Jason and I adore the Monkey World art created by Matthew Porter, of Seattle. His wide-eyed monkey characters are so friendly and goofy as they do all sorts of human activities such as skateboard, ski, DJ and play trumpet. A few are a little creepy (I'm looking at you, Pope Monkey!)

I first found a print of his at a store in Portland called Cheeky B. It was a monkey dressed as Batman and we sent it to our friend in Georgia who is a big fan of Batman (and pop art). We also bought Porter's ABC book for our baby and I see that he just released a new book called "Count the Birdies". Porter is also making a Monkey World calendar and a book with poems about each monkey's occupation.

The Seattle Times published an article about Porter earlier this year, detailing how he works: He draws his characters on tracing paper and then transfers them to 9x9-inch pine boards. There are a lot of prints of his work on ImageKind for about $25 each, but you can also buy originals on the pine boards at the Bluebottle Art Gallery in Seattle.

www.motherpopper.com