Process Post: Skyace Wasteland and Thank you Plus Secret Event

Thank you everyone for supporting us at the Center for the Book's Holiday Craft Fair. It was cold and rainy, but still a fair good showing. Monkey sold some ties and met some awesome people while Seal was madly working on some tight deadlines for the painting below.

MonkeyandSeal are cooking up a soon-to-be announced secret event so please be on the lookout and keep your March open! Thank you.

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Seal's Process: Part II of the Tyger Tyger paintings

This illustration was painted in acrylics. I had in mind an old rundown power plant wasteland with a wooden railroad going through the mountain passage. I wanted to get the feel of "after a rain" so I tried to paint cool lighting without any direct sunshine. Below is the in-progress step-by-step painting process.


The relatively finished piece above. The thumbnail below. In the thumbnail, I mainly wanted to design the shapes and rhythm of the piece before any details. The plane wings point downward, with the vertical power plant columns on the right holding the main mass of the painting, and the railroad points upwards back towards the plane.
So below is my initial setup. I have my thumbnail on the corner of my in progress painting. A book of clouds above so I can reference color and shape. Each different storm cloud have different shapes. I still struggle with painting clouds, but they're fun.
I generally try to paint from background to foreground, meaning sky, ground, then whatever is in front. I do the biggest shapes first, the plane being the smallest is last. Although I broke my own rule by painting the hazmat sign first before the shape on the left. It was just too tempting. I like how old signs have rust color and peeling paint job. I actually lost the original shape of the mountain behind the powerplant. Something I am still trying to fix. Thank you for visiting!

Center for the Book's Holiday Craft Fair today!

Come check out Center for the Book's Holiday Craft Fair later this afternoon starting at 5:30pm-8:30pm at 300 De Haro St. (between 16th St. + 17th St.). Monkey+Seal have a booth showcasing and selling some of their newest prints and ties. Along with Panda Rage and Pandamonium, Monkey has a new limited edition serigraph of Sad Panda, featuring this sad panda in the rain with the text *sniff* It is handpulled on toned paper, and will never be printed again.

Ridiculously amazing mashup:Book arts and animation

In the spirit of us vending at the San Francisco Center for the Book's Holiday Fair (this Friday from 5:30-8:30pm), here is a pretty awesome book arts video. Check out this amazing mix of paper crafting, book arts, and animation. It's completely amazing (it is amazing whether or not you have the sound turned on, but we recommend the sound on).

Book Review: Shaun Tan's The Arrival

Seal is in love with this illustrated book titled The Arrival by Shaun Tan. The book depicts the collective immigrant experience through a visual diary. Seal likes that the main protagonist is non-descript, the everyday person. Also, the land he journeys through are imaginary, invented, yet nostalgic. There are no text throughout, but the story is clear. The illustrations are rendered with graphite in a realistic manner coupled by surrealistic elements. It is very inspiring to Seal and a must for her artistic library.

Here is an excerpt from the book.

Handmade Ho Down photos and our next show!

The cover of the Handmade Ho Down Zine, illustrated and designed by M+S!

Monkey rifling through his small paintings for a customer.

Seal pointing out some of the buttons designs for patrons.

The Monkey + Seal table!

Another thank you goes out to everyone who supported us at the Ho Down! We are super fortunate and thankful to be so well-received at the event!

If you missed Monkey + Seal at the Handmade Ho Down, don't fret - there's still time to shop for the holidays. Although Monkey's spiffy ties aren't available online yet (he's working on it!), they, along with some new serigraphs and Seal's full gamut of giclee goodness will be for sale at the San Francisco Center for the Book's Holiday Fair! Friends of Monkey + Seal such as Aviary Press, Two Fine Chaps, and In Cahoots Press will all be there as well, so it'll be a great opportunity to snag some awesome books and works on paper! We hope to see you there!

THANK YOU!!

Monkey + Seal would like to extend a huge thank you to everyone who supported us last night (and the past few weeks) to make Handmade Ho Down such an amazing success. Everyone who volunteered their time, bought stuff, just showed up and hung out, let us get out of class/work early, who dealt with Monkey's lack-of-sleep-craziness - we really couldn't have done it without you.

Seal sold out of a few of her prints and Monkey sold a bunch of ties and is almost out of an entire edition of prints. We made a lot of good contacts and met tons of awesome people. Thank you for your continued support and we hope to see you at our next show!

1 more day till Handmade Ho-Down!

Monkey and Seal can hardly contain their excitement for tomorrow's Handmade Ho-Down: Urban Craft Fair. This is the first ever Etsy-sponsored, urban craft show that Monkey helped to organize. They're will be live art, live DJs, booze, and 55+Crafters and artists selling handmade goods.

They are both excited to see all the DIY goodies, connect with other artists, and meet all the awesome people that will come by their booth (#41). They would like to take this time to thank and recognize all of their supportive friends, family, and colleagues who helped to make it possible. They look forward to seeing you tomorrow.


Yesterday, Seal spent 5 hours at the Geary Print Shop printing 650 copies of the official 2009 Handmade Ho-Down Zine. So be sure to pick one up on your way in. We are still always in need of volunteers, so if you have 1-2 hours of your time, please email Monkey at info(at)monkeyandseal.com We, and the rest of the committee would really appreciate it! DIY kids like us depend on your good will to make this event successful.

Last, but not least, Seal would like to introduce Monkey's new tie designs that will debut tomorrow.




Thank you and we hope to see you tomorrow at 1015 Folsom St. 6pm!