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.

Monkey's new work!

So Monkey has been working hard on some new paintings, as well as some new screen prints. Here's the sneak peek photos of a mere fraction of all the new stuff that will get up into the shop as soon as they're finished/better photos are taken.

Seasoning salt is the dark knight of spices...it easily adds tons of flavor to any dish, but is such a cop-out. You can just throw it in soup or whatever, and it's an immediate flavor explosion. I personally try not to use it and actually season my dishes with spices that aren't pre-mixed, but whatever. Actually, if Seasoning Salt is the dark knight, "Italian Herbs" is definitely the Joker. Wait, what?

Here are the preview for Monkey's small but bright line of screenprinted ties. He really likes the bright colors (the hazmat green is pretty awesome), but does anyone besides Monkey wear bright green/pink ties, or does everyone else wear sage greens, silvers, etc? Please comment with your opinions!

Post-modern Pomegranate. I guess the joke only really works if you a)think of PoMo as Post-Modern, and b)call Pomegranites "Pomos." Oh well.

Anyhoo, Seal will be taking a break from her Process Posts on Saturday, and Monkey will go over his method of conceptual painting. Monkey hopes you'll stop by again tomorrow!

Weekend recap, blog feature!

Hello! It was an eventful weekend for the M+S team as on Saturday, Monkey went to the Book Arts Jam to sell his serigraphs. After getting there, he realized that the Book Arts Jam is not really his target demographic, but sharing a table with Macy Chadwick of In Cahoots Press and artist Paola Horevicz made the time fly by. Monkey got to meet the lovely ladies of Pod Post, and friends Tom (Two Fine Chaps) and Megan (Aviary Press) were there as well (and Monkey also hitched a ride back with Megan - thanks again!). Monkey also had the debut of some of his newest prints - Panda Rage and Pandamonium!

Panda Rage - 2 color serigraph on Canson cover - limited edition of 11 - $25

Pandamonium - 3 color serigraph on pastel paper - limited edition of 11 - $25

As soon as he can get around to taking some decent photos (sorry about the glare - it's from the plastic sleeve they're in), we'll have them in the shop. In the meantime, if you really, really need your panda fix ASAP, contact us and we'll get you your copy right away!

Saturday night was super-nap-time for M+S as Seal had stayed up all night before preparing her latest works (the watercolor was shown in our latest Saturday process post), and Monkey was up packing and labeling his prints (good thing too, cuz we got a lot of orders over the weekend, yay!). We did manage to finish off the latest of the Japanese dramas that we watch, but nothing really productive.

Sunday was catch-up day, with Monkey packing prints, buying some paper for some new screen prints, and getting some painting done. Seal started thumbnails for her next illustrations, and both are catching up with laundry and cleaning the studio/apartment.

We were also featured on the Handmade Ho Down blog Monday, as Monkey is one of the committee members putting on the show. You can find out more about the genesis of Monkey + Seal over there!

Monkey + Seal wants these shirts!!!

So the other day on Etsy, Akumu Ink was featured in the highly inspiring "Quit Your Dayjob" blog posts. Besides being insanely jealous of all the "quit your dayjob" features, Monkey was especially green with envy on AkumuInk's awesome illustrations. Both Monkey + Seal are huge Edward Gorey fans, and AkumuInk captures a lot of what we love about Gorey's work. We especially love The Storm (Monkey's favorite) and Silver Cat (Seal's favorite) shown below. Check out their site for links to their blog/twitter, etc. Woot for awesome inspiring Etsiers!
The Storm
Silver Cat

Hopefully this will be enough for Monkey to get off his tail and to work on his top-secret screenprinting projects! Congrats Akumu Ink on the feature and keep up the good work!

Saturday fun+ Etsy wishlist

This Saturday Monkey + Seal had the pleasure of heading out to SPACE gallery on Polk to check out a gallery event put on by SIR, a cutting-edge Japanese-living-in-SF show. If anything, you need to check out their website to hear some awesome music that plays when you load their site. We were super lucky that Seal got handed a flyer by Lavit Sea, who was on hand to display a painting and do some on-the-spot watercolor portraits. Also, one of Monkey's friends AKANE was there with some cool abstract pieces. The drinks were also tasty (although not as strong as Monkey might have liked), and Monkey + Seal had a great time overall.


Earlier in the day, Monkey got the chance to make a quick trip out to the Center for the Book's Roadworks, where Megan from Aviary Press was one of the featured artists. She's starting a new line of letterpressed cards based on strange sea creatures like this Southern Bobtail Squid. Awesome stuff! Monkey also got to run into friends Dutch Door and New Lights! Yay!


Additionally, Monkey was browsing Etsy and found this little gem (shown above) in one of the treasuries. ATHD, the creator of the piece, also has some amazing (and expensive) other pieces of jewelry. If Monkey + Seal were into jewelry (we're sorta minimalist on the jewelry), and had the cash, we'd totally be down with some of her stuff.

Last but not least, Monkey will be working in a collaboration with another designer to do a new screen-printed poster based on typography. We're thinking it'll be one color, edition of 50, perhaps with some color variants thrown in for good measure. More details when we're closer to printing!

Ever Awesome Etsy - Sept. Edition

So a neat little thing about Etsy is the Treasury. It lets people find neato items and showcase other people's work. Very fabulous, but a bit tough to get. So, Monkey + Seal has decided to do a little (and we do mean little) treasury of their own each week. Here's the first! I hope you enjoy our picks!

This super-cute card by OrangeTwist is definitely a very Monkey + Seal card. Our last year's holiday cards had tons of penguins on it, and they hold a very special place in our hearts, especially since we got to see them at the Penguin Parade in Australia.



This awesome digital print by HidenSeek is super cool. Monkey loves the colors and the neato idea of having the girl's hair as waves. We always think it's a great thing when as an artist, you see something else and say "Damn, I wish I thought of that."



Monkey + Seal are also digging this embroidery of Stalin in a bunny hat (!!) by Little Red Bicycle. All we can say is that this makes us laugh. Great stuff!

We're keeping it short and sweet today. More items next week, and stay tuned for some new products in the Etsy shop!

Print sale!

We're currently running a sale on our Etsy shop. We're pricing this Jackalope serigraph (fine art silkscreen print) at over half-off to get these suckers out the door! Go go now!