Illustrator Melanie Matthews Talks About Drawing Animals And A Color Called Blurange

A few months ago, I stumbled upon some gorgeous artwork on Deviantart. The illustrations were magical, had a solid retro, whimsy, fairy tale feel to them, something that is not easily seen in this day and age. I started following the artist on Deviantart. The art belonged to Melanie Matthews, a young and talented illustrator and lover of all arts from Australia. After following her blog for a while, I decided to interview her on Little Box Of Ideas. Talent like hers needs to get out into the world and spill its lovely colors and magic onto the monotony of daily mundane stuff and transform it into something special and magical. There have been a few times in my lifetime that I have felt something deep for beautiful illustrations and the story they told. Graeme Base and Mark Rogalski have managed to do that and then it was Melanie Matthews. Melanie’s artwork can be seen on her website Bear Prints and her blog The Bookish Owl. You can follow Melanie on Deviantart, Flickr and Twitter.

Dragons By Melanie Matthews
 

Thanks Melanie for joining us today and answering some questions about your work and life.

1. Tell us a bit about yourself. Where you are from and what you do?
Hello! My name is Melanie Matthews, I am 22 and I live in Melbourne, Australia. I’m currently finishing my Diploma of Arts: Illustration and I am just beginning the long and arduous (but totally awesome) journey towards becoming a full-time freelance illustrator! I have a love for all things retro and modern; I also love animals, which you probably might have guessed from looking at my work.

In person, I’m usually pretty shy and I am a bit of a geek. When I’m not drawing I like to read and write, go out to the movies, play computer games and fiddle with my double bass and guitars.

Zebracorn By Melanie Matthews

2. How did you get into illustrations?
For as long as I can remember, I’ve been scribbling and drawing. I grew up reading and exploring the incredible picture books written and illustrated by Graeme Base – Animalia, The Eleventh Hour, The Sign of the Seahorse – and I was endlessly fascinated by his illustrations. Inspired by his work, I proudly announced: when I grow up, I want to draw pictures.

When I was in High School my art career was set aside temporarily in favour of playing music. I took up learning to play the double bass and the cello. For a few years I had formed a jazz group with some friends and we played at a few venues around Melbourne, and private parties and stuff. It was groovy! I think having this experience has helped me to develop my art in some way as well.

For the last 2 years I have been studying illustration and doing a bit of freelance work here and there. Mostly I have been doing websites for tiny local businesses, various logos and illustrations, and paintings for young children’s nurseries.

A Koala By Melanie Matthews

3. Can you tell us about your very first illustration? What is the story behind that? Do you have a picture to share?
I don’t know about my very first illustration, but the earliest thing I could find was this big painting of a Koala that I did in 1991. I was 5. I had to get the teacher to write my name on the top because I didn’t know how to spell my name then. Most other kids had easy names like Kate, Ben or Tom, it was so unfair!

4. You have a very unique style. What would your label your style as?
Contains caffeine. Contains 1200% of the recommended daily intake of sugar per serve! I have a couple of different styles that I am exploring right now, but my ‘main style’ is sort of retro kid’s book/cartoon illustration mixed with fairytale-like whimsy and some influence from modern illustration and graphic design.

Crocodile Teeth By Melanie Matthews

5. Do you often try to break away from your signature style? If you do, what do you think is your biggest challenge in doing so?
I struggle sometimes because after being so influenced by artists such as Alice and Martin Provensen, Miroslav Sasek, Mary Blair, Charley Harper and Jim Flora, I am now finding that surprisingly there doesn’t seem to be much of a market for that type of work in children’s books, at least in Australia. They just don’t like ‘retro’. So currently I am working on another style which is a bit ‘sweeter’ and ‘nicer’. It isn’t so bad – I don’t mind taking on different styles for different projects. You have to be flexible. Because of this though, I am looking into other areas like advertising and editorial illustration – avenues where my preferred style would be more appropriate. Occasionally I do ‘fantasy’ drawings and paintings inspired by artists like Frank Frazetta and Paul Bonner. It’s just for fun – and makes something like studying human or animal anatomy a bit more interesting. I make it a regular thing to do observational studies and paintings in realism, too. It’s not really my forte but it helps to give the eye a good workout.

A Life Painting By Melanie Matthews

6. Where do you get the ideas for your illustrations? What inspires you?
I am definitely most inspired by animals and the natural world. There is absolutely endless potential for characters, designs and ideas that come from observing nature. That being said, there is also tons of inspiration to be found in man-made things; cities, cars, everything. I love to look at old buildings, busy streets and well-travelled roads. I also love looking at other artist’s work. I try often to look at a lot of work that might be outside of my normal interests, to broaden my horizons and find new ideas. I have a strong interest in design as well, particularly web and print design, and typography. I would love to do more design work in the future, however I haven’t had the time recently as my class work has taken up a lot of my time. Ideas are always coming from different things and mostly at the most unexpected time, so I carry a notebook around with me for scribbling and writing. I mean, I’m inspired by nature and artists and designers but I’m also inspired by the Cheerio’s I eat for breakfast, that great sandwich I had for lunch that day, Little Golden Books, songs and things I hear on the radio and random things I happen to see on the ground throughout the day. I just try to find inspiration from as many different sources as I can.

Bearousel By Melanie Matthews

7. What is your favorite piece from your portfolio? Why?
I think my current favourite is ‘Bearousel’ – the little bear riding the tiger on the carousel. It contains my two favourite animals, my two favourite colours (blue and orange), and it has the level of cuteness and fun that I was hoping to capture.

8. You seem to have a fondness for animals in your illustrations. Why? Would it be safe to say, if you weren’t an illustrator and an artist, you would be a vet, a zookeeper, a wild life safari expert?
I love animals because they are so diverse, so wonderful, funny, frightening, beautiful, hideous, and weird. When I was little I mostly loved reptiles and bugs, and especially dinosaurs. Now I really like tigers and bears. The bear is my favourite animal. I can’t really say why I like bears so much, but they are beautiful animals, and they’re so fascinating. I love how they are so big and chubby looking, but at the same time they’re kind of lanky and gangly. When I was little I really loved Steve Irwin. Well, I STILL love Steve Irwin. I had dreams of searching for rare and ancient animals in the deepest and darkest wilds on Earth, but at an early age it became apparent that I wasn’t much of an outdoorsy person, sadly. I think if I didn’t grow up wanting to be an artist, I might have been interested in a career in studying wildlife.

I Wish I Had A Crocodile By Melanie Matthews

9. What part of the illustration process gives you the utmost joy?
I love drawing and sketching, and the earliest stages of conceiving a project – it’s where I can be the most creative. When you find a good idea, you start to think of the possibilities and it can branch out into even more ideas. That gets me all excited and motivated. Then the teacher or client says to you, ‘change this, I don’t like this, what on earth is that, I think you should add this element that is completely irrelevant’. (I say this jokingly, but you get the idea!) There’s also the part of the process where you can look at an image and see what the final piece will probably look like, but you’re still working on certain areas or little details, I enjoy that as well. You can see it all coming together. The hard thing is knowing when to stop!

10. If you look in the magic crystal ball of your future, what do you see Melanie doing 5 years from now?
I think I can see Future Mel earning a living from freelance illustration, or at least earning the majority of my income through freelance work. I would like to one day write and illustrate my own books – I have a few ideas for some books that I would like to get published one day, including an animal alphabet book and a compilation of illustrated poems.

Upto No Good By Melanie Matthews

11. Quick, say the first thing that comes to mind.
Hippo -> purple
Brush -> teeth
Unicorn -> rainbows
Polka -> dots
Whimsy -> bubble gum
Children -> raincoats
Movie -> toaster?
Color -> blurange (a new colour I invented which is blue and orange put together. It’s kind of sickly and gross.)
Wizard -> Owls!
Cereal -> Cheerio’s (my favourite cereal!)

Thanks Sneh!

Thanks once again Melanie for taking the time out to do this. We wish you the very best with your freelancing career. May you have a fun, design journey.