Big news: I joined Scott Hull Associates! I am in the wonderful company of fabulous illustrators like Penelope Dullaghan, Von Glitschka, Curtis Parker and Lisa Ballard, among many more! With luck and hard work you’ll start seeing my art all over things. (C’mon housewares! Children’s books! Advertising! Animation!)
Just keeping this post brief, but I wanted to let you know. You can read their announcement post here. Excitement!
I was asked by the very awesome Cory Godbey to take part of a collection of work inspired by Maurice Sendak’s Where the Wild Things Are called Terrible Yellow Eyes. I couldn’t say no; I really love Maurice Sendak’s work (even if I can’t remember if I read it as a kid) and the chance to draw monsters again, well, you can’t tear me away from that. Thought I’d share a bit of the process…
I didn’t really do a lot of character design sketches for it because I’m pretty swamped and because I figured a lot of people think my monsters look Sendak-like anyway, so it wasn’t too hard to come up with designs I thought fit. Though admittedly there’s something in my initial sketches of Moishe and Max I prefer to the final art, but due to time and not realizing it til after the fact they’re a little cuter than I meant them to be. The other little drawings of them were done afterwards as an afterthought.
Then the sketch of the layout– I’ve been trying something new where I cut back on actually inking anything– so I did a detailed sketch in graphite and scanned that in.
From there I left it as a colorized layer in my final artwork to give a little bit of texture, and started treating it more like a painting, building up layers, adding in scanned brush textures, and the like.
And voila! All finished. I had a lot of fun working on it, it’s not often I make art purely for fun like this– I do a lot of personal artwork and that’s fun but I always do it for a reason and this gave me a chance to cut loose. Also, I really want to draw more monsters again. So I shall!
I’ve been toying around with the idea of rebooting this blog and posting more often, with more unfinished and process work and thoughts in addition to recent work. Unfortunately some news received today pushed my motivations to do that today. I hate to start on a sad note, but I have to eulogize one of my favorite clients.
That’s right, according to the LA Times, Nick Magazine got cancelled. When I was a kid I remember seeing the quirky commercials telling me to get my parents to help me subscribe, to which they said “Heck no, you already get it on TV.” So unfortunately I didn’t know it as a kid, but when I got my first assignment in 2006 I got really excited to work with them. And when I got my first comp issues in the mail, I was shocked to open the pages and see so much talent flooding the pages with illustration. So many of my peers and friends worked in its pages and I was honored to share space with them. In an age where photography and stock illustration are strong contenders, it was so great to see original funny and beautiful illustrations and comics commissioned all the time. I don’t know if the roster of talent was common knowledge– but if not it might’ve been the best kept secret in magazines. Every time I got an email from the lovely Caitlin Keegan, whom I predominantly got work from, I jumped for joy and counted my lucky stars to have another project. Not just because they paid pretty well (though that was nice) but because every assignment was funny and cute and I knew I’d get to pore over another issue filled with lovely things. If I had a kid I’d want them to read it, (and then I’d cut out the pictures).
Of course yes, I know editorial is a floundering market, and yes maybe it’s to be expected that magazines will shutter when kids are turning more to the internet than reading these magazines and the cost of advertising is too high. So maybe it’s not a total surprise when things like this happen. (Though it still comes as a rude shock each time it does…hello, Domino) But it’s still heartbreaking to see it happen; not just for the staff, not just for the contributors, but also for the kids. They’re going to miss out on a quality magazine that introduced them to great artwork (even if they didn’t know it) and fun content that wasn’t just regurgitating information from their network. I hate that editorial/magazines are slowly dying off in this way; I really do. This is the second magazine in the last month I have said goodbye to that I have been lucky to contribute to (the first being Plan B , which also had a lot of intriguing illustration constantly within its covers, but I was a little less surprised to see it close in this economy. Still very sad though.)
At the same time I want to think fondest thoughts of Nick Magazine. I have worked for quite a few clients in the four short years that I’ve been an illustrator, and Nick ranked in the top three to work for. They gave me several opportunities to make projects for quizzes they had; I always hoped I’d get to do the cover to the Comic Book one day, but alas that’s not in the cards. Still, I can’t think of more fun people to work with and I hope that despite this bad patch their futures are bright, because they’re all kind talented people.
Rest in peace, old friend. You’ll be missed, but celebrated. As my friend Phil just said, you were a diamond in the rough.
Remember my dino designs from not too long ago? Well, the kind folks at Pinball Publishing lickety-split printed them and turned them into pretty books! Voila, the first edition of Pocket Jotters are here!
For $15 (inc. shipping to the US, $16 everywhere else) you can go and get three of these lovely books! There are 35 or so left of the initial sale batch but if they sell out i have another 25 in reserves just in case. More details are on the etsy page but they are really really awesome, and that’s me being modest. I’m really over the moon over these. Tell your friends! Buy one! Seriously I hope you do. I can’t wait to start on vol. 2!
http://www.tinyurl.com/pocketjotters
In addition, here’s some personal art I made the other day… Gators!
Okay, quite a few things all in one lump. I really need to blog more often.
1. I put together a shirt for threadless! It looks like this: 
and is called ‘flat fight.’ It’s got a paper tiger and a crazy quilted pompadoured lion fighting. It finally got put up for voting and I’d really like your vote and input to put this thing in print!
2. An example of a recent experiment I did for fun called the Washerwomen.
3.I’m pretty excited about these–I’m putting together a limited set of mini moleskine-esque notebooks (I’m calling ‘em pocket jotters). I’m not sure how many sets I will have for sale– I’ll have 125 sets for certain but maybe 30-50 of them I’m saving for promotional purposes. I should get them in the next two weeks, but I wanted to share the cover designs in the meantime! They’re going to pair up with a kids and dinosaurs themed postcard I still need to draw… When I get them in, I’m going to host a little giveaway for readers so keep your eyes peeled! 
5. I still have llama pillows for sale at pogonip.etsy.com. Perhaps buy one?
More soon, but right now I need to work on sketches for the book I’m working on!
1: I forget if I posted in here before about it, but I got a call telling me I got accepted to grad school! (SVA, illustration) Details to come, along with whether I go or not. If I do, there’ll be some big changes soon!
2: Remember my B-Words pattern?
I put it up for submission at Naked & Angry. Vote for it if you want to see it all over some housewares or something! Go here!
February’s been a little slow, but it’s given me plenty of time to catch up on personal projects.
Here’s the last of the three paintings sent out to the Black Cat Tattoo Studio in Honolulu– this one is a miniature elephant! I think I want to make a big illo using him and household objects (and perhaps a mouse or two). Or maybe it’ll be a pattern? Hm!
Also, I finally wrapped up a pattern I’ve been working on for a while trying to get the colors just right–it’ll probably become a very smart pillow in the near future (along with more llama pillows!).
Just wrapping up the shortest month working on lots of personal work– new screenprints especially. Excited to get back into that! But I’m always game for more client work.
Also if you hadn’t read my offer over the weekend, please check it out! Tell an industry contact about me, get a painting. Easy as pie!
It’s been a little quiet on the freelance front this month, but while that isn’t such fun I’ve had time to work on other things– pattern designs and practicing painting mostly! These are two of three paintings I’m sending to a tattoo parlor in Hawaii for an art show curated by my good friend Jen Callejo. They’re all circus/sideshow themed!
Snake tamer/tattooed girl.
And a wild girl (raised by tigers)! The third one involves elephants. I sure do have animals I like to draw lately. Must admit though, I’m pleased every time I see new progress in my painting abilities! I can’t wait to see how I am after a hundred more paintings!
This sort of relates to an idea I had last night about word of mouth and the whole idea of ‘it’s who you know…’ I know I don’t know as many contacts as my friends and I’m always itching to meet more people. So for my fiftieth blog post I’m going to try a little offer here. If you suggest/pass my name along to an industry contact (be it editorial or publishing or a design agency or licensing for housewares (bonus points!) or advertising or greeting cards or whatever!– basically anyone who might hire me for a project), I will paint the animal of your choice and send it to you, gratis. Or if you have a hankering for a monster/imaginary creature, I can do that too.
What you have to do: contact someone and refer me to them. Doesn’t have to be pushy or complex, just tell them I exist and if you think I’d do good work for them! In short, put in a good word for me. Then email me at meg@meghunt.com (subject line: Word of mouth!) and tell me who you told and their company so I can keep track. And of course tell me what animal you would like and your address.
What I will do: Thank you profusely and paint you a fun picture (around 7-9″, about the size of the paintings above). Depending on how many people do this, it may take a while for me to get your painting done but I’ll try my hardest to make them in a timely fashion (and let you know how long it might be along the way).
So tell your friends! It’s a win-win situation– you get free original artwork for the cost of a few kind words, I get to improve my painting skill, everyone will get to see new fun paintings, and hopefully some cool people in the art/design world might find a new person to work with.
