Waaaah, we missed a post!

Hey everyone! Super sorry if you were looking for a post this Friday...kinda lame, but Monkey was off winning a $160 Chrome bag at Litquake's Underground Exposed zine retrospective (put on by none other than Sean Logic of Ashcan) and Seal is madly working on finishing her 3 illustrations that are due tomorrow. Wooo!

Anyway, if you're still up reading this, once again (I think we mentioned it earlier) Monkey will be selling our collection of zines as well as some of his screenprints (some never seen in the store yet!) at the Book Arts Jam today (Saturday) from 11am-4pm at the Academy of Art table. Yay!

Monkey hopes you stop by to say hello and we'll get back to the regular schedule of blog posting.

Funny chimp loves his magic show

If you ignore the fact that there are distinct differences between a chimp and a monkey (yes, in terms of cognitive ability, Monkey would prefer to be Chimp, but it doesn't have that same ring to it), this video of a chimp watching a magician is perfect for us to share.

You have magic, funny sound effects, a silly chimp that loves watermelon, and Japanese television. If there was a seal and the animals were painting, you'd basically have our lives. Monkey isn't sure what he likes more, the fact that the chimp seems to love watermelon as much as he does, the intelligence of the chimp's reactions, or that the editors (in typical Japanese fashion) put sound effects to every single one of the chimp's movements. Sometimes Monkey wishes people had sounds effects like that.

PS - The video is in Japanese, but you don't need to understand the language to enjoy it :)

Raffle Winners Announced!

Thanks to everyone who participated in our raffle! Fun times all around, and here are our list of big winners!

3rd place: Nico M. wins a copy of the Monkey Zine!
2nd place: Karin from good one karin wins a copy of the Monkey Zine and the Bad Date Zine Issues 1 & 2!
1st place: Alana R., one of our facebook fans gets to choose any one of Seal's digital prints!
Grand prize: Sean from our newsletter list wins his choice of either the "Cryptids At Night" Serigraph or a $45 gift certificate at the Monkey + Seal shop! Grats!

Congrats to everyone for participating, and we appreciate everyone who took the chance on the extra entries. All winners should be notified via email in the next few days (Monkey is still a bit ill) about how to claim your prize. Or, if you read this, just email us (info [at] monkeyandseal.com) with your mailing address and we'll get it shipped out ASAP.

Also, just fyi, we used random.org to do a random number generation after plugging in everyone's name into a numbered spreadsheet. We then took the first four numbers and went from 3rd to the grand prize that way. It's a super cool site for anyone interested in running a raffle, lottery, etc.! Check 'em out!

PS - If you have time, we'd still love to have you fill out our survey! Thanks!

Overworking

Hi all, sorry for the late post...Monkey has been fighting the flu, and Seal has been taking care of him, so the idea of sustainability has definitely come to mind.

Both being workaholics (Monkey by far being the worst), M+S need to constantly remind themselves that the world doesn't end if you have to call in sick to work, or if you only can finish 50% of a project. Yes, there are consequences (you miss a day of pay, you get a lowered grade, etc.) but if you constantly push yourself too hard, too fast, too long, you'll eventually burn out and then you'll be out of it for days.

Monkey has been unable to really do anything for the past three days now, which is not the best timing since he's trying to prepare some new prints for the Book Arts Jam (where he'll be exhibiting at the Academy of Art table) due to his illness. After trying to work his dayjob while sick, he ended up going home early one day, then he slept in the stockroom for an hour the next day, and finally he decided that he couldn't come in.

Life goes on, people may be inconvenienced, but the longer you are sick, the longer the minor inconvenience goes on. It's best just to take a full day off or two, rest (don't do other stuff!) and recover.

This is not to say that there aren't time when going all out 200% isn't necessary, but that shouldn't be the way of life. Monkey thinks you should definitely push your limits as necessary and as much as you can, but know your limits so you just don't push too far. Be sustainable!

Saturday: Seal's Process

Seal believes that artists don't create in a vacuum, so she would like to share some of her most recent inspirations and current artwork. For the past couple of weeks, Seal has been inspired by film noir and art deco architecture from the 1925-1940s. The lavish yet mathematical designs of Art Deco reflected the artists' backlash reaction against the imposed austerity by World War II and the looming Cold War. One notable artist and architect, Seal would like to share is Hugh Ferriss. His work is directly below:

Eventhough he didn't design any notable buildings during his lifetime, his style, theme, and method have continued on to influence popular culture and films like Frizt Lang's Metropolis, Batman's fictional Gotham City, Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow and the hardboiled detective genre.

Hugh Ferriss created his pieces on 18x24" drawing paper by using charcoal. He achieved the high contrast in values by toning his paper, lifting out the lights, and adding the darks.

In Seal's piece, she first spends time researching her materials; it can take anywhere from 1-5 hours. Often she works with a vague idea. In this case, she wanted to draw the front of a theatre-type building with some gothic gargoyles looming. She first created 5-10 small thumbnails no more than 1.5" wide to work out composition and perspective in graphite pencil. Generally the by the third one, the thumbnail is good and useable. She then works larger and draws a rough sketch in graphite. The sketch is then refined into the final line drawing (above). The next process is to do value studies in marker. Seal likes to use French Grey Prismacolor set #10, 40, 70, and 90. Seal has done one value study so far. She generally groups values into two: darks or lights (light source & shadows). Eventhough Seal loves color, details and color comes at the very last.

Monkey + Seal Giveaway Raffle!

Hey everyone! Monkey + Seal recently saw our first holiday card display (yikes!) and got in the gift-giving mood. Sooo, we have decided to hold our first raffle! Yay for you! Yay for free stuff! What can you win? Good question!

The prizes are:
3rd place - A free copy of The Monkey Zine!
2nd place - A free copy each of The Monkey Zine, The Bad Date Zine Issue 1 & Issue 2!
1st place - Your choice of any single print of Seal/Eve's that's in the shop!
Grand Prize - Either a free "Cryptids at Night" serigraph by Monkey/Ri.S.K. (value of $75) or a $45 gift certificate to the store.

Woo hoo! We're giving away over $100 worth of stuff! If you're as excited as we are, know that the contest is going to end this Sunday at 11:59 PM PST, with winners announced here at the blog on a special Tuesday post!

Here's the scoop as to how to enter:
Fill out our survey for 5 entries!
Any purchases on our Etsy site from Friday til Sunday night (11:59pm PST) gets 5 entries!
You get 2 entries for following our blog!
Fan us on Facebook for 2 entries!
You get 2 entries for signing up for our newsletter (from the sidebar on our main site).
You get 1 entry for posting a link to your favorite item in our shop and telling us why in the comments below!
If you saw our twitter post about our contest, retweet it for 1 entry! (limit 1 RT per 3 hours).

That's 18 potential entries you can have! More if you're a twitter-a-holic! Also, if you're already a fan on FB, or are following are blog, you don't even have to do anything - we'll already count you in!

Soo, good luck everyone, and we hope to see such a flurry of Monkey + Seal activity that we can barely contain ourselves! Have a great weekend!

Pencil Colors!

Remember the days of pencil colors and colorful crayons? As a professional artist, Seal is often reproached that pencil colors are meant for the "student artist." She disagrees: pencil color can be used for texture on gouache or watercolor, it can do immediate "fixes" for color saturation or desaturation. They can be layered opaquely or lightly in a translucent manner.

Seal came across this awesome pencil color set by Tombo(w) and she is super excited about getting a set and trying them out on her illustrations. Apparently the Tombo pencils, Seal found out, are not your ordinary pencil colors. They are meant to better immitate the subtle muted colors found in a natural landscape. They are called "irojiten" meaning "color library/dictionary/encyclopedia" in Japanese. Seal drools over the different gradations of color.

They come packaged like a booklet. Each booklet has 10 pencil colors, and a volume contains 3 booklets. The super duper complete set is 3 volumes: 90 pencils. For more information, you can go directly to the manufacturer's website: Tombo

Good tools just makes it easier on the artist.