Slowing down to a stumble. Walking slowly next to wild horses. Listening to armadillos. Meeting new people and learning about "tarantula man," the comic book invention of our 5 year old friend Hogan. We're still thinking about the effect of our short vacation camping in the wild. I have some sketches and little paintings but it may take me ages to scan the stinkers...
That's it. We are back home and it's an armadillo free week. Although there are some animals I've been dealing with.

There are benefits to being here that aren't in paradise and today I've been thinking about why I do the work I do to connect people to art:
Why and how I can continue to connect to the stuff myself even when work seems to swallow my time?
What it means to see things fresh?
Why do I focus on work projects when the really fulfilling projects are those that use my creativity and my self?

I rediscovered Tom Phillips in a magic way the other day. The creativity and connection with Phillips (best known for his Humament) was striking.

1263 heads all lined up and then crossed out. We come and we go.
Here's to a creative and productive time for you as for me as I march up to my attic studio...
take care,
Rachael

That's where we are headed. My sweet husband and I are headed to Cumberland Island to celebrate our anniversary with some of our best friends. I'm pretty excited about a weekend of no agenda and no rules and am planning to pack only a fresh sketchbook, my watercolor set, and a good book.

see you in a couple of days...
Rachael

Today on the bus I spent 20 minutes fascinated by the braids and denim and dark skin and white ipod combination of the neck of the woman in front of me. It was as amazing as an Ingres. But she didn't know and I wasn't about to tell her that her neckline was a moment of art. (Like this too)

Yesterday, I looked down at my toes in the overgrown grass of my backyard and seeing the difference between thin green and yellow strands and thick nubbs of toes I was stopped by the contrast.

The museum I work for has a big festival this weekend and I have been combing through pictures and making signs. The little stumbles of images, the small parts of things are pure little treats and I share them with you.







I keep waiting for the pace of my life to slow down a little but while it is rock-n-roll fast, I'm dancing to it rather than letting it get me down. More words and images from me when I find them and in the meantime...

take care,
Rachael

I've been quietly toiling. Not much blog-worthy in this last part of my summer except for a few choice treats I found on the web

mail art beckoning again

fancy Leonardo da Vinci sites like Universal Leonardo and this one or his sketchbook

fancy Van Gogh site with all the drawings including this one of Sein sewing

fancy sketchbooks

a new website from the American Artist magazine people and even though it seems damn foolish to pay $50 to try to get your drawing or watercolor or what-have-you on the cover of one of these magazines, there are some good things in here especially if you are new to drawing I ought to be saying more in this forum soon but for now it is simply, goodnight, Rachael

Hello all,
Sorry I've been silent in this forum for a couple of weeks. It's been a wacky late summer for me and my day job. Last week we hosted our amazing 8 year old neice and did experiments with Diet Coke and mentos in the backyard, played a lot of Sorry, and generally had fun every day. And then I've recently been working on some new ideas in my paintings (lines and more tra-la-la-lines that curl into each other and seek to capture the sound of a tongue rolling an R as in Italian...) and then working on planning that looking at art class that starts next week...Busy.

Yet, I finally have some good content for you and that's my crib sheet based on about 5 years of teaching cartooning classes to 8 to 12 year olds, watching other great teachers do the same, listening to a bunch of kids who want to learn, and my own experience as a kid who will always want to draw funny pictures, tell stories with pictures and words, and spend my days making and reading comics. Below are the basics of what I know.



THE BASICS
Always have lots of white paper in a variety of sizes, lots of regular #2 pencils and ebony pencils, more than one pencil sharpener (either the good electric ones or the nice metal ones), and lots of erasers (the white rubber ones work great). It's also a great idea to have magic markers, scissors, glue, staplers, and rulers around.

Foster a cartooning room where everyone works collaboratively not competitively. Reinforce in your own way that all cartoonists are getting better always. Collaborative projects are a lot of fun and can let kids switch roles and draw things they are not alsways drawing.

Do whatever you have to do to keep the room creative. Use the element of surprise. Encourage the telling of goofy (clean) jokes.

All kids can draw. All kids have great stories to tell. Some kids instinctively know this or know this from practice, other kids will appreciate discovering these truths about themselves.

Be relaxed, have fun and the kids will too.

I used to emphasize drawing from nature, using thumbnail sketches, and revising (penciling)an idea until it was drawn better, made more interesting for the reader, and ready to be finished (inked).

There is a logic to how comics work and luckily other people have put it in clear english. Here is How cartoons work and E.H. Gombrich's classic article about caricature. You can read these and share the best parts (the relevant stuff) with your students.

I love showing kids good comics, cartoons, drawings and what not like those by Will Eisner, Charles Barsotti, Lyonel Feininger, (more good stuff on Feininger's comics are here ), Saul Steinberg, Charles Schulz, and many more.

PROJECTS THAT I KNOW WORK:

Animating a simple thing. Kids practice turning ordinary objects (even plain shapes) into characters by animating them with personalities, faces, bodies, even voices.

Starting with lines and ending with stories. In this project kids start by drawing as many different kids of lines as they can with as many tools they can find on the table (pens, pencils, charcoal, etc). After filling a big sheet of paper with lines they identify the three or four they want to use to draw (no words) a story with a character, something happening, and an end.

Mini comics. We turned regular 8.5x 11 sheet of white cardstock into an 8 panel mini comic with the magic of doublesided photocopiers. Basically I use this template.

Asking kids to brainstorm a list of nouns and verbs and adjectives which they all write of slips of white paper and then put them in a bag or hat and in groups of two or three they pick a noun, verb, and adjective out of the bag and have some time to turn those three elements into a good story, refine it and draw it.

There are helpful handouts showing cartooning principles (like expressive faces or thought and voice bubbles and other elements) but I encourage challenging children to make their own. Pair kids with a similar level of confidence in their drawing ability together to come up with their own faces and elements.

There's more of course and I will put more up when I can but cartoons and comics and kids and creativity doesn't need too many rules...

try it and let me know how it works for you!
best,
Rachael