France Sketchbook

On the Drawings Page, I posted a slide show of my the sketchbook that I kept in 2006 while studying abroad in France. Enjoy!

Student Art

I have posted some photos of student art projects on the Student Art Projects page. I also posted a PhotoStory that I made about How to Begin a Coil Basket.

Not So Simple Machines

One of the projects for the 5th grade Art curriculum is to "Depict an imaginative mechanical process of a personal technological object." I use this opportunity to teach about the cartoonist Rube Goldberg and his drawings of silly machines that perform simple tasks in absurd, complex ways. We look at many of Goldberg's machines and then the children draw and write descriptions of their own chain reaction machines. Someone always designs a toilet flushing machine. I show the kids a few YouTube videos to help them come up with more wacky ideas. We watch "The Way Things Go: A Chain Reaction by Fischli and Weiss" and OK Go's music video for their song "This Too Shall Pass." I wanted to include an example of a Rube Goldberg cartoon in this post, but his images are highly trademarked. Check out www.rubegoldberg.com to see some of his hilarious cartoons.

Art on the Football Field

I'm enjoying watching art and fashion design make their way on to the football field. The University of Maryland football team has been wearing different uniforms each week. Lots of people gawked at these crazy half and half uniforms inspired by the state flag, but I thought they were fun. And then this past Saturday, they were wearing these doodly looking turtle shell helmets and I was thrilled.

Fresh Sketchbook for The Sketchbook Project

My blank sketchbook from The Sketchbook Project arrived this week. I chose the theme "Along the Line" because I enjoy making tattoo-like line drawings. Here's a picture of the fresh, unaltered book. I'll post another photo when I finish it so that I can compare the Before and After. January 31st is my deadline to complete it. I'm pretty excited, but I'm not sure how to begin. I mean this sketchbook is going to go on a world tour. It's a rock star!

The Results Are In

Me and Dad at his Politics and Prose book signing on Monday night.
Oh, and my time for the 5K was 34:50.

A 5K and A Voice in the Box

What a great way to begin a blog- with exciting news about both of my career paths!

Today, I ran a 5K to benefit one of the 2 elementary schools where I teach art classes. This was my first ever 5K and I'm hoping that I finished in under 40 minutes. Our times won't be posted until later today. It was a lot of fun to run with my co-workers and many of my students and their families. I love the happy sense of community associated with that school.

The big news about my illustration career is that I created the drawings for my father's autobiography, A Voice in the Box: My Life in Radio, which is currently out in stores. I will be attending his book signing tomorrow night at Politics & Prose in D.C. at 7 PM. Here is a cool slide show about his book that features my illustrations: