Completed Sketchbook Project 2012 Book

I have posted a slide show of my completed book for the Sketchbook Project 2012 on the Drawings Page. In the book, I had fun using one loooooong continuous line to draw toys from my childhood.

Painting of St. Genevieve

Here is a portion of a painting that I finished a few weeks ago. To see the whole painting please go to the Paintings Page. This was my first time painting skin color with acrylic paints. I had a lot of fun painting the cloud pattern in the background. Maybe too much fun!

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!