Janiemoe

I've been interviewing mainly New Yorker cartoonists on here for close to nine (!) years, which is wild to think about! A lot has changed since I started this blog in 2014— back then, I had a broken wrist from a fall I had while working in a restaurant, and I didn't have the money for a laptop for months, so I would go to the New York Public Library to use their public use computers to work on Case during the daily half hour increments that were allowed at the time. I currently have a mostly working laptop and a fairly healthy wrist, which is a great improvement!

Here I am at my desk, repping the NYPL on my mug. I know it looks messy under my desk, but I promise all of those art supplies are neatly stacked!

I started this blog as a young baby artist who wanted to open up a world to people who might not otherwise have a chance to learn from some of the greatest living artists of all time. I never went to art school (I found it unaffordable), and knew there were plenty of folks out there like me who might not be able to go to classes, but who certainly deserved to hear from some of the top professionals in their field. Since I had known many New Yorker cartoonists for a couple of years at that point, I figured why not see if they will help me out? And, well... they did!

Doing this blog is a LOT of work, but it has been thrilling to hear many many young people (several of which that I have interviewed on here!) say that they learned a lot from reading it.

I don't put myself on here very often, so I thought I might take the time to talk about some of my more recent art projects. Above are some of my watercolor portraits. I have been working hard on trying to achieve more luminosity in skin and watercolors are a beautiful tool for achieving that. The key is lots of layers and lots of patience!

To the left is a recent painting I did of some ruins. Again, my goal is create light. The painting to the right is a pet portrait that I did a couple months back.

I've been learning lots of new crafts. To the left is a bird house that I painted using the cheapest acrylics possible. Usually with art supplies, cheaping out is disastrous, but for some reason, 80 cent acrylics seem to be working out for me? If you are an acrylics artist, please feel free to tell me why I'm wrong to use them. I also have been having fun with decoupage (photo on the right), which is basically using special tools to glue fancy tissue paper etc. onto various objects (I've slowed down on this a bit because I've run out of things to cover in decorative paper).

I've been having a lot of fun making decorative objects—I feel that it is important to make beautiful things for yourself when you're an artist. Having pretty things doesn't have to be expensive if you make them yourself, and they become keepsake items. I made this little gingerbread garland pictured above by cutting out felt and frosting it with fabric paint.

I've also been having lots of fun with sewing. This is a two piece set that I made recently. It's really fun to be able to think of something I would like to wear, and make it! Sewing is a different kind of art for me—with painting, I am in a strange incoherent state. But with sewing, I am following all sorts of instructions, and thinking about it in a far less abstract way. It's definitely a different usage of my brain, which has made it a fun challenge.

I hope you all are doing well, and learning new ways to make art! I appreciate all of the support over the years, and hope to continue this blog for quite a while longer. Thanks for reading!

You can find my Instagram here, my website here, and Twitter here!

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Bio: My name is Gustavo Magalhães and I am a Brazilian illustrator/cartoonist. I live in Caçapava, a small town in São Paulo state. I have worked as an illustrator since 2013.

As an editorial Illustrator, I've been published by The New Yorker, Golf Digest, Forbes, The New Republic, GQ Magazine among others. The first time I was commissioned by The New Yorker was in 2021, for "The Critics" session on a portrait of Sandra Oh" for her new show at the time, "The Chair," which aired on Netflix.

Sketch, refinement, finished piece.

I also have a web comic strip called "Curb Talk." It's published  twice a week in a classic Comic Strip format.

Lately, I am a Senior Illustrator at a Studio called "Fried Design Company ,'' in Springfield, Missouri. But I work from Brazil.

AOIKTYE Procreate Keyboard for Ipad / Apple Pencil / Ipad Pro

Mac Mini / Asus Proart PA248QV Monitor / Huion Kanvas Plus 22 Display

Tools of choice: My process of work is mixed, I like to sketch the first thumbs and sometimes more advanced pieces on paper and "ink" / color them using digital tools. It's been 5 years that more than 90% of my final pieces are done in digital, and along that period I discovered that I'm a person that likes to do a significant amount of tests while inking, and digital tools help me a lot in that.

Lately, I've been trying to achieve an inking process that I could do both on paper and on digital, that way I could do my pieces however I feel on that day, and my comic strip has been a good place for this test field, and I'm enjoying that mix very much.

Pentel .09 Mechanical Pencil / Staedtler Water Brush / Staedtler Pig LIner 0.3 / Royal Talens No. 2 Brush

If you were asking me "You are on a desert island and can bring just one setup with you," I'd say I would bring my iPad. It allows me to sketch with an "analogic feel," where it's important to feel that you are actually crafting something. But it also gives me all the testing possibilities the digital work has.

Huion Display pen Battery Free Pen PW517

Tool I wish I could use better: Coloring in general, but mostly painting. It's always a struggle to translate what I have in mind to the final piece. And there are some aspects of texture and rendering that you can only get in analogical tools like gouache, oil, watercolor. Of course there are excellent artists that do those digitally, but there are certain aspects that you need a physical touch to achieve and I have never done anything like that. Maybe one day.

Tool I wish existed: A chair + desk set that automatically corrects your bad posture whenever your body is hurting or sitting in the wrong way. I hate having lower back and wrist pains while working, haha!

Tricks: One thing I brought from the full analogical days is an adaptation of the "drawing from your shoulder thing." Personally, I found it very hard to do, so I use a bandana on my pen hand, and use the other hand to pool this and drag. This is a thing that helps me a lot when drawing straight lines with a handmade feel, instead of just using shapes in Photoshop or any digital tool for precise lines.

Misc: "Go easy on yourself and have fun!" I never thought I could work with illustration. I spent almost a decade working in the aircraft industry (half of it doing freelance illustration jobs for local bands and brands) and the factory mentality lever left my mind, just now (after 10 years as an illustrator, 7 as my main activity), I'm recovering the passion that I had as a young doodling kid. Everyone sees artistic careers as this romantic thing, but it's always a struggle (at least for me) to face your passion as an obligation day to day, and make this trade of time and love for money. So after several years going hard on myself I am finally learning how to be lighter and having more fun and joy in my work.

(Outro/Editor's note: I asked Gustavo if he would care to discuss how working in the aircraft industry affected his work as an illustrator):

I think the biggest influence I got from this industry was the routine and how to deal with work. Artists naturally tend to be less rigid in the aspect of routine because of the nature of creativity, and I think that having almost a decade working in another industry in a more conservative environment helped me in how to take it more serious in all aspects, from my day to day process, to how to treat my clients and deadlines.

That's basically the biggest influence and learning I got from this period. How to understand that the work isn't just the drawing and thinking, but everything that happens behind it, from the clothing choice I pick to work at home, from the time management I need to have in order to balance all simultaneous projects I have.

Website, etc.

Portfolio

Curb Talk Comics

Instagram

Twitter

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