Monocol

It's not a trap!

2009-11-02T18:38:03Z

Happy November, Monofreens! We hope you had a trick and treat filled Halloween. Team Monocol went as Jabba the Hutt and Admiral Ackbar. We like to think that the above picture neatly summarizes our artistic skills, outside interests, distinct personalities, and work style.

Speaking of work, we are working on a bunch of holiday goodies! We are also working away on our illustration project with Travis and Lincoln Leopard .

Also, please check our our PAWESOME MonoFriend Tom DesLongchamp !! He is MonoTom's neighbor (and name-twin) and he just finished an amazing video for Jookabox's "Your Cried for Me" (Asthmatic Kitty). This video is so great it blows our minds, like when we saw Kermit the Frog riding a bike for the first time in The Muppet Movie. GREAT JOB OTHER-TOM!!

WOOO! Look we updated and it was only a 2 weeks since our fake update! GO!GO!TEAM!MONOCOL!

Still Alive, Bad At Updating

2009-10-16T18:36:29Z

WE ARE STILL ALIVE, PROMISE! We are currently working on a film/documentary project with Travis Senger from LincolnLeopard with whom we collaborated with for the Saturday Knights music video. We will make an empty promise to be updating shortly!!

Ahoy!

2009-06-22T19:19:01Z

SS Cosby
Originally uploaded by Monocol

Hope you all had great weekends and remembered to call your pops on Pappy Day yesterday!

We took the Bainbridge Island Ferry yesterday, and Monocol First (Canine) Mate, Cosby, got to feel the cool sea breeze on his snaggle tooth for the first time.

We've also heard from some Monoscouts that our WPZ Pengies have been spotted around Seattle! Off to find their locations later this week ... It's like hide-n-seek!

Marching Orders!

2009-06-11T23:00:22Z

Hallo! Here are some details for the Penguins on the March events happening tomorrow, Friday 6/12.

We will be attending the Greenwood Collective Art Walk event, most likely hitting up the new ramen joint in Greenwood beforehand.

Pengies and slurpy noodles? Sounds like a great F-R-I-D-A-Y NIGHT! (hand claps)

From the Woodland Park Zoo Blogz:

The Space Needle Artist Celebration
- Official launch program begins at 10:30 a.m. featuring debut of 50 penguins and guest speakers
- Featured speakers: Woodland Park Zoo, professional and amateur artists, Greenwood Collective
- Live Penguin Mural by Bherd Studios
- Woodland Park Zoo’s Humboldt penguin wagon will distribute fun penguin giveaways
- Penguin mascot will entertain guests and passers-by
- Interviews available with artists and organizers

The Greenwood Collective Artist Celebration
- Featuring 30 penguins on exhibit between 6:00 – 9:00 p.m., plus artists
- Opening during monthly Art Up/Open Up Greenwood-Phinney neighborhood art walk
- Interviews available with The Greenwood Collective and penguin artists
- Look for the Penguin Mural by Bherd Studios on Greenwood Ave between 85th St and 87th St

Hahaha, "interviews available with Penguin Artists" ... and here we were worrying about the bathing suit competition!

PENGIES OUT!

monocol @ 2009-06-10T10:38:00

2009-06-10T17:43:01Z

Here are our finished pengies. More about dem Seattle marching penguins here

Those penguins were heavy to move! More piccurs at the Flickrrrrrr.

Pengies! SIFF! Summer!

2009-05-19T20:58:41Z

Hola Monoamigos!

Its that time again for the bimonthly update, har har! We're slowly gaining momentum for our usual summertime project blitz -- it must be something about how ice cream trucks are starting to jangle their way down our street (WHY DO THEY DRIVE SO FAST PAST OUR HQ), or the sun setting at 9pm, or conversations that start with "we should go camping...no really!" -- that makes us more productive.

We are happy to say we've preservered through porky flu epidemics and other unpleasantries and are working on some projects for June.

We will be participating in Woodland Park Zoo's Penguins on the March art exhibit. We have two penguins to decorate ... pics to follow soon. The new WPZ pengie exhibit is cooler than a polarbear's toenails (except, Humboldt penguins don't live in snow, but you know what we mean) and we are excited to be a part of the event!

We are also working on some prints inspired by SIFF entry CC2010 written and directed by monofreen and compatriot Travis Senger over at Lincoln Leopard. We also worked with Travis on the "Count It Off" video, so this second collaboration jawesome -- like on you birthday when you get to have ice cream cake for dinner AND breakfast the next morning.

Are you guys ready to go camping? ... No REALLY!

See you on the flipside!

monocol @ 2009-03-30T08:50:00

2009-03-30T16:12:22Z

PHEW, we survived SxSW and have been recovering the last week. There were some amazing music videos we were up against in Austin, so we felt very special and intimidated to be included in the mix. The week was a blur of line waiting, late shows, getting to see old friends, sleeping 8 to a room with the Flagpole camp, burrito carts, and 80 degree weather!

Gwynne also celebrated her birthday last week and got lots of fantastic presents including: a red ryder bb gun, a comic book, a new bike, a Chomp Chain soccer ball ... And a remixed MIA music video made by Tom.

INTERWEB PREMIERE!

Southern cookin' makes you good lookin'

2009-03-18T16:57:16Z

Beware the Ides of March ... maybe because they are PAWESOME. The Ides of March are awesome because they involve corned beef, Gwynne's birthday, and SxSW.

We are off to Austin tomorrow afternoon and we can't wait to catch some screenings of the tail end of the Film Festival and try to catch as many bands as humanly possible. Not to mention lots of sweet tea, Waffle House, and Chikfila -- Souhern faves Gwynne is missing since she left the ATL!! Thanks for all of your kind words about The Saturday Knights video animation, it was so much fun to do and we never expected we'd make it all the way to Austin!

We are working on some new ideas and looking for some places to do shows this summer. In the mean time, we are enjoying:
Denise Ann Holme's Bakers Dozen
Stacy Rozich's amazing art (Tom scored a a watercolour from her recent 20Twenty show)
Yuki Urushibara's Mushi-shi

Much more when we return from messin' with Texas!

monocol @ 2009-02-18T21:35:00

2009-02-19T06:30:10Z

Hallo, hallo!

Oh how we've missed all of you monofreens the past few weeks! Since we last updated several exciting things have been going on over here in the basement HQ. Seattle froze over and thawed, holidays came and went, history making presidents were inaugurated, and we got to work on our first music video!

"Count It Off" - The Saturday Knights from Lincoln Leopard Films on Vimeo.

When Travis of Lincoln Leopard asked if we'd like to do some animated shorts for The Saturday Knights in the style of retro Sesame Street, we were on the project like crumbs on Cookie Monster. We spent a lot of time revisiting our favorite Sesame Street animations and skits from our past (Typewriter Guy! Teeny Little Super Guy! Grover! Grover! Grover!)

In even more exciting pawesome news, we recently found out that the video is an official SxSW Film Festival selection! Three cheers and salted caramel ice cream all around!

We've also updated the Monocol website and started a Twitter ... PHEW!

Time for a nap and some comic books.

Snow Day!

2008-12-19T18:57:42Z

We got a snow day here in Seattle! We took advantage of the day by "working from home" -- which involved drinking lots of coffee, watching Cosby Show reruns, and answering e-mails from the couch.

We are working on a top secret project to be revealed in a few weeks (we hope!), and we can't wait to see it finished. Otherwise we've been making cheese straws , playing with our new Mac books (!!), and thinking up new Monocol ideas for the new year!

Keep warm, mono-freens, and see you at the sledding hill!

Happy Sinterklaas!

2008-12-07T20:54:10Z

It's that time again here at Monocol HQ where we celebrate Sinterklaas with gifts wrapped in syrup and mean poems about one another!Hot off the Gocco press, we finished our 2008 Holiday card last week.

We've put some in the shop. We will be sending them out to our freens and families over the next few days.

Registration ended up being bitchy so we broke down and created a registration plate. The set up was inspired after seeing Tubes. awesome registration set-up. Ours was infinitely more ghetto (and involved a block of wood, which when cut, smelled like a delicious combination of poo, mildew, and throw up...), but it wouldn't be a Monocol joint otherwise.

We also learned that balsawood is much more absorbent than first thought and using the correct viscosity of ink is integral. There were two epic fails before we got some good prints out of the ordeal.

Happy Yule everybody! We hope everyone is decorating trees and watching their favorite holiday specials. We particularly like: A Muppet Family Christmas (Muppets, Sesame Street, AND Fraggles?!? EXPLODE) and the California Raisins Claymation special.

November ooo-la-la!

2008-11-19T17:42:24Z

Have you ever met a Rock Hyrax? We have! We met him over the summer at the Smithsonian National Zoo in Washington D.C.! He is a distant relative of the elephant -- who is one of my favorite animals in our solar system.

Speaking of distant relatives, we can hardly believe the Holidays are upon us and with them, family, friends, and lots of dinners! Tomocol celebrated his birthday yesterday with much fanfare and some of the best chocolate cake in Seattle. American Thanksgiving is next week and the rest of the mess of December is on the horizon! PHEW!

We are slowly assembling our gnome/elf/kitten army at the Monocol factory to get some holiday items out into the interwebs and into our favorite local stores. Daruminals and their prints can be currently found at TWIG in the Greenwood neighborhood of Seattle (and of course at our Etsy store).

We are making a super early New Years Resolution to update the blog and interweb store more often -- how's that for being one step ahead of the Holiday game?

See you soon!

We Like Wednesdays

2008-11-05T20:00:19Z

1. "Veículo" Heiko, The State of Things
2. "Self Portrait", Mattias Adolfsson, Mattias Inks
3. Beartato, Nedroid Comics
4. "Rainy Day" Monkeypowered

What a crazy week its been and its only/already Wednesday! I am glad that the felt ribbons went over well yesterday in Ballard! A big Monocol thank you for the places that we dumped them (guerilla style)!

Above are some of some of our favorite things to look at during a those quick 15 minute breaks during a crazy week at work, between election coverage, or when deciding if a third donut is really necessary. Man, Beartato's Dance Time is like a snapshot of a typical evening at Team Ballard HQ.

We hope you American MonoFreens had some Election Cupcakes like we did over at the HQ ... What flavor? LINCOLNBERRY of course! With stovepipe frosting hats, too!

Three cheers for voting!

Election 2008! Get your free Monocol I Voted Ribbons!

2008-11-03T18:45:19Z

Fellow Suffragettes and Suffragents!

Ever since MonoGwynne was allowed to punch a ballot card for her mother at the tender age of six, she one day dreamed of voting and getting that coveted I Voted! sticker as a symbol of her patriotic duty... Little did she know that absentee ballots voters were denied the basic freedom of stickers! UNAMERICAN!

We here at Monocol believe all ballots were created equal, mail-in, absentee, and polling stations alike!

We've created felt 2008 I Voted ribbons for the big day tomorrow, and they will be available to our Ballard MonoFreens free of charge at the counters of your favorite Ballard merchants and coffeehouses tomorrow, Tuesday November 4th!

Please help yourself to a ribbon - regardless if you sent in your ballot weeks ago or grab one on the way to the polling station. Or if you didn't actually vote but like to pretend that you did, we can't really prevent you from taking a ribbo. But just ask yourself WWHAD -- What Would Honest Abe Do?

Vote, of course!
Get out there Suffragettes and Suffragents!!
For liberty and justice for all,
MonoGwynne and Tomocol

Pick up your complimentary I Voted felt ribbons at these fine establishments:
Verite/Cupcake Royale event board (Ballard)
20Twenty
Sugartown Vintage
Sonic Boom Records(Ballard)
Herkimer (Phinney Ridge)

Download black and white printable ribbon here!

Daruminals at Herkimer Coffee on Phinney Ridge Sep-Oct 2008!

2008-09-02T18:32:53Z

O HAI MONOFREENS!!

We hope you've had a fantastical summer full of funnel cakes, potato-sack races, push-pops, and mini-adventures.

Since our May show at Verite, we've been taking a bit of a summer vacation from shows and work. So far we've been to Hong Kong, Washington DC, Anacortes, Port Angeles and have hosted a lot of Sunday BBQs and bonfires at the Team Ballard HQ.

But as Summer draws to a close, we rallied together a back-to-school show for the stupendous Herkimer Coffee in Phinney Ridge. Herkimer is one of our favorite coffee places in Seattle, so we are excited to have work up there for the next two months.

Daruminals are based on the Japanese wish dolls called Darumas. The wisher makes a wish, colors in the right eye. If the wish comes true, the wisher then colors in the left eye.

We've created our own Daruminals out of paper mache, a new horizon for Team Monocol. Say... do some of those Daruminals look like a few of our close MonoFreens??? (I think so!)

They are all hand-drawn and painted with the help lots of coffee and listening to the Best of Curtis Mayfield. They hope to fufill your heart's secret desires!

We also created a series of Daruminals Gocco prints. This is the first run of prints we've done with the Gocco and we love that little printin' machine! You can learn more (and help save) Gocco at Save Gocco! .

Daruminals also feature a new series of Woodgills by Tom!

We will be updating the store with Daruminals prints, new items, and lots of ideas soon!

We hope our Seattle freens visit the Daruminals at Herkimer (you should get an Americano while you are there -- the best in the city)!

See you soon!
MonoGwynne

Excuses, Excuses, Excuses

2008-05-19T18:48:11Z

Extree extree, Team Monocol makes excuses for being crappy! Getcher excuses here!

No seriously, we got lots of excuses for not updating the website, the blog, and the store. All of them are boring and most of them are true and only a few of them have to do with MarioKart coming out on Wii (we swear!) at the beginning of May.

Monocol presents a nine-act tale in which animal heroes of a grim war band together to rescue a comrade-in-arms. Acrylic, watercolors

However, perhaps we can redeem ourselves with the fact that we did somehow also manage to churn out work for Ballard's May Artwalk at the venerable Verite/Cupcake Royale on Market Street. The Mesopolonica Theatre was deliriously finished (and almost didn't even get to hang) by May 8th and will be on display till June 8th. Thanks to all who have already come out! More pictures of the art itself to come ...

Colored sloth

2008-01-03T18:19:35Z

Colored sloth, originally uploaded by Gwynnesaur.

Normal workflow:

1. doodle on post it
2. laugh
3. send to tom via email
4. tom laughs
5. tom colors
6. sends back to me via email
7. more laughs

creative differences

2008-01-03T18:18:01Z

creative differences, originally uploaded by Gwynnesaur.

This is how most of our conversations go 70% of the time. Other times we talk about wombats eating popsicles.

P.S. Happy New Year Monofreens!

P.P.S. We will have new stuff soon, this is not a lie like how sometimes we say that and then Tom plays Mario Galaxy and I read comic books instead.

Fall is here, ring the bell, back to school, show and tell....

2007-09-24T01:59:08Z

Fall blew into Seattle quite suddenly this month! Though, I suppose Summer never really made its full appearance this year to begin with. Regardless, work at the Monocol Lab is finally winding down after a busy busy three months. I can't believe we actually had three shows in two months! Monocol officially turned one-year-old in September, and we can't wrap our heads around people letting us put up "art" in their stores! Seriously, the next round of cakes are on us...

The Seattle Post-Intelligencer wrote up an article on the Anne Bonny and Spencer, and they even mentioned our show! I never imagined Mt.Plushmore making it into anywhere but the funny pages. Not enough thanks and gratitude could go out Spencer, who so graciously let us set up in his space, provided Oreos at our opening, and generally was just the definition of "pawesome" for running one of the most amazing antique thrift operations in Seattle. THREE CHEERS!

Even though Summer is gone, Monocol is happily here to stay! We're excited to regroup after our shows and will be coming out with lots more sloth-inspired, plush-driven, happy-fun-time seeking items for the site and for our Etsy store.

See you all soon!

Wom-to-the-bats,
MonoGwynne (and Tomocol)

END OF SUMMER SHOW!

2007-09-07T17:52:00Z

AVAST, MONOPATRIOTS! TONITE IS THE NITE!

"FORT" AT THE ANNE BONNY ON CAPITOL HILL 6-10pm

Monocol has been working hard with fellow Ballard!Attack freens Chris Smith and Demian Johnston to bring you a PAWESOME end of the Summer show!

Fold up your Monocol posters into paper hats, put your slingshots in your back pocket, and head down to the Anne Bonny TONITE!

RALLY AT THE FORT, MONOFREENS!!!

MONOCOL
www.monocol.com

THE ANNE BONNY
www.theannebonny.com
Myspace
1355 E. Olive Way

monocol @ 2007-07-11T09:20:00

2007-07-11T16:55:45Z

Hallo, hallo there!

We hope everyone had a great 4th of July (well, those who are from the US, otherwise, we do hope that you had a good day last Wednesday as well)! We sat around in the front yard, grilled food, and watched Ghostbusters until it was time to go see fireworks (if left up to me, I would do a 30 minute firework show of just those smiley-face fireworks).

We've been scurrying about in the summer heat to put together everything for the next few shows. Tom has painted a few more Woodgills which have already been snatched up, much to my dismay.

Ugh, Not Another Ice Age

Where global warming and DIY meet in a moral battle, recycle or start knitting those mittens.

Quandry!: We get rather attached to every single Woodgill, but know that other people like them, too.

Solution!: You can now buy high quality matte-photo prints of any Woodgill you may want!

Tom presented me with one of the prints of "Ugh, Not Another Ice Age" because I was inconsolable after the original was sold and would not come out of my room to eat Otter Pops or sushi.

If you want your very own global warming dino (Al Gore, are you reading this?) or any other Woodgill print, direct yourself to Etsy. For 15 clams you will still have money for a box of Otter Pops and a down payment on a hybrid car.

Hope your summers are progressing nicely! SNOCONES FOR ALL, NO SLIP-N-SLIDE LEFT BEHIND!

Love,
MonoGwynne

We love at-Bay ig-Pay!

2007-06-28T20:30:01Z

That's BatPig in PigLatin, duh!

Its Summer and we've got schooners of Manny's, popsicles, and new projects churning away at full steam at the Monocol Factory.

We've got our Summer schedule booked with shows - the first being a group show next week on July 3rd at the Anne Bonny in Capitol Hill. It's a great little store with every nook and cranny of the downstairs crammed with vintage treasures and a beautiful little gallery loft space upstairs.

Spencer was kind enough to ask us to create our very own show in September, we are going to make it our end-of-summer spectacular show.

We're also working on entries for a Summer/Pool themed group show at Ballard mainstay 20Twenty in August. We're also booked in August for Coffee Animals in Capitol Hill ... Obviously, we are the busiest of Bees (unrelatedly: have you heard of the concerning bee extinction? We are concerned)!

No fear, though, Monofriends, be comforted that Tom and I aren't toiling away too much to forget the important stuff: looking for agates on the beach, planning camping trips, cooking out, riding bikes, learning the ukulele, and singing Kenny Loggin's "Danny's Song" with Meghan at the top of our lungs.

We will be updating the site with all of our new works very soon, so stay tuned!

HUP SUMMER!!

Summer! Monocol yard sale! Huzzah!

2007-05-31T16:05:48Z

Namaste, MonoFreens!

We hope you had a great Memorial Day Weekend, we seized the opportunity to take a very relaxing weekend from the Monocol Factory to start enjoying the warm weather in Seattle.

We had such a great time at the show at Cuginis during Ballard's May Artwalk. Last I heard all but one of Tom's Woodgills had been sold! YIKES BIKES! We really appreciate the support, as proceeds from this last show will probably be going towards funding our favorite Pacific Northwest summer tradition, What The Heck Fest in Anacortes. Indie rock summer camp with K-Recs and Know Yr Own artists as your camp counselors (but without the posion ivy on your butt -- but I did start crying last summer when I saw my first banana slug -- we don't got those bitches in the ATL!). SO KEEN.

For all of you beard-sportin, flip flop wearin', Go Green recycling Seattlites, Monocol will be teaming up with America's beloved evil mastermindChris Smith of the Free State and throwing a huge Yard Sale in the next two weeks at Team Ballard HQ! More details to come!

OneLove!
-MonoGwynne

DAHMN!

2007-05-14T23:56:46Z

Thanks to everyone who came out to support Ballard Art Walk and dropped by Cugini's on Saturday - we were completely overwhelmed by the response! Within a few hours all but a few of our Woodgill behbees had been sold. Seriously, you guys rock! Tom and I would step away to eat cookies or get into a slap fight about stuff like "who would win in a cage match, Mighty Mouse vs. Danger Mouse," and another Woodgill would be sold!

Seeing Woodgills go to new homes is always a bit sad for us, as we get attached to them rather quickly. However, we know they are going to bigger and better places -- we push them out of our dank, smelly Monocol studios to make something of themselves in this big world. I am still secretly hoping that Gibbon Visits the Artic does not ever get sold so I can hide it under my bed and sneak it dinner rolls when Tom isn't watching.

We will be working on new ideas and I will be standing over Tom bossing him on the correct amount of idyllic cuteness that is required in every painting. We are prepping for a new show in August that will be a departure from the prints and paintings we have been doing recently, and of course, there are more fabric freens coming as well.

We are working on setting up an Etsy story so everything is more easily purchased on the web.

Thanks for all of your support!!

P.S. I totally vote Danger Mouse, though you never know what Mighty Mouse has in his diaper ....

A true story ...

2007-05-10T21:01:12Z

Well, semi-true, Tomocol had a dream that I grew to epic, angry proportions and was eating the powerstation across from his house, shaking the hill we paint on, and being a general nuisance. It is also true that I get very cranky if I am hungry. Also true -- I often feel like I am going to Hulk Out when I am really cranky.

However, its 100% true that mini pizzas are often the dinner du jour during Monocol Art Club. Here is the breakdown of our agenda:

20% Art
20% Playing Lego Starwars II
60% Snacks

Please send us your favorite snacks, we'd love to publish a Monocol Snacks Zine!

Wombats,
-MonoGwynne