NY Times Bestselling author and illustrator Matt Tavares visits a school Bowdoinham ME.
By Nolan
On Dec. 9th, 2019 New York Times bestselling author and illustrator Matt Tavares pays a visit to a small school in Bowdoinham ME.
Bowdoinham community school students were excited when Mrs. Russell’s voice came over the intercom telling Bowdoinham to go give Matt Tavares a warm welcome. It was an amazing event having a New York Times bestselling author come to this school and talk about his work.
Matt showed BHM his studio where he makes his books. He told Bowdoinham that one of the tables that he used for his art he got for his birthday when he turned ten years old. Matt also didn’t just use pencil sharpie and watercolor, he also now uses this special tablet that plugs into the computer that has this special pen that when you draw on it appears on the screen. Matt also told us that he can move the picture around which Matt can’t do on paper.
Matt told BHM he didn’t just write a story and publish it, he had an editor that looked at his work and highlighted the sentences that would need work.
Tavares also had an editor for his pictures. She told him if something in the picture didn’t make sense or if something in the picture needed to get moved to another place on the page.
Mr.Tavares showed BHM his book Growing Up Pedro. After he got the idea for the book he traveled to the Dominican Republic where Pedro Martinez grew up. There were plenty of pictures of a grown-up Pedro so Matt wanted to find a kid who could be a kid Pedro.
Luckily he found a kid that Matt thought would be a good Pedro as a kid, just there’s one problem… The kid was left-handed but Pedro is right-handed. But with every problem, there’s a solution. Matt found out if he flipped the picture it looked as if the boy was throwing right-handed.
Matt also studied the houses that were still there when Pedro was a kid. They are like old run-down shacks but they all serve a purpose in the community. Then he found some kids playing baseball and thought that would be a good part of the book. So he put them all in the book. (Growing up Pedro made the 2016-2017 MSBA list!)
He then showed BHM how he drew the pictures in his New York Times Bestseller Dasher. First, he visited a zoo in Massachusetts to see the reindeer and look at their features so he could draw Dasher the reindeer. After that Matt had a special visitor… SANTA CLAUS! Mr. Tavares had Santa do different poses for his book like riding a sleigh for example. Then Matt had to draw a horse and a sleigh so he visited a horse farm so he could look and see which horse would be the best for Santa’s horse Silverbell. Then he had to find a sleigh that kind of looks like Santa’s sleigh. Luckily there was a sleigh at the horse farm and it looked a lot like Santa’s sleigh. Matt told BHM that he took pictures so he could remember them.
Matt then showed us how he drew Dasher. He used a sharpie which some students thought was strange because you can’t erase permanent marker. Then Mr. Tavares asked what the shape the body of a reindeer is like. A student said “An oval!” so he lightly drew that. Then Matt kept on asking these questions until we had a lot of shapes together that kind of looked like a reindeer. Then Matt got in on the details! He started giving Dasher’s head detail and outlining her body.
After the assembly students and teachers went back to their classrooms while waiting for their drawing class with Mr.Tavares.
Some BHM kids got to eat with Matt Tavares in the learning commons and those students were Jae, Cadence, Nori, Braden and Rueben.
In the drawing, class kids drew using their imagination, a line from Matt Tavares’ book Red And Lulu, and no erasers!
The kids and teachers were sad at the end of the day because it was now time for Matt Tavares to leave. But it was a fun time having a NY Times Bestselling author and illustrator come to this school!