That led to Jim Henson and the Muppets, and then we really got going, I couldn’t believe how fast.' Sesame Street was just starting and wanted someone young and new to set the style for their books, that’s how I ended up at Random House. Then I went to New York City and I was scared to death. Mathieu remembers: 'I spent the year following graduation building up my portfolio. January 23, 1949) is a freelance artist who has provided illustrations for Sesame Street books and merchandise since 1972, a year after graduating from the Rhode Island School of Design. Keats in A Visit to the Sesame Street Hospital. I was also fortunate enough to have both Michael Frith, Muppet art director, and Jim Henson himself share their visions and guide me.Mathieu self-caricatured as Dr. They evolved over time, and became fluffier and cuter, and so the illustrations followed suite. They were thinner and less cute in the beginning, and that's how I drew them then. I would also add that the Muppet characters evolved over the years.

So I always tried to capture the animated look of each character in action or showing emotion rather than how they looked motionless on a stand or in a photograph. It was just magical to watch these Muppets come to life when they were put on the hands of a Muppeteer.

I think this gave me a rather unique point of view. I just sat there all day, letting it sink in. In the early days, there were no style books, where artists could study the accepted character models, so Jim Henson encouraged me to visit the 'Muppet morgue' the workshop where the Muppets were stored, and where I could study, and play with, the actual characters like Ernie and Bert, Cookie Monster, Grover, Big Bird, and even Kermit the Frog! I was also encouraged to sit in on the taping of the show, which was very low key at the time. I always loved working with Sesame Street. Sometime a few words were added after the fact. In these cases, I improvised a visual storyline without words. Many of the Sesame Street books I've illustrated were written by the great writers of the show itself Norman Stiles, Daniel Wilcox, David Korr, Lou Berger, and Jon Stone, and others were written by assorted writers and editors, and some were illustrated without a manuscript, in which case, I am credited with authorship.

The Ernie and Bert Book by Joe Mathieu