New logo and Children's Book

Work is well underway for the second book in the Silas series " Silas Gets a Sister". We've gone through character designs, Thumbnails sketches and are almost done the rough drawings headed into final drawings and color samples in the next few weeks.  Here's a  couple of my favorite scenes so far from the book. The first book is available at www.thesilasseries.com

   I also recently Accepted a second logo design for an order of priests known as the Redemptorist. The log is for a youth conference they have coming up in New York. We started with a rough sample they sent and tried various alterations and into rough color samples. I designed it to work as a solid design on t-shirt and then as a full color vector version for large banners.

Here's the first design I did a few years back.

Vermont Landscape Oil Painting Posters and Pillows Available

Yesterday I posted links to canvas prints that are now available of my two large Vermont landscape paintings. I've had lots of people show interest in these images but many don't have the extra cash for a canvas print or an original piece of art. So I now have poster prints available at a much more affordable price of about $20 for posters that are roughly 30"x 15".

http://www.zazzle.com/willoughby_lake_from_burke_mountain_poster-228449868142840144?rf=238344308620390165

http://www.zazzle.com/willoughby_lake_westmore_vermont_oil_painting_poster-228883102036149465?rf=238344308620390165

I also tried a product for fun and actually ended up liking it quit a bit. I put both paintings on a double sided pillow.

http://www.zazzle.com/double_landscape_pillow_front_and_back_designs-189445286317668791?rf=238344308620390165 

Canvas Prints of my new Original Landscapes

Over the past seven months I painted two new large landscape paintings. As of today those paintings are now available to purchase as high quality canvas prints in my online store. The original art isn't yet ready for purchase but will likely be available sometime soon. The links are below.

http://www.zazzle.com/willoughby_lake_from_burke_mountain_canvas_print-192531746874324310?rf=238344308620390165

http://www.zazzle.com/willoughby_lake_westmore_vermont_oil_painting_canvas-192140012953529503?rf=238344308620390165

  

Children's Book Character Designs

         Part of the fun of each new book is designing characters but its also extremely time consuming and can be hard to really develop each character as much as one would like. Doing a book series enables me to delve in a bit deeper with each new book to develop the characters a bit further than the first book.

         For the second book in the silas series we get to find out what this energetic granny wears to work, or what does she wear on a  fun day with the grandkids? The book also introduces some new characters. Below I've posted some of my color samples and the final chosen samples.
The first book in the series is available for purchase at www.thesilasseries.com

 

Wine and Art Snowcase

   I don't get a chance to do a lot in terms of meeting the public with my art much these days so when I do it's all the better.  This past weekend I was at a local show with my landscapes and decided to bring some of my books along as well. As usual with these events, I didn't make a bunch of sales but I did meet a couple of people who may hire me for small gigs down the road. I also had the opportunity to talk with many of the other artists and got some great tips and advice. In particular I was happy that I'm finally starting to figure out a setup that isn't extremely hard to put together and looks pretty good compared to past events.

IF Twisted

Here's my illustration for this weeks illustration Friday topic "Twisted". It's from the teen chapter book " The Silver Shuttle" By Jennifer Fell-Hayes

Vermont Oil and Watercolor Landscape Paintings and Illustrations for Sale

I recently updated my Etsy store with a ton of new Vermont landscapes, watercolor and oil as well as a few of my illustrations that I own the rights to. You'lle also find some digital prints of my art. Please have a look and find something great for your walls! https://www.etsy.com/shop/matthewgauvin?ref=si_shop

New Books Available now

           In the new year I received my copies of the cobblestone magazine I illustrated this past year, along with the two new books recently published, "Big Ole Striped Silas" and "Brave Roger, Little Mumps and Me". I'm extremely happy with all of the products but particularly pleasantly surprised and happy with both of the books. Both are my first on glossy paper and make all the difference in the world. The Silas book is available for purchase on www.thesilasseries.com  and the "brave Roger . . ." book is only available on my personal website in a few days. www.matthewgauvin.com

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!

                                    

Cobblestone Three and book fifteen!!!!

I've been super busy these past few months working on my recent book "Big ol' Striped Silas" which I've figured is now my fifteenth book!!!! Sooo hard to believe. This past month I had the opportunity to work on my third assignment for Cobblestone Magazine. Here are some final art from both projects.

Cobblestone: Civil Rights Leaders you should Know. Bond, Jemison, Murray, Steele

 

Silas:

 

Entangled - IF

This weeks Illustration Friday word is "Entangled". This is a word I'm very familiar with lately as I've taken on a part time job to go with my full time illustration work and have found myself all wound up in various kinds of work.

    For my illustration work I recently moved the digital half of my studio to a part of the house with more foot traffic. Due to limited space in this new area I have my flat screen monitor hung on the wall and a swivel office chair that swivels between digital illustration mode and watching tv mode. The longer I stay in this environment the wires for headphones, wacom tablet, monitors, scanners and printers have multiplied and it has become more difficult to swivel without getting all tangled up.

   For my part time job I'm detailing cars and equally i find myself tangled in the water hose and the vacuum cord and hose while I try to wedge all 6'2" of me into a chevy impala one minute and into a cobalt the next. I can envision either of these situations making great illustrations and wish i had time to sketch them out.

     What i do already have sketched out though is a fellow who works as a veterinarian who finds himself all tangled in his work. This first sketch is the first round drawing for the vet in the book " The Little Boy With  No Name and No Birthday".

While I loved the technical aspects of the drawing and spent lots of time getting the folds and anatomy looking good, Ultimately I had to opt for a friendlier and more playful drawing.

The final art below.

Vermont Oil and Watercolor Landscape Paintings

Each year I wait alllll   through the winter to finally have  a chance to go out and do some ala prima landscape paintings in the summer. The same was true of this year but unfortunately I never found a chance so far this summer to go out in the field and paint on location. A few weeks back i did finally take a bit of time to do a quick watercolor on location.

Then finally over the past couple of weeks i carved out some time from my current children's book to do a couple of oil landscape paintings of local vermont scenes. Both are done from photos though. The first is a barn in lyndonville vermont.

 I will have them for sale pretty much as soon as they dry and i can get  a frame on them. I'm not yet sure where i will have them for sale but considering local shops or the hospital, which displays local artists on their walls. This second one is from the top of Burke Mountain in East Burke Vermont looking out over Willoughby Gap and Willoughby Lake in Westmore Vermont. I've hiked Mnt. Hor, Mnt. Pisca and Blad Mnt. all visible in this image.

IF: Fresh

For this weeks illustration Friday I'm posting my very first Vermoosin' Design that i originally illustrated as a valentines card for my wife and later adjusted for various other products. Kirby the moose is seen offering up a FRESH boquette of flowers that he picked himself.

www.zazzle.com/sneezingleopard*

Free Vermoosin' Coloring Pages and an Introduction

For the coloring pages go to the end of this post.

      I was looking through the last few blog posts I did and realized I haven't really posted any of the illustrations from my new line of Vermoosin' Products yet. I've also been wanting to post some more free coloring pages for kids and since this bunch of illustrations belong entirely to me and I have good line drawings of them, I have the freedom to do that!

    So far I only have  a handful of illustrations as I rarely have time to work on my own projects. I have big ideas in my mind and am still considering doing a couple of different styles to see if maybe the full line is done in another medium or style than this. Actually the moose on the bottom right was done in watercolor as it was originally a design i made up for my wife for valentines day.  I worked in digital for the rest as I started out thinking of doing screen printed T's and needed to have a limited color pallet, but that route didn't work out and so for now I kept things simple using zazzle as my printer.  www.zazzle.com/sneezingleopard*

    The illustrations I have so far.

         I'm hoping to eventually kickstart this project so I can actually give it the time and money it deserves. The moose's name is Kirby (my wife's home town) and I've begun to develop an entire back story to his existence which one day may make it into a children's book. He's a young energetic Vermont moose who pretty much enjoys any Vermont sport you can imagine (hiking, yaking, bowling, fishing, biking etc.) and of course his favorite drink is Vermont maple syrup which gives him all the energy he'll ever need for his wacky endeavours! I'm sure I'll reveal more of his story as time goes on but that's the basics.

some of the products you can find on my Vermoosin' store www.zazzle.com/sneezingleopard*

        Now for a few free coloring pages for kids to print out and use their own style to color in. These line art drawings were done with fine tip markers and then vectorized with inkscape to create clean crisp bold lines. Feel free to print out as many copies as you would like for students, doctors office, or your own kids. I would also love to see what they come up with so please send me a copy of their finished art to matthew.gauvin@gmail.com . If I get a handful of submissions or more I would be happy to show them on my blog with your permission. Enjoy!