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Hey all.
As you can tell by the title, things are little rough here in Chicago, even though I'm busier than ever. Working at good ol' FugScreens Studios in Wicker Park has been fun and I've had the opportunity to do a good amount of poster work. Unfortunately, it hasn't paid well enough to really support me when I need it. Don't get me wrong, I've learned to love screen-printing and the possibilities it presents and it's been awesome to have a fresh artistic career venue, more editorial and contemporary, in which I can experiment with new styles and completely unanticipated kinds of content. But it's plain to see, looking through my gallery, that I'm a far better picture book story-teller than I am a designer.
Can I be equally good at both? That remains to be seen, but I'm sure as heck going to try. I'm doing my best these days to expose myself to more poster work, and the old 50's and 60's commercial illustration (with the more basic priniting capabilities that were mainstream) that seem to have a certain presence in a lot of new work.
All that said, I'm going to try and redirect my primary focus to my children's book stuff, which most of you probably watch me for anyways. You've probably been like, 'what happened? This isn't what I signed up for!' Well keep an eye out for more stuff in the vein of my DDs and feel free to complain if they don't come! The good news on this front is that I'm currently working on my FIRST OFFICIAL PUBLISHED CHILDREN'S BOOK! If you read my last journal, you might remember me mentioning sending line art samples to Charlesbridge. Well, I dangled the worm and they bit! It's a set of black and white chapter book images (and cover) about the inventor of the snowmobile. Who knows when I'll actually be able to post anything seeing as the book is to be released in 2012, but still, excitingly real and rainbow-free!
Thanks for any support you've given by way of comments, faves, and watches, and keep sending the good vibes--my survival depends on it.
As you can tell by the title, things are little rough here in Chicago, even though I'm busier than ever. Working at good ol' FugScreens Studios in Wicker Park has been fun and I've had the opportunity to do a good amount of poster work. Unfortunately, it hasn't paid well enough to really support me when I need it. Don't get me wrong, I've learned to love screen-printing and the possibilities it presents and it's been awesome to have a fresh artistic career venue, more editorial and contemporary, in which I can experiment with new styles and completely unanticipated kinds of content. But it's plain to see, looking through my gallery, that I'm a far better picture book story-teller than I am a designer.
Can I be equally good at both? That remains to be seen, but I'm sure as heck going to try. I'm doing my best these days to expose myself to more poster work, and the old 50's and 60's commercial illustration (with the more basic priniting capabilities that were mainstream) that seem to have a certain presence in a lot of new work.
All that said, I'm going to try and redirect my primary focus to my children's book stuff, which most of you probably watch me for anyways. You've probably been like, 'what happened? This isn't what I signed up for!' Well keep an eye out for more stuff in the vein of my DDs and feel free to complain if they don't come! The good news on this front is that I'm currently working on my FIRST OFFICIAL PUBLISHED CHILDREN'S BOOK! If you read my last journal, you might remember me mentioning sending line art samples to Charlesbridge. Well, I dangled the worm and they bit! It's a set of black and white chapter book images (and cover) about the inventor of the snowmobile. Who knows when I'll actually be able to post anything seeing as the book is to be released in 2012, but still, excitingly real and rainbow-free!
Thanks for any support you've given by way of comments, faves, and watches, and keep sending the good vibes--my survival depends on it.
Hello...? *copious moths fly out of da journal*
Hey everyone. It's been a long year at grad school, but a good one. I have a lot of new work. Some semblance of a new style, or more personal sensibility might just be asserting itself. And you can see it all on my freshly remade website! www.mlauritano.com. Check it out! Raise your hand if you actually even care about me updating here (...!...?). Cheers, all.
-M
KICKSTARTER FINAL HOURS!
As of writing this, I'm only $65 away from my stretch goal of $5,000! If you appreciated the project at all, now is the time to throw $5 my way and get a cute letterpress notecard. Or more, if you're that into it!
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/596122080/the-domestic-menagerie?ref=home_location
Hopefully, I won't be posting as much dry, black and white work for a while. In fact, I have a couple lush poster designs, I'll put up soon. Thanks for watching, everyone.
-M
Hello again, DeviantART.
Hi strangers and friends of the internet,
It's been over a year since I've taken the time to write one of these things, but A LOT has happened. I went through a pretty lousy breakup, left the lovely city of Chicago and my amazing job there, and moved back to the east coast. I applied to graduate school at the School of Visual Arts, for their awesome Illustration as Visual Essay MFA program and got in (!). I started to learn about graphic design taking continuing ed. classes at Massart. And I'm moving to Queens in a month.
My current creative project is The Domestic Menagerie. It is a collection of illustrated works on paper that combines an
Update (finally)
Hey All,
So, I've just posted up some of the efforts from my first published kid's book work, Snowmobile. If you enjoy riding snowmobiles or know a young feller who does that also happens to be learning to read, you might want to buy this book on Amazon. The experience of making the illustrations was far from perfect, but I'm happy to have my foot (or at least one crushed toe) in the door of the publishing world.
Yes, it's been a bajillion years since my last post. This is primarily because I got an awesome day job in Chicago. I'm now Jay Ryan's official, solo printer and assistant at a shop called The Bird Machine. Jay is kind of famous in
© 2010 - 2024 mlauritano
Comments10
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You need to get onto an agency. Get a good portfolio together with 10 - 15 solid different / varied pieces and either visit or email, or better yet phone, a few agencies and get your foot in the door.
Do the same with some publishing houses you like. Go to a good book shop, flick through some you think have a similar vibe to what you do and contact those companies. You can find numbers on their web pages. Ask reception for the editor or art director who worked on that book (names are normally in the books) or the art director for children's publishing / fiction etc. Speak to them. Make a connection. Make it personal.
Good luck.
Do the same with some publishing houses you like. Go to a good book shop, flick through some you think have a similar vibe to what you do and contact those companies. You can find numbers on their web pages. Ask reception for the editor or art director who worked on that book (names are normally in the books) or the art director for children's publishing / fiction etc. Speak to them. Make a connection. Make it personal.
Good luck.