RAW Artist show = Contest!

Hey all.  So I'm in charge of selling 20 tickets to the art extravaganza that's coming up on Thursday, February 16th.  I'll be showing some new paintings, selling some ties, and generally hanging out at 103 Harriet which is the main single floor of 1015 (you know, the big nightclub where the Handmade Ho Down was?)

ANYWAY, so I need to sell these tickets by Sunday at midnight (PST), and since I feel a little bit weird asking you to pay to come see my art (granted, there's gonna be music and DJ's and dancing and tons of great paintings and photographs and body painting and other stuff), I've decided that I want to make it worth your while ON TOP of just checking out a really cool event.

So.  I'm holding a raffle for everyone who buys a $10 ticket.  Note: buying ahead of time not only qualifies you for the contest, but also saves you $5 if you decide later to buy at the door.  Hell, you don't even have to go to the event (although I'd love to see you) if you don't want to.  If you want, you can also donate your spot back to me and I can offer it to people who would want to go but can't afford it.  Whatever, anyway, here's the deets.

1.  Buy your ticket to the event HERE by Sunday, February 11th by 11:59pm, PST. Make sure my name is in the drop-down field that says "Support your artist."

2.  Email me your receipt, or a screencap of your check out page, whatever.  Basically prove to me you bought a ticket within the time frame.  You can send proof over to: risk [at] rickkitagawa.com

3.  I'll enter your name into a raffle for one of the following prizes:

•  A copy of "The Journal of Dr. Marcus Igiatu," a book that I wrote, illustrated, bound by hand, and hand-silkscreened.  There are only about 8 of these, and I usually sell them for around $400.
• A 28+ color silkscreen print titled "Bullies" that has three monster children looking creepy.
• "Hydra" painting from the Bestiarum vocabulum show last march, a big-ass painting of snake-tacular proportions
• A custom printed tie for you.  You can see all the designs and tie colors at http://www.monkeyandseal.com/ties.html
• 3 "Fantasies Shattered" prints.
• 3 "Sad Panda" prints.
• 9 "Jackalope" prints
• And if none of the previously created work interests you, I'm also offering to create a digital illustration of whatever you want.  You basically get to be the art director, and I'm your illustrator and I'll print you a 9"x12" copy.  

4.  If you notice, there are 20 different items up for raffle, and I need to sell 20 tickets, so as long as you crazy rabid fans out there don't buy ten tickets each, the chance of winning something is pretty high. 

5.  Also, the way I'm running the raffle is that the 1st person picked gets their choice of prizes.  I know in contests sometimes I personally want 3rd place rather than 1st or 2nd, so this way being the first picked person gets their top choice.

Cool.  That's it.  I'll do the drawing on Friday the 17th, and will notify winners via email.

Thanks everyone!  So go buy your ticket(s) NOW!  Oh yeah, if you want to see some shots of the prizes:

 page excerpts from the book

 "Bullies" the big-ass silkscreen print

 The Jackalope print

 The Sad Panda print

Hydra painting

"Fantasies Shattered" print

Building Stuff

After I got off of work on Sunday, I headed over to Big Umbrella Studios to go build a mobile display unit for our retail space.  I drew up some plans a while back, and the other co-owners got a chance yesterday to go pick up the wood.  Sooo, I worked from around 9:30-11:30 building this thing. 

Off to an inauspicious start, with some 1/2" pieces of plywood, and some 2x4s.

 

Added some supports to the sidewalls and working on building the bottom front of the display.

Sidewalls and front bottom attached.

Put the top on, possibly the easiest part of the entire building process 

Added some casters so that it's mobile!  Very useful in a gallery with movable walls where we might be changing up the retail space reasonably frequently.

 Ta-da!  Finished, and I started putting some merch on it.  The slanted front is to optimize the display of prints, and the big flat surface can hold tons more.  

Next I'll be working on a display for our ties (and simultaneously, I'll be getting ready for a split show with Eve on June 3rd.

Special in the Etsy store

So I updated www.monkeyandseal.com and started up the blog at www.blog.monkeyandseal.com.
Updates will be happening at least 3 days a week (as opposed to the sporadic posting here).

Also, the Jackalope print (3-color serigraph, edition of 26) is being sold for the next few days at a super-reduced price of $5 (even shipping got discounted a bit). Hurry up and buy these things!

In another slightly un-related topic, I got a promotion at work! Woo!

New prints are up/congrats Eve!

Above are the thumbnails for the piece below, titled "Bullies." Tons of crappy compositional studies, then some character development to get the right look. There's 2 more pages of character studies, but they are even more lame than these, so I'll spare you. Anyway, the finish is a 27-run (even though you can't tell) Edition Varie' of 5. I think I ended up only spending ~45 hours on this one.

Finish: "Bullies" 30" x 19.5" 27-color serigraph on Rives BFK.



This lovely 1-color print, inspired by the old-skool Dave Chappelle Rick James skit (I can't believe that was like 3+ years ago!) . Anyway, fornicate your couch with this print and buy it today!
Here's a 3-color serigraph, cleverly titled as "Squid." I'm still not sure if I like doing one giant print with a massive number of runs, or many smaller prints with fewer colors. I guess I have to sort that out before I start silkscreen 2 next semester. Anyway, the squid is on sale here.

So Eve's parents were up over the weekend, and we played some Settler of Catan, cooked, and checked out Eve's illustration and puppet which made it into the Spring Show. Her puppet won an Honorable Mention (which is sort of interesting, as there was a 1st place for puppets, but no 2nd or 3rd place to be found...) . Anyway, it was nice to see the future in-laws again and congrats to everyone who got something into the show!
Eve's stopmotion puppet (it can move!), about 1'x4'. Note the fancy ribbon in front! Woot!

New print, no show for me

So this little cuties is available on my site's store here (aka www.monkeyandseal.com) for a whopping $13. Not too bad for a 3-color serigraph on cardstock.

Two new prints will be hitting the store soon, a 3-color squid, and a 1-color "fornicate your couch" homage to Dave Chappelle.

In other, more lame-ass news, I didn't get into the Spring Show, period. It does make me feel a little bit better that the rumor is that since they're so limited on space, they were really biased against large pieces (while most of the pieces that might have gotten in were pretty large). Even so, I just have to keep on doing what I'm doing, and even though I won't be in the Spring Show, such is the life of an artist.

On the other hand, Eve did get accepted into the Spring Show for Illustration! She submitted 4 pieces, and we're not sure how many will get hung, but even though I'm bummed about my own situation, I'm super excited that her stuff will be in the show! Woot!

Anyhoo, even though I have class tomorrow and Friday, I don't have any finals due (I finished them early to submit to the show). Well, even though I didn't make it, at least now I'm pretty much done with the semester. So now I'm taking a nice break and playing some Settler of Catan online. My handle is Little Yeti, so if you see me, join up on a game!