The Making of... Over the River and Through the Wood

Here's a behind-the-scenes look at how I made one of my illustrations for Over the River and Through the Wood.

For this spread, I started with this verse of the poem:

Over the river and through the wood, 
When Grandmother sees us come
She will say, Oh dear,
The children are here,
Bring a pie for every one.

I decided to show the grandmother looking out the window, watching the family arriving in their sleigh. Here's my sketch:

The idea was to show the scene from right outside the window, so we see the grandmother inside, and we see the reflection of the family in the sleigh. I knew it would be tricky, but if it worked, it would be a great way of showing all the different elements of that moment.

My art director loved the sketch, so then I started painting. Here's my finished painting. Well, the first version of the finished painting...

So I put this up on my wall with all my other finished illustrations and moved onto the next picture. I was pleased with how it came out. But then something happened that made me question it. Any time anyone visited my studio and looked at the artwork on my wall, they stopped at this one. Sometimes people said they liked it, but then there would be a moment of confusion, where they'd say, "Wait a second... so is she... oh, I think I get it..."

People liked the image, but apparently they couldn't quite tell what they were looking at. Was it a reflection of the grandmother, or a reflection of the sleigh? I realized that maybe the picture was a bit confusing. So I decided to add more frost to the window, to make it more clear. Here's how it looked after I made some changes:

I liked this one better... or at least I thought it showed more clearly that we are outside, looking in at Grandma who is inside, and we see the reflection of the horse and sleigh. Done and done.

But then I had another idea (uh-oh...). What if I showed the scene from inside the warm, cozy house? What if we're looking out the window with Grandma, and we see her reflection in the glass? Hmmm...

I liked the idea. But honestly, I didn't like the idea of starting completely over, after all the time I had already spent on this picture. But the more I thought about it, I figured I should give it a try.

I started over, and I made a whole new painting. Here it is:

And that's the one that ended up in the book. I think it works better this way. I like the contrast of the warm interior and the cold, snowy outside. And the curtains make it completely clear that we're inside, looking out.

It's always hard to go back and do something over, especially after I've already spent 5 or 6 days on it. But it's almost always worth spending that extra time to make sure I get it right.

And there was a silver lining here- when I was just about done with this book, a tour group from The Mazza Museum in Findlay, Ohio came to visit my studio. I showed them both versions of this illustration and explained this whole story. The people from the museum loved the paintings, and ended up buying both! So now both of these illustrations are part of the permanent collection of the Mazza Museum! So it all worked out.

Here's another behind-the-scenes look at Over the River and Through the Wood:

Find Over the River and Through the Wood at your favorite bookstore, or at any of the usual places online.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Watch me work, hear me whistle!

Since Thanksgiving is only a few weeks away...



Find Over the River and Through the Wood at your favorite bookstore, or at any of the usual places online.

artwork from kids

One of the fun parts of being a children's book author-illustrator is getting mail from kids. Usually it comes in big batches, from an elementary school class that just read one of my books, or from a school I visited. It's always so cool to look at art made by kids, and it's very inspiring to know that the books I'm working on here in my studio will (hopefully) inspire kids to make art of their own.

Here are a few pieces of artwork I've gotten in the mail recently:

Over the River and Through the Wood, by Grace

Over the River and Through the Wood, by Celia

Captain Cookie, by Marissa

Captain Cookie with the sleigh from Over the River, by Anonymous

Mudball, by a different Anonymous

A picture of me doing a drawing demonstration, by Kaeden

New OVER THE RIVER Reviews

With Thanksgiving just a day away, Over the River and Through the Wood has been getting some nice mentions lately. Here's a quick rundown of a few new blog reviews, with links to the full reviews:

"A stunning book of song with the feel of yesteryear.  Beautiful matte pages with the slightest texture.  Stately red endpapers.  Exquisite artwork... An ideal picture book."  -Picture Book Reviews

"Matt Tavares has created a fantastic version of the song “Over the River and Through the Wood. The pictures of the snowy 19th century New England town and landscape are beautiful, setting the blues and grays of snow and horse with the vivid reds of the sleigh and brick houses. He’s livened these lyric illustrations also with a story of a dog sometimes teasing and sometimes chasing after the sleigh holding in his teeth a boy’s hat that had flown off in the wind.... It's a song and book everyone can enjoy." -Sing Books With Emily, the blog

 "One read through Over the River and Through the Wood and readers will long for the pastoral life, to be swept up the side of a mountain by horse power, to hear the quiet of the woods settling deeply around. Beautifully done and so peaceful it made me yearn to be in it, Tavares's edition is just the thing to slow readers down and keep their thoughts centered." -Where the Best Books Are

"We are touched by the beautiful and detailed illustrations and the loving attention to each inch of the book." -Bellissima Kids 
 
"Echoing the language of Child's time and sparkling with Norman Rockwell-like detail, the book may well carry your young readers - and singers - away into history in the rushing sleigh, in the snowy woods, and in the busy New England town, right beside the poem's characters and their spirited horse! -Great Books For Horse Lovers

Thanks to all the bloggers who took the time to enjoy my book and share it with their readers!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Barnes & Noble Book Fair recap

I signed books at a book fair for Wells Elementary School at Barnes and Noble in Newington, NH last weekend. It was a wonderful event, with tons of people and some excellent performances by students and teachers. The book fair was organized by my wife, Sarah, and she and everyone in the WES PTSA did an amazing job. Here are a few pictures:

So many teachers made the trek to Newington to help out with the book fair. Here's computer teacher extraordinaire Mr. Sprankle on guitar and the one-and-only Mr. I on the banjo, entertaining the crowd with some excellent songs they wrote. One of my favorite lines: "Mommas, don't let your babies grow up to be readers. Because then they'll be smarter than you..." or something like that...

Then Mr. Sprankle had the kids laughing their heads off as he read and performed a few Elephant and Piggie books. Did I mention that Mr. Sprankle is awesome?

Tough to follow up Mr. Sprankle's hilarious read-alouds of Mo Willems books with my own reading of a 19th century poem, but that's what I did! I read Over the River and Through the Wood, and then did a drawing demonstration with a live model posing as a baseball player.

Later in the afternoon I did another reading and drawing, but this time all the kids were freaking out because they ALL wanted to be the model. So I told them all to sit still, and I drew EVERYBODY. Then they all wanted to keep the picture, so we had a raffle.

My daughter and some of her classmates also sang Over the River and Through the Wood, which was awesome.

Wish I got more pictures, but I was too busy signing books! It seemed like the whole town of Wells was there, and people bought armloads of books and raised over $1300 for Wells Elementary School! Not too shabby.

After the book fair, many of the participants drove up to Portland, Maine to watch the Wells High School football team win the State Championship game. Not a bad way to spend a Saturday!

Over the River and Through the Wood news

Over the River and Through the Wood was reviewed in The New York Times on Sunday! I went out and bought a paper copy, just to make sure they actually printed it. They did! Check it out- they even included a nice little color illustration:

I happened to be at the Connecticut Children's Book Fair on Sunday, so I asked Mo Willems to sign the awesome Knuffle Bunny illustration he did for the cover of the NYT Children's Books section. I think this will be going up on my wall:

Since a good review in The New York Times doesn't come along every day (or every year...), I decided to update my Over the River book trailer to include a nice quote from the review. Here's the new version:

Over the River and Through the Wood comes out today!

Visit Indiebound.org to find it at a bookstore near you!

Over the River and Through the Wood trailer

Watch me work! Hear me whistle!!

 Over the River and Through the Wood will be available in bookstores on September 27.