Handmade Holiday Gifts

Haven't posted much on the ole' blog lately as I just finished off a book and have been working on various other random projects over the holiday season. Took some time to wrap up some projects around the house along with making handmade gifts as shown below. The first couple pics show a bread box that I built and painted for my sister in just her style, the second group shows an incense holder I sculpted and painted for my wife which depicts Kirby the moose fishing in the same color kayak as my wives, the third group is of a jewelry cabinet I made for my wife, the fourth is a set of silverwear I made for my dad in the hopes they would make it a bit easier for him to eat (he has parkinsons), and the last couple of images show a bird feeder I built for my dad. Can't wait to get it put up to see how it looks with snow on the roof!

                                    

Taste The Rainbow!

        This past week I was at the Laundromat keeping my fiancé company when the vending machine called my name in no uncertain terms and with a very distinct glow, faintly trickling past my right eye. I vigorously walked in the direction of the faint hummm and was encountered by these bizarre colored disks in a red package with large white letters. They were small, strange, hard and shinny with a large white letter on each of the disks as well. I once saw E.T. Eat a substance similar to these on TV., back when I still wore those umpa loompa jammies with the zipper down the front and slippers sewn onto each leg. Yet those were very different than these. I knew these couldn't belong to him because the letter on them was an "S" and not an "E" or a "T" . Confounded I dumped some out onto the table in front of us and was only slightly surprised to see them roll around and form themselves into a crop circle sort of pattern before my very eyes. I ate one and then another. They kept making their way from the bag, to my stomach with such ease but not without a good deal of chewing along the way. That was my favorite segment of the journey as each bunch, when chewed, would release an assortment of fruity flavors upon contact with my tongue.

      I eventually realized the bag would soon disappear and no trace of the flattened spheres would remain as proof of my encounter. Of course saving some aside was out of the question as each subsequent sample called out in a distinct vocal pitch increasingly fine tuned to my inner longings for fruity substances. Thinking quickly on my feet . . . I got nothing. But then Barbie told me I should do a painting of them. And so after about fifteen minutes of moving the pieces around, looking through a viewfinder, I came up with the absolute best composition I could possibly muster under the circumstances. Then Barbie picked them all up and rolled them onto the table top, like a pro at a craps table in Vegas, and I painted them!

      So it is without further ado my dear blog readers, facebook friends, fans (well it sounded good), and family members that I present to you this 5"x6" watercolor rendering as proof of the alleged encounter with Martian space disks. Take it or leave it as you please. It is my contention that these colored disks are in fact sent from Mars in an attempt to search out and gather information from among the most astute and learned of all humans (clearly their navigation software is a bit glitchy) on the planet earth in an attempt to learn our strengths and weaknesses, so that the whole of Martian kind might stand some small chance against us in the ensuing war over their home planet. You've been warned!

One Week With an Illustrator in The Studio

   This week is one of those rare weeks where I get to feel the joy of finishing off a few projects and packaging them up to send out to clients. Sooooo Happy!!! Most of my projects stretch on for months on end so whenever I finish a project it is a mixture of relief, excitement, exhaustion, and paranoia that they will come back for yet another revision on something.  It's often like building a skyscraper with an indeterminate number of floors.

   I began the week with some more color and border samples for "Pigs Under the Post Office"

Continued with some e-mail correspondence with a repeat client with whom I will be starting another imaginative family portrait.  I posted images to my artwanted.com portfolio, filled out my application for the East Burke Fall Folliage Festival, read art blogs, listened to art related podcasts, and talked to the graphic designer for my "A Cloudy Day " book. That book is finally going to print!!!!

I then found out that a book I illustrated the cover for in 2010 has finally been published! So I sent a congratulatory postcard along to that client.

 I was finally able to make some time to do the absolute final revisions for the Bull Illustrations. I also got to use my "new" printers full 13"x19" printing capabilities for the first time : )  $82 for the ink and photo paper!

Then I had half a day to work on the final line drawing for my wedding invitations I'm doing the illustrations for. As much as I would like to show the progress for that, I really want to keep it a surprise for now but will definitely unveil that eventually.

The second half of the day I took the time to do an original watercolor painting of the turtle from "Samantha Loses the Box Turtle" which is a commissioned reward for the kickstarter campaign. Complete with a certificate of authenticity and free postcard samples of my art to go along with all of the other cool prizes they received from the author.

I started this week on a  high from having finished the final art for "Samantha hatches the Chicken Egg". One of the full page illustrations below.

Today and tomorrow I will be finishing off the week by mailing/delivering the art, writing this blog post, probably updating my website and blog with my two new books available, "Samantha Loses the Box Turtle" paperback version and" "Hello Jesus, it's Jeanne... Again". Then I will transfer the final drawings for my pig book onto the final painting surface to prepare for a full week of painting next week!

Sending out Mailers

Somehow I've managed to go three to four years without sending out any mailer postcards to publishers.  Well today is the day I broke with that trend and finally sent out seven envelopes filled with some of my more recent work. During senior year of College we were taught the importance of postcards and even more the importance of meeting with art directors in person in order to contract work.

 When I graduated college I suppose I had hi hopes that I would be lucky enough to catch the eye of some big name publisher and have it made. I didn't have a clue. I purchased one thousand!!!!! postcards for three different illustrations and I fully intended to send them all out to publishers in an effort known as mass mailing. It wasn't until years later that I realized how completely misguided my attempts were as I began to see how bad my art was waay back then. I think I sent out about 150 postcards before realizing the impossible task i had before me. The rest were eventually thrown away.

       About a year later, I sent another round of postcards with artwork much better geared towards the children's book market. Eventually I began to realize that I needed to dig in and get my hands dirty actually making art and learning the specific field of children's illustration. At MassArt I had learned the basics of color theory and composition or how to paint nudes but I learned nothing about how to draw kids, how to design images to have room for text, or how to design characters that would remain recognizable from one pose to the next. These among other things I had to struggle to learn on my own over the past five years.

     Soon after college I got a job to do a children's cd cover and got paid very decently. Then I found a logo gig and then another cd cover. This second cd cover turned into a job to do a full children's book! This to date is still my best paying job I've had in the life of my career. I did fully appreciate the job at the time but I suppose if I had known the full extent of what was to meet me in the following years, I would have found an even deeper level of appreciation for those clients who gave me my first real shot in children's illustration. From that point forward I worked for various clients full time and mailer postcards and the idea of working for publishers became a thing of the past. I illustrated eight children's books with three of those still not published and I currently have one more book on the way to the printers and two more in the process of being illustrated. I learned a ton of behind the scenes technical details about self publishing and at times I became a jack of all trades, master of none. I never really did figure out how to market books with no money to start off with.

     So that was my five year goal since graduating. I planned to get books published and to build a large body of work that I could eventually feel proud to  show off to publishers. Now at the five year point I'm taking a good hard look back over my short career and am very thankful for all of my clients. However I now look forward to the future and realize that some seriously big changes need to come into play if I expect to still be working as a full time illustrator. So these seven packages of postcards are just the beginning of what I expect to be a long trying period of marketing directly to those who have the ability to keep me in business, as I embark on the journey of marriage and eventually delve into the adventure of starting a family.

      I decided to start with magazines as they are the easiest market to break into. They are much more willing to try their hand with new talent because it won't make or break them if the illustrations don't turn out exactly as planned. In preparation for these mailers I finally went back and redid my resume and uploaded, to my website, about twenty new images from the past year. www.matthewgauvin.com I've got plenty of work left to do but today was an excellent start and I'm quit excited to discover what the future has in store!

Overwhelmed With Joy

This past month and particularly the past week has been extremely busy. So I really haven't found the time to do much for this blog. I have six projects going at the moment so I have more than enough new work to show but no time to put it in blog form. It's been probably over a year since I've updated my website. I'll get to that eventually I'm sure. This past week alone I worked on my various projects, went to Boston to do a PowerPoint presentation for the senior illustration class at Mass. college of Art and Design, helped my brother knights of Columbus with a fish fry for lent, bible study, a young adult group holy hour and gathering and topped the week off by proposing to my girlfriend. SHe said yes!!!! Just now I began to realize how cool it will be to finally get to add a particular line to the end of my bio about how "Matthew Gauvin lives in Vermont with his beautiful wife . . . ".

        Now I'm finding it particularly difficult to get back to work as the temperatures soar to 70 and 80 degrees for the first time this year, I dug two stuck cars out of the muddy driveway yesterday, I've spent time writing to and talking to friends and family about the engagement, and I just have this overall feeling of excitement and joy wanting to be out basking in all of the warm graces God has been showering over my life. Yes it's true I have summer fever but it's Ooooh so much more than that! I want to build gardens and journey along new paths, walk in the sun and splash in the rain puddles, shoot my bow in the backyard while BBQing ribs on the grill and knocking back a cold one. Summer is here folks! and what a great summer it's shaping up to be. Thanks to all who have stopped by the blog, commented, read, shared, or in any way participated in this blog.

    In the near future I hope to show my progress on the BBQ logo, show some finished work from my recent children's book, show some new bull illustrations, BW's from my new chapter book, sketches and final art for my new Cobblestone assignment, and I've been meaning to get to all kinds of other blog post ideas I've had in mind for some time.

Beauty and Pattern in Nature

Have you ever seen such a thing as what's displayed in the photos below? believe it or not these photos aren't taken at the Harvard Museum of Natural History or any other museum with magnificent collections of rocks and minerals for that matter. These are magnified photos of common sand! "Professor Gary Greenberg who has a PhD in biomedical research from University College London said: 'It is incredible to think when you are walking on the beach you are standing on these tiny treasures."


Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2011471/Pictures-sand-Close-photographs-reveal-incredible-beauty.html#ixzz1jAeBfjDb

Just last week I was watching tv and amazed all over again at seeing close up pictures of snowflakes. I'm sure we've all seen them at one point or another in our lives but it's easy to forget these kinds of things in our daily lives. So have another look! For more snow flake pics go to snowcrystals.com where these were taken from.

A Peek Into An Illustrator's Life: One

This is the start of a series of blog posts I've wanted to start for quit some time, in which I hope to share some funny and interesting stories from my life as an artist or life in general.  A good children's illustrator knows how kids think and what they want to see. I think we pretend this has something to do with our keen insights or our fascinating ability to observe human nature at it's best. When in reality we all know it has a lot more to do with the fact that most children's illustrators are still just big kids ourselves. I still haven't figured out how to brush my hair. I once read a post on facebook asking,  "has anyone noticed that grownups are just kids trapped in bigger bodies?"

How else can a children's book illustrator start such a series but with a quote from a kid?! Kids are the best!

One day while working in the studio I was listening to an old episode of "This American Life"  about the logic of kids.

                  Adult: "What does the tooth fairy do with all the teeth?"

                   Kid: "She collects them and makes stuff."

                  Adult: "Like what?"

                  Kid: Tooth chairs , tooth trophies and tooth houses"

               ...Adult: "Why does she make houses out of teeth instead of bricks?"

                  Kid (without missing a beat): "Because no one doesn't have brick teeth"

The things that kids say are just so unbelievably genius in their originality and spontanaity! This reminds me of the time I went out to eat with family after church. There was another family from church sitting at the table next to us. The mom was actually one of the religious ed teachers and I always see her showing her kids how to do the sign of the cross, explaining the various things the priest does etc.  When it came time to order drinks I overheard the little boy tell the waitress that he wants a Bud light on Draft! The look on the parents faces was priceless. I later heard the father tell the waitress that they discovered the boy had read the phrase from a sign hanging in the restaurant "We serve Bud light On Draft!"

       Some grown ups spend a lot of time trying to be young again or look young again, while kids just can't wait to grow up. I suppose that has something to do with why many children's books apeal just as much to the parents reading them as to the kids being read to.

IF Launch

This week's word for Illustration Friday is Launch. I could think of nothing more appropriate than my cats favorite passtime. Two of their favorite passtimes are "Launching" and "Plopping". They will launch themselves from the cat tree and land on coffee tables five feet below. They will launch from my lap to my keyboard or from my buearu to my stomach while I'm sleeping. They seem to have this great knack for knowing the exact instant I'm just about to wake up because for some reason I always seem to wake up just moments after one of them launches themselves onto my stomach. Funny how that works. Too bad my sense of humor doesn't kick in until sometime in the afternoon.

    As for plopping, they will plop down and go to sleep on just about anything so long as it's something I happen to be working on. They love to lay down on my drawings and walk over paintings. They really seem to love sleeping on my scanner, keyboard, on my chair etc. The harder they fall and the wider they can streatch out their legs to scatter art supplies, papers, coffee, books or whatever is in reach, the louder they pur. They particularly seem to love plopping down in front of me while I'm trying to walk by them. Over the years this has made me in to something of an olympic athlete in the sport of Cat dodging.

Artist Interview

I'm posting an interview below that I did for the facebook group "Facebook Author's and Illustrators".
Tell us a little about yourself.


I Graduated from Massachusetts College of Art and Design in 2006 with a BFA in Illustration. In my short career I’ve won a number of first place awards ranging from pumpkin carving designs and cartoon contests and into a congressional art competition, a duck stamp contest and an international aviation art contest. I make the art and my cats try to destroy it. I’m a Vermonter, an Artist and a Catholic. These three things have defined a large part of who I am for the balance of my life and I suspect will continue to do so for many years to come.



What is your latest published work?

“The caterpillar and the Express Train” is my latest published work. “Spirit Driver” and “The little Boy Without a Name and Without a Birthday” will be published soon (possibly by the time this interview is published).

Where e do you get your ideas from?

There are three things you must do in order to successfully generate ideas for your art.

1)consume plenty of ginkoboloba

2) Stand on your head, count to ten while holding your breath and think happy thoughts.

3) Sit very still in a metal chair with a hat made of tin foil placed perfectly over the back of your skull.

If none of these work for you, continue reading.

In reality there are no sure fire ways to get great ideas. In a sense they come to you when you are ready to receive them and each person prepares themselves to receive ideas in different ways. Since I’m an artist I tend to think of things visually, so my thought process is mostly based on visual observation. Some methods for generating ideas include.

1)Mind/Idea Web- write a project related word on paper and build similar words around it.

2) Observation- Observe nature and real objects to build your own ideas off. The best artists I know create magical worlds, objects and creatures by starting from things in the real world.

3)Do something to it!- Take a drawing or idea and do something to it, add to it again, subtract from it, do something else to it. Don’t settle on your initial idea or drawing, keep changing it until you feel you have created something truly unique.

4)Images- I generally get ideas flowing by looking through tons of images done by other artists. The idea isn’t to copy other artists but just to flip through tons of images and sketch any idea that come to you. The other day I was stuck on a cover title design for a book and started looking through images. In that process I saw an illustration of a kid with his mouth wide open. I realized his head and mouth created an “O” shape. So from there the ideas started flowing for how I could incorporate the main character into the title of the book cover.

5) The Internet- This is a great way to generate ideas because it’s kind of like having an automatic mind idea web at your finger tips. You type in a word and click search to reveal all kinds of words, pictures and ideas that you may not otherwise think of. I go on forums, blogs, and art websites constantly in search of something to spark an idea in my mind.

6) friends/family- sometimes people are afraid to use a friends idea but friends are often hanging around suggesting solutions to our problems whether we ask them to or not. Generally they want us to use their idea. I say if you have their permission, then go ahead and use the idea, if it’s a good one. In fact none of my children’s books illustrations are done entirely on my own ideas. I send tons of sketches and versions of ideas to authors and work back and forth with them based on their feedback. So the end result is always meant to be something we can both (and hopefully all the readers as well) can relate to and enjoy.

7)Relax- Some of my best ideas come when I’m almost asleep or when I’m doing something mundane.



What are you working on right now?

I’m currently finishing up a children’s book called “The little Boy Without a Name and Without a Birthday” and beginning work on a book called “Allegra, Friend of All Monsters”.

Do you have any tips or advice for aspiring illustrators?

The number one thing I can suggest is to build a website or at least a blog to post your art. No one will hire you if they can’t see your work samples. I would also say it’s important to constantly promote yourself and search for your next gig while working on your current gig so you won’t be out of work for two months in between each project. Do your best in college or in your current state to make the best art you can, so that when you branch out into Illustration as a full time career, you will already have some great pieces to show to potential clients and not just some paintings of fruit and nudes. Learn character design and figure drawing while you have the time. Do your best on even the smallest things like logos as it may lead to more but don’t do work for free outside of competitions. Even most art competitions are debatable as many are just out to get your money. Winning competitions has kept me in business but I have also lost my fair share of money trying out some sketchy online art competitions.

Do you have a crazy story about an aspect of the illustrator’s life, perhaps from a school visit or event?

The first children’s book I ever worked on was with two guys who lived about an hour away from my apartment. I eventually moved closer to them but before the move they had already set me up inside an old convent which I used as my studio for about three months. There was a catholic school attached to the convent and a new church being built next door. The convent was on the third floor. I found myself trying to get into the building either before the kids and construction workers arrived or in between lunch breaks and recess as none of the teachers knew who I was. So for a couple of months I actually ended up sleeping in the old abandoned convent at nights and working all day throughout the day. There was a room filled with old children’s books which hadn’t yet been relocated to the school’s library. So some days I would sit up there and just read through this mound of books. Every now and then I would hear kids running around in the convent hallways unattended by teachers after school. So I eventually started keeping the door shut to the room I was in. I remember more than once one of the kids would get curious and try to open the door. One time I must have left it unlatched as a small boy lurched into the room saying “I wonder what’s in here”. Of course he had no idea I would be in there with my large headphones on, rubber gloves, a darth vadar respirator mask (I was using oil paints in an enclosed room), my crazy long hair sticking up everywhere and my ripped clothes covered in paint. All I remember is that I barely made a move and the boy nearly jumped out of his skin and went running back to his buddies. About a week later some boy scouts ran up the stairs and passed my “studio” as I heard one boy exclaim “that’s where I saw the ghost!”

Is there anything else you’d like to add, such as a website or blog?

First I want to sincerely thank you Simon for the work you do for this group and anyone who has taken the time to actually read about my life and passion of being an illustrator. My personal website is www.matthewgauvin.com , book website- www.thecaterpillarandtheexpresstrain.webs.com/ , blog- http://matthewgauvin.blogspot.com/ , zazzle store- www.zazzle.com/sneezingleopard*, youtube where I hope to post more art tutorial videos soon - www.youtube.com/watch?V=gQPcuzCCIDK google me and you’re sure to find me in a number of other places as well.

Art in the City

For the past ten days I went out to Boston and New York for business and pleasure. Unfortunately I didn’t get to meet with publishers as I had originally intended but I did get quit a bit done. I started off in Boston where I had the awesome opportunity to speak with the massart senior illustration class about what life is like after graduation. I was lucky to have three other graduates at my side telling their stories as well. I had plenty of time in Boston to meet with friends and work out some illustration ideas while also leaving myself time to celebrate my birthday and holy week. Luckily I had some amazing friends who let me stay at there places over the eight days. Below is a sketch I did of the Boston skyline.

Then I headed off to New York. Below is a sketch I did in New York’s China town and a sketch of my accommodations at the Bowery white house hostel for two nights. It was basically like sleeping in a closet with a latticework ceiling and each room up against each other with very thin walls. Since it was only two nights, it was actually a fun experience. The showers and bathrooms in general were definitely a bit shady for me though. It reminded me of this one time I went to another school with my wrestling team in high school. They warned me not to drink the water there but I didn’t listen and ended up with the worst stomach pains. Then I found out that the bathroom stalls had no doors, in order to keep kids from doing drugs etc. Let’s just say that was a very uncomfortable night for me, LOL. For my second nights stay at the bowery in NY I came back from the Art Gallery in a dress shirt and dress pants. So there I am with my huge luggage and all dressed up staying in this tiny closet for the night. I swear they checked out my height before I came and made sure I got the room that was one inch too short. If that doesn’t say starving artist then I don’t know what does.

While in New York I met with more friends and attended a gallery show with my “Graduate Pinball” illustration featured in it. All I’ve got to say is that the show was awesome and exciting to be a part of. My painting won second place out of 35 artists, yeah!!! I’ve posted some photos of the show below.