Well, first off my apologies for the lack of blog activity lately. Since I last posted about my postcard endeavor it's been a hectic 2 months. So by way of catching up here is a quick recap of the doings in the Stringdom as of late:
As I mentioned in the last post (Birth of an Artist) I had some promo postcards printed and so many a night was spent pouring over and compiling a mailing list. So far i've sent out about 150 with plans to send out a couple hundred more in the next month or so. While it hasn't resulted in any inquiries or jobs I have seen a lift in my web traffic to my illustration site (
mattstringer.com). So hopefully those visits are art directors checking out my illustrations and filing away my name for their next great project.
In addition to the postcard push, we hit wedding season full on with 2 family weddings back east. The first being my Aunt Hannah's in September in Boston. She and her husband Steve got married at the Boston Yacht Club with the highlights being a guided cruise out on the Boston Harbor, a great ceremony on a bluff over looking the marina and some serious dancing featuring the prominent use of life-sized Miller Light bottles as guitar props (you had to be there). The low lights being a post-rehearsal dinner scuffle with one of the locals. If you're in Boston and see a drunk masshole nicknamed The Worm, let him know that we're still looking for him. The following month in October we headed to Wash DC for my brother's wedding. Great city, great couple, great job by Pastor Plimpton and again plenty of dance floor antics by all, though no Miller Lite bottle inspired guitar solos. Congrats to both sets of newlyweds - Hannah & Steve and Thad & Kim. Good luck!
Upon our return to SF we were enlisted in the Haunted House construction over at Kristin's brother's place in Noe Valley. This is now our third year running and was by far our best effort, both in terms of style points and scare factor. The increased scare factor was thanks in large part to a local butcher shop that provided a real liver (a cow's) and real bones (again cow's). I'd like to think I convincingly played the part of the dismembered head. I'm hoping to get a copy of some of the video that was shot to post here for people to check out. The plotting for next year has already begun. This crew is serious.
Then the next weekend we were down in Chino for a late Oktoberfest at Kristin's dad's house. Germany beer, sausages and a ride in her dad's new Porsche. Though not necessarily in that order.
As a side note, with all the jet setting of late the running regime has suffered big time. As I look at the ticking clock that now reads 32 days to go it's going to be a long shot to get back in shape. I'm still hoping to run the race but I think I bit off more than I could chew when I pronounced back in July that I would be running a race at the end of December. And if that sounds like a cop out or me throwing in the towel, well, it is. The truth is I was in great shape over the summer and in the early part of the fall, but as I suspected might happen the weather turned cold, the clocks turned back and the running regime was virtually toppled. I'm hoping to muster enough resistance to mount a final charge to at least make it to the starting line to run in the race. And then i'll be looking for a mile to run during the warmer months as a make good for this attempt. Maybe.
Some good news to pass along on the real life front - last week I scored a nice promotion at work. Hopefully the fact that my new title, Director of Advertising, abbreviates to D.O.A. won't be an omen for my success on the new job.
Lastly, next week we're headed back east again, this time to Philly for Thanksgiving. In addition to the usual turkey and football, i'll be celebrating with my traditional pigs in a blanket fest. And then we're also celebrating with a baby shower for my sister and her husband, the before mentioned Pastor Plimpton. They are expecting their first child, and my parent's first grandchild, on December 4th. Both Kristin and I are secretly, or not so secretly since i'm posting it here, hoping she has it a week early so we'll be in town for the birth. So that's the latest and greatest from the Stringdom. Hope everyone has a happy holiday season since that time of year is now upon us. More (frequent) posts to come.
Labels: chino, halloween, illustrations, running regime, thanksgiving
Just in case you've missed any illustrations along the way, I wanted to point out i've added an Illustration Archive on the right nav bar. This has all the illustrations that have appeared in various posts, so check it out if you joined the Stringdom late or just want to flip through them again. Enjoy.
So now that the site is up I need to get it out there and promote it to the public at large. I've signed up for a few free portfolio sites where you get to post a handful of images and provide links back to your site. So that's a good start, but this month is going to be all about self-promotion. The main form of this promotion is a postcard that i've created and had printed. Click on the image to check out both the front and back. So i've now got a box of 500 of these sitting on my desk and for the last week or so i've been working my way through my copy of my Children's Writer's & Illustrator's Market book compiling a mailing list of publishers, magazines, greeting card company's etc...So hopefully in the next week or so my postcards will be traveling far and wide and maybe some will find accepting homes. We shall see. If you know someone I should be sending one to, please post a comment and let me know and i'll get one out in the mail.
