Free Kindle Books!

Christmas Day is finally here! You rip open your gift and to your delight you received a Kindle or iPad or other wonderful device that reads eBooks. How very exciting! What could make that present even better?? A Free Kindle Book!!

Starting Christmas day, and running the day after, you can download any of the following great reads for free! Check them out -->

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.


Download The Metal Marble Free December 25th & 26th


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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, being ignored. After befriending Kacelia Middleton, the one person in the world who is never ignored, Jirst discovers that it's better to be ignored for no reason than to become popular for the wrong.

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.

Download Shellless Free December 25th & 26th


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Crushing Turtles:
Tori crushes turtles. She crushes box turtles and painted turtles, sliders and musk turtles. She secretly wishes she could go to the beach and step on baby sea turtles as they leave the nest. The only turtle Tori hasn’t crushed; the only one she wants to crush, lives in that lake. It waits at the bottom buried in the mud. Tori has never seen it but she knows its there... and she hates it.

Download Crushing Turtles Free December 25th & 26th

Crushing Turtles : Published Finally

Crushing Turtles

Available on Amazon

I started this book about five years ago. After working on it for a week, I stopped myself. This was not my usual, whimsical story. Why was I writing this story?

A year later, I read over what little I had. I liked what i had written and decided to pick it up again. After another week, I had the same experience. This went on for several years.

Finally last year, I was having a discussion about National Write a Novel in a Month with a student. She encouraged me to take part in NaNoWriMo again as I had in the past. I told her I couldn't start something new since I still had stories I hadn't finished. She was persistent so I made a promise to finish Crushing Turtles. It then took me another year to actually post it. So here we are.

Below, are short, excerpts from a few chapters in the story.

Two:
Nick likes Tori. He brings her turtles. Tori
likes Nick. He reminds her of her little brother.
Tori never crushes turtles in front of Nick.
“It would corrupt your soul,” She says.
Nick isn’t sure what a soul is or what
corrupt means, he just knows it sounds bad.

Three:
Tori is never hard to find. She’s at the lake.
Kids swim in the lake. They swim from the shore
out to the float. They dive off the board. Nick
wants to swim to the float and dive off the board.
It looks like fun. Nick is too small. He stands on
the dock.
Tori doesn’t swim. She used to swim near
the shore with her little brother. He was too small
to swim to the float. Tori doesn’t swim anymore.
She stands on the dock.

Nine:
The older boy’s rod bends. He reels in his
line and pulls up a sunfish. It flops around on the
dock. The older boy takes a knife from his tackle
box. He steps on the fish to hold it still and cuts
off its head.
“Stupid sunny.” Says the boy. He flicks the
knife sending the two pieces of fish into the lake.
“Turtle food.”
Nick watches the fish head sink.

Ten:
Nick kicks the sheet off his feet and
uncovers his toes. He thinks about fish heads. He
wonders if cutting a fish in half in front of him
corrupted his soul. But he doesn’t know what
corrupt means.
“What’s a soul?” asks Nick.
“It’s the part of you that doesn’t die.” says
Tori.
Nick looks at his toes and wonders if one of
them is his soul.
“Which part?”
“Inside you. Like, inside your heart.”

Interchangeables!

A new batch of Critters is born! The "interchangeables"! So named because the top half and bottom half are separate so they can be swapped out with other critters! How exciting! Yes, I know!

If you look at these images, you will notice a few things. first, these Critters have already been swapped around. Second, there are words on the front of each Critter. These words say stuff like Dream/Passionately or Accept/Entirely. However, since they are Interchangeables, you might come up with some new sayings like, Dream/Entirely. See how that works?

Where can i get one you ask? Well, check Downtown Raleigh on First Friday.. You might just find some if you know where to look :)

Spray Painting on the iPad

Been messing around with the Spray Paint app on the the iPad. It runs a little sluggish but maybe cause I have an older iPad..My iPad needs more Power! This week's Illustration Friday word...

 I lost my stylus so I've been working with my finger which isn't as easy.. I need to get a new one.. remind me!

1000 Zonkeys

I had this idea.. What if I created 1000 plush stuff animal zonkeys and sent them to art teachers every where? The zonkeys could be used to inspire students to write stories, create paintings, collaborate on animations and a host of other creative ideas that haven't even been thought of yet... 

so I'm creating a Kickstarter page to well, kick it all off. Here is the 135 character promo...

#1000Zonkeys will place 1000 plush zonkeys into the hands of art students across the nation in order to inspire them to create and make art! 

LOL!

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"Fresh" works by Ian Sands..
Above: three separate works placed together how they will be displayed.
Below: each of the works individually
Mixed Media: ink, acrylic, colored pencil, pastel, marker

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The Metal Marble : Free for Kindle!

Get a Free Copy of
The Metal Marble
This weekend
Starting Friday August 9th and running till Sunday August 11th.
Download your copy of The Metal Marble on Amazon for absolutely nothing!

That's right, a Free copy of The Metal Marble!!


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.

Tucker may be scrawny and shy on the outside, but he knows the difference between right and wrong. He names the turtle, Gearbox and together with Trist, faces a constant challenge to foil Aunt Nyce's plans.

Tucker’s solutions only lead Aunt Nyce to generate more horrible ideas. Will it all boil to a head when his aunt decides to add turtle to a special buffet dinner menu??

Nothing says summer like a good book and a wind up turtle!

Aprox 5,000 words. Third Grade.

Grab your copy of The Metal Marble on Amazon!


Looking for more summer reading? Check out our 2013 Summer Reading List!

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Zonkey Walk: Test One

Zonkey Walk: Test 1 from Apex HS Art on Vimeo.

This is a test of the walking ability of the Zonkey Box. This is the first test using different timing and distance to judge the best overall walk cylce plus we included the delightful Will Smith.

Next steps (no pun intended) to take Zonkey for a walk all over Apex. I'm talking about a lot of photos... stay tuned!!

Critter Posters Cont...

Meanwhile, back in the studio...

For those of you sick of reading about stuff that makes us angry.. stuff that makes us mad.. stuff that makes us unhappy...

Along with cranking out a few books this summer I'm also back in the studio working on a few paintings.

An art teacher friend of mine once described my work as "A Party On Paper." 

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 (still) just started. Let's see where it all goes...

Hope it makes you.. happy!