Art Class - Emojis

In the art class I'm teaching, I wanted to teach them how to draw expression. And it seemed like a relateable way to teach it by having them do emojis. So I did an example to show what I had in mind:

They totally got into it, especially after seeing it rendered digitally (I showed it to them on my phone). So they made several of their own. I told them to pick the one they liked best, and I would render it for them. Here are the ones they created:

And here's how I rendered them:

We have class again tomorrow - I'll show them these then. I love the work they came up with, especially the guru and the really hungry guy!

Fishing

I based this drawing on a sketch I did while camping (same camping trip that I came up with the Hobbit Day idea. Did a lot of sketching that weekend!).

One evening we went down to the lake to go fishing, me with sketchbook in tow as well as tackle. At first, my daughter tried fishing. Then, she tried skipping rocks. THEN, she decided it was more fun to just take big rocks and hurl them into the water.

Surprisingly, we caught no fish that night.

Hobbit Day 2015

We all went camping, and one night before bed my wife checked her phone to see what the weather would be like the next day. When she woke up, she couldn't find the phone. She was looking around the sleeping bag saying, 'Where is it? Where IS it?" so insistently that I imagined her following with, "Nasty theiving Hobbitses!"

So I drew the first draft of this cartoon in my sketchbook sitting around the campfire that morning.

It probably helped that the kids watched The Fellowship of the Ring in the car on the way to the campsite!

Happy Hobbit Day everyone!

Prepping for Art Class

I'm teaching an art class starting this Sunday at the Chinese School. And when I was coming up with a subject for the first class, I remembered my first class from art school. We had to draw our initials, in a way that would represent us. It was a way for the professor both to see what we could do, and also learn a little about the students. So I wanted to do it in my class as well!

To kick things up a bit, I'm also having them make this the cover of a sketchbook that they can use. And, so they could see what could be done, and how it would look at the end, I made one myself to show them:

Anyone who reads this blog won't be surprised at the fairy tale reference for the S! And since we just went camping, I wanted to try something different for the V.

It was fun putting it together - never tried stitching a sketchbook together before, and it came together well. I also asked my kids to try the same assignment. They're working on it now - coming up with some interesting work! I'll show it tomorrow as more examples, to help generate ideas.

Go Math Academy - Part 2

More Go Math Academy artwork, this time for the older grades. More down-to-earth, as it were (especially since the other screens for this level were in the clouds, and they wanted to keep them distinct). This was a definite challenge, in a great way. If you've seen the other work on the blog, you can tell I usually go for more a cartoony or children's book style. So this was a fantastic way to really get into more painterly, detailed art. I definitely will be bringing this type of sensibility to work in the future as well!

Cartooning for a Cause

Allisa is the daughter of a friend of mine. She's in second grade, and unfortunately is struggling with brain cancer. She's responding well to treatment, but it is expensive.

So there was a huge fund-raising event - people around here are awesome, everyone was willing to help - where people could donate things for others to bid on to raise money. My offering was a cartooning class.

One of her fellow second-graders was very excited about getting to do cartooning, and convinced her mother to bid on it and win. She got to invite friends with her as well, and, since it was such a nice day, we got to hold the class outdoors:

Is there such a thing as Plein Air cartooning?

After teaching them how to create their own characters, I also wanted to show them how to draw those characters in action. They all voted to see super-hero action, naturally:

Apparently, I gesture dramatically when I draw dramatic things. As one should.

I liked this one too - along with superheroes, they wanted to make their characters spies. So I had to show them how to draw one scaling a building, to break in and do spy-stuff:

The mask was their idea. A creative bunch!

One of the best things about the class was that I was just giving examples here. They didn't all copy my hippo character, they made their own - dogs, penguins, tigers, monsters. Their creativity made it a great class to teach.

Also, if anyone out there wants to help Allisa, you can go to the donation site here. Thank you!

Go Math Academy - Part 1

Go Math Academy is an online math program for Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, for kids up to grade 8, and I really enjoyed working on it! Here are some backgrounds I did for one of the lower grade programs. I always liked science fiction as a kid - if you had told me then that I would grow up to draw giant space stations as a job I would have been incredibly happy. Come to think of it, that was the case when I was working on it, even not knowing that as a kid!

Bates Elementary School book talk

Got to talk about The Silver Rings at the Bates Elementary School today. They were great kids! They asked a lot of really insightful questions - in fact, it made the talk go better because they would often anticipate some of the topics I wanted to talk about. Also got to give them a drawing demonstration, which was a lot of fun for them (and me)!

And then afterwards, signed some books - even two to the library! So many kids asked to read it that they ordered the two. A really fun school to speak at!

Honors Students, Folktales, and Dim Sum

(pictured: Dr. Snyder, standing and looking very professorial, 

a group of really intelligent Honors students, and me)

I got to talk about illustrating, my book, and folktales with a group of Honors Students from Mississippi State not too long ago. They were brought up here by Dr. Christopher Snyder (dean of the Honors Program), and, as both of us like Chinese food, we all met for Dim Sum.

The students were great - I got to share my experiences, as well as hear theirs. Which included math, astrophysics, political science, and medicine, so I definitely got a lot out of the lunch as well!

The Silver Rings - It's Here!

The Silver Rings is now available at http://www.brattlepublishingstore.com/trade-publishing/the-silver-rings!

Here's the book description:

Alice and Celia are identical — as twins, and as the recipients of ghastly treatment from their horrid stepmother and stepsisters. To escape, they flee to their fairy godmother Mozzarella’s house. There, Mozzarella advises them to separate and make their way in the world, offering them the rather dubious assurances of troll skin disguises and silver, somewhat magical, rings.

Alice manages to find an abandoned cave of treasure, and settles in to blissful solitude. Celia, on the other hand, runs afoul of a bad-tempered witch, and is promptly turned into a frog. Informed by her magic ring of Celia’s peril, but not her whereabouts, Alice sets out to rescue her. Instead, she finds herself atop a glass mountain, avoiding the love-struck Prince Randall. With Alice’s quest at a standstill, and Celia still enchanted, will the sisters ever realize the high hopes that their godmother envisioned?

Got to create a lot of artwork for the book as well, so more pics to come!