The 2013 Summer Reading List!

How to Milk a Dinocow

If a freak milk accident that sparks life to a half cow, half stegosaurus isn’t weird enough, imagine how strange it’s going to get when Trip Stanley’s class starts drinking the milk! 

Trip Stanley’s best friend Jules spills a glass of creamery milk onto his uncle’s dinosaur machine and activates the contraption. A creature hatches and grows rapidly into a black and white spotted stegosaurus with and an udder. A stegcowsaurus. When the last bottle of creamery milk that Jules had planned to bring to school for show and tell is knocked over, Trip decides to milk the stegcowsaurus. 

Everyone in class is given a taste and the reaction causes spots and horns. One classmate even grows a tail. It’s up to Trip to figure out how to de-dinosaur his classmates and keep from getting kicked out of school, all while preventing his mom from discovering the stegcowsaurus in his bedroom. 

With angry classmates and an upset teacher in his living room, Trip finds a solution in his own advice, when life give you lemons you make lemonade. 

How To Milk A Dinocow Available on Amazon!

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Shellless

Jirst Bluefin's biggest problem is being ignored. Kacela Middleton is the one person in the world who is never ignored. Jirst is about to discover that sometimes it's better to be ignored for no reason than to become popular over nothing at all. Shellless is the story of Jirst Bluefin the First as he tries to overcome his biggest problem.

Jirst Bluefin is a quirky, loner who spends his afternoons talking to imaginary dinosaurs that swim in a pond. The dinosaurs look like turtles that lost their shells. He calls them the Shellless. After a chance meeting, the intelligent and sophisticated Kacelia Middleton befriends Jirst. Taking note of Jirst's major problem, being ignored, Kacelia encourages him to come out of his shell. 

Jirst tries a few funny, yet failed attempts at gaining popularity. Desperate to acquire recognition, Jirst resorts to telling his classmates the tale of his make-believe, dinosaur friends. However, he inadvertently leaves the impression that the Shellless are real. Believing that extinct plesiosaur swim in the pond of the local park give Jirst the boost of popularity he covets.

Shellless Available on Amazon!
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The Metal Marble

Tucker's Aunt Nyce is his mom's little sister only she isn't that little and she isn't that nice. He has to get used to it though because he's stuck working at her beach restaurant The Crab & Grab for the next two weeks. 

While hauling boxes of stinky fish from the dock, Tucker and his 11-year-old cousin Trist discover a golf ball size, transparent metal "marble" floating in the sea. Ignoring the warnings from salty dog Chef, Tucker and Trist leave the marble in the sunshine until it dries. The marble hatches into a half real, half robotic mechanical turtle. 

From the moment the marble opens, Aunt Nyce places Tucker in charge of the turtle. He soon realizes the biggest threat comes from his aunt's schemes to use the unique creature to draw customers.

The Metal Marble Available on Amazon!
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The Critter Cube Book

There are three sections of the Critter Cube book. The first section introduces the characters. Since the Critter Cube Book is designed to be interactive, this section allows the reader to decide what characteristics each character will have. 

The second part of the book allows the reader to write his or her own story. There are prompts that the reader can use as helpful guides but they will determine the story. 

The third section of the book is a flipbook that allows the reader to change not only the story line, but also the characters by simply flipping the pages. 

The Critter Cube Book is sponsored by the Graham Johnson Cultural Arts Endowment; a non-profit organization whose purpose is to develop, promote and coordinate the arts and cultural experiences for the community of Wake Forest as well as North Carolina.


The Critter Cube Book Available on Amazon!

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Ligers, Tigons And Pizzlies

When two different kinds of animals, which are very closely related, create a new life, the baby animal is called a hybrid. For example, if a zebra and a horse have a foal, the yearling is a hybrid called a zorse. 

Zorse is a cool name. Hybrid however, is a boring name that sounds more like a way to create electricity by pouring water through a turbine than it does a combination of two living creatures. From now on, I'm going to refer to hybrids as newimals. 

Though some are rare, all of the newimals in this book are real.

Ligers, Tigons And Pizzlies Available on Amazon!

Art Of Education 2013 Online Conference

Tuesday, June 25th, I presented at the Art Of Education 2013 Online Conference.. How very exciting! Yes, I know! And not only presented but I went first! Feeling pretty good about being the opening act :)

There were two parts to this conference.  The first part was a pre-recorded video that went live for attendees at 11am EST. There was also a live chat during the same time where I tried to answer questions. 

The second half is ongoing as the presentations have been posted to the Art Of Education Ning site. There is also a forum where attendees of the conference can post questions.

Above: A photo I snagged off of Twitter

So what was my presentation about? Well, here is the intro...

Art Vs Education!

Art teachers are creative beings. We teach a creative subject with creative materials. However, the bureaucracy of education; pacing guides, standards and even the curriculum can jab, punch and often KO an art teacher’s creative endeavor. In this presentation we’ll toe the line with the issues that put art teachers up against the ropes and we’ll learn how to knock those concerns out of the ring. Let’s get ready to rumble!

The Posters:

These just under way. I haven't made any non-street art since my last show at the Block Gallery. To be honest, I wasn't sure if I wanted to show again.. Now I'm thinking, this might be fun.

These works are going to be a combination of the concept behind the Critter Cubes created for a public art project in Wake Forest and the style of my digital work, only using mixed media.

So these are just started. Let's see where it all goes...

No, It's Not Digital!

New paintings! And no, they are not digital. I found some of that stinky paper in the storage room at school. I mean stinky, literally. It smells really weird! 

It doesn't have a good texture and it doesn't have a very good weight but for whatever reason, I like to draw on it. 

So I'm working on some new stuff, which is really old stuff cause I always draw the same thing over and over again and that's ok cause it makes me happy. Took these pics on my phone so they are not very good but you get the idea...

123D Creature : iPad App

Last night I gave 123D Creature a whirl. I gotta say, at first I was conbaffled... but as i started to play around, I started to figure it out. 

At first, I just wanted to make anything... just to see how the app worked..

Then I decided to try to make something in particular. So I made this giraffe.

I like the lights and how you apply the textures. Very similar to 123D Sculpt but more powerful. Less guessing and more exacting.

Critters 3.0

Pretty sure we are on version Critter 3.0...

Introducing Cork Critters!!

Miniature street art ready to be found or washed down the sewer.. whichever comes first...


UPDATE:

After working on these last night I decided I'm much to lazy and blind to paint these little things. Instead, I'll create the art on the iPad, print out the art as labels and mass produce these little guys.

(see label examples below)

Better art, less work. Thanks for the tip, Andy Warhol.

123D Sculpt

One of the iPad apps I've started playing around with called 123D Sculpt. It's like having a little virtual ball of clay and pulling on it till it looks like something.. or sort of looks like something :)

iPads and Flying Planes

I don't much like to fly. Well, that's not true. I don't mind flying. i'm more afraid of crashing. Something about not being in control and being squished into some little tube going 500 miles na hour doesn't sit well with me. 

To avoid panic, i like to draw on my iPad. Here are a few from my Flying Plane series... Above: Draw to NYC

Flying back to Raleigh from NY. I was pretty tired ;)

I think I made this one flying back to Raleigh from the NAEA conference in Texas

Pretty sure this was painted on the way to Texas, going to the NAEA conference.

Love and Pancakes

One of my students told me she had to write a speech for her Speech 2 class. She needed to write the speech based on a quote. I said the only quote I know is one I made up..

“Love is better than pancakes, and pancakes are really good.”

To my surprise, she used this quote for her speech. Today, she received her grade. 100. :)  Below is the speech she gave.

Hello my name is Katelynn W and I wanted to start off talking about one of the art teachers at our school, Mr. Sands. He teaches Art 1, computer art, and art history.  He is very creative, fun, supportive, and is one of my favorite teachers. So after I was given this assignment to talk about a motivational speech, I asked him what his favorite inspirational quote was.  He replied with a quote he made himself which is:” Love, is better than pancakes.  And pancakes are really really really really good.”

               

 So naturally after hearing that, I started daydreaming about pancakes.  I imagined waking up on a Sunday morning to the smell of freshly made warm pancakes, and after getting out of a nice warm bed, I pictured an endless table FULL of every type of pancake you could imagine.  Fresh chocolate chip pancakes where the chocolate chips are still warm and melty, and it’s piled with whipped cream, or maybe pumpkin spice pancakes with a little bit of cinnamon and powdered sugar or those little Mickey Mouse pancakes with the cute little ears.  There are SO many different types of pancakes; from the batter recipe to all the different toppings the possibilities are endless.

                 

And think of ALL the different people who would be at that table.  People who you never would have thought you had something in common with, probably people you never thought you’d get a long with. But there you all are surrounding each other, while you’re all enjoying freshly made pancakes, being happy. Together.

               

 Love is a lot like pancakes. Love is what connects us all together, it is what inspires us, what drives us; it’s what makes us human.  Love is made up of so many different emotions, experiences, and “recipes” .  Love is different for every person, just like how every pancake is unique.  I also think that everyone loves differently too, and in order to experience love to its fullest beauty, we have to accept love in all of its different, odd, and wonderful ways. 

               

 You can find love for everything and everyone. I know personally, I find that people can get really annoying, frustrating, and can be just plain stupid. However, I also know that every person has a quality that makes them brilliant.  Every single person on the planet deserves love, and ONLY YOU have the power to give your love to someone, and to make the difference.  Remember, you don’t have to like people; you just have to love them.

              

  I’d like to leave you with, what I believe to be the most important part of that quote. Where it says: “love is better than pancakes”. Better. Love is what we need to share with everyone. What you can share with everyone and what will be shared with you in return.  Love is what lasts, love is what brings happiness, and love is what will bring out a radiant and a rarely seen beauty that will last much longer than any pancake ever will.