Sandy Steen Bartholomew's Blog, page 19

Western Adventure Day 2

We found a great bakery for breakfast then hopped in a cab to get us down to the Museum of Science and Industry. The main building looked like an art museum, but we entered through a nondescript little building by the road. 
I was so shocked to see what looked like a huge underground city spread out before us!!!?  It was a little like going down under the glass pyramid at the Louvre... Except here was a shiny train and flashing lights... And then we created tornadoes and avalanches, watched experiments with different colors of flames and explosions, saw an exhibit about Disney and animation and an amazing princess castle created from Legos, watched a tiny train travel from Seattle to Chicago, stared upwards as the landing gear retracted into an airplane directly over our heads...

We saw the insanely amazing miniature Fairie Castle with painted story murals, King Arthur's Round Table, mermaid bathrooms, a chapel with a real sliver of the cross, diamond encrusted chairs, and real, teeny, books in the library!

We could have spent hours there except the crowds were overwhelming us and we needed to be at the University of Chicago ASAP for a campus info session and tour. 
I admit I was as excited as Alex to visit UChicago! I didn't get to do the traditional college tour thing. A shame, because I might have ended up here instead. I wanted to major in Egyptology and there were only three schools where I could do so. UPenn, UChicago, and Brown. Brown was the only one close enough to my home to visit on my own. I have always felt disappointed in my choice, and now I know why. But... If I hadn't gone to Brown... I wouldn't have my kids. 
I've always wanted to see the Oriental Institute too - which is like Mecca for Egyptologists. I've only ever seen the items in the museum, in books. Standing in front of the gigantic lamassu, with its man's head and animal body, my heart racing with that old geeky excitement... And the Egyptian statues, Sakhmet, and the mummies! So maybe I was never meant to be an archaeologist, but there is something that calls to me so strongly when I see these ancient relics. 
Ahem. Breathe. Ah - back to the campus...

The tour was quite impressive and a bit of a shock... We went from the gothic, ivy covered quad to the ultra modern enormous library and bright yellow dorms. To a student center that I swear was straight out of Harry Potter - complete with Phoenix embedded in the ancient floor tiles. 
The Rockefeller Chapel left our jaws hanging open as we listened to an enormous bell chiming music from somewhere out of sight and organ pipes protruding from everywhere. 

I think we were all stunned, and exhausted, yet so excited about everything. 
We had walked all over the giant science museum, Walked miles around the campus, walked around the ancient exhibits at the Oriental Institute museum, walked around the church, walked blocks and blocks to get to the train station, walked and walked back to our hotel... Oy veh. We walked. 

And we passed a Lego Architecture Studio. Seriously!?  I understand why people live in cities now. How have we survived in a town so small it could fit inside the huge fountain we passed by this morning?

We didn't stop moving long enough to do any journal pages, but we burned enough calories to eat whatever the heck we wanted for dinner!! I had chicken carbonara and a caprese salad.  Oh, serious, yum. 
Lilah seems to be adjusting to the city already - and then we head out tomorrow! But we are already making plans for what we will see and do WHEN we return. And WHEN Alex comes to school here. He asked what will he do - how will he choose- if he gets accepted to both Dartmouth AND UChicago? 
I don't envy him these decisions, but I pointed out how lucky he is that his parents aren't pushing him or limiting him. He may not be able to afford to go to some schools, but he is free to apply. 
I have been wondering lately- with Alex's talent for languages and his history and science skills- perhaps, sometimes, our dreams are not ours to realize, but merely premonitions of our kids' futures. I am so excited to see what adventures they choose to pursue. 

The Western Adventure Begins

This is the first time I have ever flown with my daughter, Lilah. This is the first major trip I've ever taken with her. From one moment to the next I am thinking "there are so many places in the world we need to go together!" And then "OMG What the %#*~# =¥?! Was I thinking?!"
She was the perfect travel companion on the plane. So much calmer than me. Chatty with our seat mate. Supportive, not gloating while she left my Clumsy Ninja in the dust. We even drew a great journal page - the rule being "one line each". We got very creative with how we drew our "one line"!

Then, as we were circling Chicago... It's like a switch was flipped and she's a different person.  Hard to explain... But, licking my arm? Seriously? Eeeergh. 

She got really quiet as she realized that this was a CITY. 

And then, as we were all walking through that CITY- in search of the best deep dish pizza anywhere- according to a guy in a uniform in the hotel ... the noise, the crush of people, the homeless characters, the street musicians, the tall buildings... It all overwhelmed her and she melted down completely. 
I realized, she'd never been to a really huge city before. She said she'd been to Boston for a day, but Boston is NOT a big city. 
I finally coaxed her in to the restaurant (we were all starving!) by suggesting she help me make two lists. One would be all the things she hated about the city, and the next, all the things that were great. 

Things looked better until a baby started screaming. With all the noise and chaos of the streets, it's amazing how much extra noise the restaurant added in - loud music AND TVs blaring. We've been focused on watching a lot of "Avatar," the cartoon, lately and we have philosophical discussions about which of the elements each of us would be tied too. Lilah is definitely a Water bender and Alex is Air. I suggested that she and her brother work together to form a protective bubble around us all to keep out the "too much city". Amazingly... It worked. 
She went back later and scribbled out "Avrething" from the bad side of the list. 

Especially after she had eaten all the fried calamari - she realized there were some pretty cool things about the city. 


My journal has become a joint venture with everyone adding their doodles. My mom drew an entire page with Lilah and me as the focus. I have no idea what the other things are on the table? 

Oh, and the pizza was fabulous. 

Outside the restaurant were two fountains. Lilah practiced her water bending skills. 

Then we explored Millenium Park (still protected by the Bubble!)

And we found another Bubble to explore! Or maybe it was a spaceship? The reflections were mesmerizing. 

We stumbled across this amazing metal bug that turned out to be a free music festival about to start...

If you look at the map above, you can see just how huge the festival was. That oval shape in the middle is the grassy lawn where most people were packed in. They had picnic blankets and some had tables set up with wine. Quite the ritzy To Do. 
Oh. And our hotel is jaw droppingly gorgeous. 

Although, the room is tiny with two double beds. We squashed a rollaway in for the six foot tall teenager. And Lilah is sleeping, very comfortably, between our beds.
The floors are not only super soft, but very tangle inspiring!

Lastly, before I keel over, here are the covers of the Moleskine journals that Lilah and I customized for the trip. 


(Note the Lilah Beans and the train!)

AlphaTangled! The NEW Card Collection (and contest!)

If you read my blog post in June about the addition to the Tangle Library App and cursed loudly because you don't do i-anything, you own an Android, or you just really love the feel of real cards in your hands - curse no more!


I am proud to announce a new collection...  the AlphaTangled Tangle Cards!

[Just to clarify - the book is a collection of "AlphaTangles," this is a collection of "AlphaTangled cards".]

AlphaTangled Tangle Cards © Sandy Steen BartholomewThese cards were self-published and I can't tell you HOW EXCITED I was to open the box from the printer and spill out 50 smaller boxes all over the table... while Bonnie looked on in horror. I have a weird obsession with stacks of cards or new books... sigh. Whereas Bonnie was already thinking of how it would fall to her to sort out all the designs, (alphabetized of course), collate the cards into sets and fill all the boxes. Squeeeee! They look even lovelier stacked up in their little boxes!

AlphaTangled Tangle Cards © Sandy Steen BartholomewThe AlphaTangled card collection has 40 tangle cards - all traditional Zentangle® patterns, a cover card, 3 blank template cards, and a card with a "prize" on it (sticker, tattoo or pin). They are all housed in a clear storage box.

The cards are 2.5x3.5 inches, baseball/ATC sized. If you are into being super organized... Ahem... they can fit into baseball card sleeves in a binder. Or if you own all my other card packs already, you might like to sort them all together into categories like "borders," "backgrounds"... etc. On the fronts of all the cards, there is a little box in the upper right corner. This set has "ZT" pre-printed, but there is space to add your own code too. The previous sets of cards have an Index card and space to write out your codes. I use "ZT" to show all cards that are traditional Zentangle patterns. The only card in this pack that is repeated in another pack, is the "Zander" tangle. But this one shows a slight variation and has different art.

When the first three packs of cards came out - a year ago! - I did a bunch of challenges with card packs as prizes. I think we should do that again to celebrate this pack too. Since I will be away on an adventure with my family, I will give an extended deadline.

Here's the challenge:

Create a Zentangle using your name or nickname as the string, and only traditional tangle patterns to fill it in.
You may interpret the challenge however you like, but stick to black, white and red, and shading, for your color palette. Any size.

Post it to my studio Facebook page. I set up an AlphaTangle Album to make it easier to view all the art together.

Deadline will be August 18th , so you have plenty of time.

What might you win?!
There will be two winners. One will be chosen by me (and Bonnie) and they will win a pack of the new cards and an AlphaTangle poster or an original AlphaTangle book (vintage, black cover).
The second winner will be chosen by popular choice - the most "Likes" on Facebook - and they will win a new pack of cards and a copy of AlphaTangle with the red cover (Design Originals).

I will post all the entries here on the blog.

If you want your AlphaTangled cards NOW, you can get them at my Etsy store, or on my website. All the other packs of cards, and the AlphaTangle books, are also available on those sites.

These new cards are not available at wholesale, but the Totally Tangled, Yoga for Your Brain, and Kidz! Editions are available by contacting Judith McCabe at Fox Chapel Publishing.

Ms. Moffatt's Meditative Mandala Masterpieces - A Review

Last fall, on the way home from Bonnie's Zentangle certification seminar in Providence, we had the good fortune to visit the studio of my friend, and master childrens' book illustrator, Judith Moffatt! Her studio was charming and highly distracting as every inch was covered in pictures and framed artwork. She's illustrated a gazillion books using her distinctive cut-paper style illustrations and she teaches at RISD.

We met at a childrens' book illustrators' art exhibit at Mill Brook Gallery about three years ago. Her art was cut-paper, my pieces were all Zentangle related. Our correspondence after that was all about Zentangle and I loved her resulting tangled images.

So it shouldn't have been a surprise when we were seated on her studio couch, that she asked if we wanted to see her newest creations. It's so hard to explain... we were surrounded by framed pages from her books... pieces of colored papers so tiny they had to be placed with tweezers... whimsical children playing... and she shows us these exquisite pen and ink mandalas with tangles and mermaids and flowers and birds...!

Bonnie and I were gobsmacked into silence. Just the sound of drool dripping. (Ick.) But, seriously, these drawings were so beautiful we wanted to grab them and shout out to the world "Whoa!!" And Judy tells us they are her secret work and we can't say anything. BUT, she is working on a coloring book with some of the drawings and she'll let us know when it's ready.

.... IT'S READY!!

And she sent me a copy to play with!!

Lilah and I have spent the past three days, in our pajamas, coloring. If you'd like to see our masterpieces and our review of the Mandala Coloring book, continue reading on after Judy's description and art.

© Judith MoffattJudy's description of the coloring book:
It took me a year to create the 9 Mandalas in this 20 page book. Each spread has an ink drawing of a Mandala on the right hand side, and a description of the inspiration for the Mandala with some of the symbolism explained on the left hand side. Two pages in the front teach about the best way to choose colors, what a Mandala is, and how I create my own type of Mandala. The front and backs of the cover are full color heavy stock (100 lb. paper) and the pages are a great quality white paper (80 lb.). Recommended for kids who have outgrown their juvenile coloring books to adults. A great way to relax.
Book is a nice portable size: 8 1/2 by 10

© Judith MoffattOne tip I give my friends: if they are buying my book as a gift, include a package of Crayola twistable colored pencils. Pack of 18 only $2 at Target and they are pretty darn good!

© Judith Moffatt Moon mandala © Judith Moffatt
My moon Mandala is one of my favorites and the Loves Garden Mandala makes a great wedding gift (I also sell Giclee prints on Etsy).

Loves Garden mandala © Judith Moffatt Judy's blog is a great place to learn more about her cut paper art and her current projects.
 and you can get the Mandala coloring book on her Etsy shop  -  MsMoffat

If you are interested in seeing more, read on to see what Lilah and I discovered.


Lilah learned right away that markers are not the right tool for this book. Although the colors look great on this paper, they bleed through and ruin the next page...


If you like to use markers, I suggest you make a copy of the page to work on. We ended up making a few copies of certain pages so that Lilah and I wouldn't fight over them!

It is also a good idea to slide a clean sheet of paper under the drawing you are working on so that color from other pages doesn't get transferred to the back of the page. If you are planning on using the finished pieces as gifts - cut the pages out of the book before you start coloring.

Colored pencils are the perfect medium for this paper - we used Prismacolors - and coloring was a dream. Keep the pencils nice and sharp so you can color the little details.

Lilah had a heavy hand with her application, but her color choices were inspiring.

Rolling River mandala - colored by Lilah B.
And she loved recording her choices on the color palette for each image.


When she finished the piece, above, she looked over at the Sun mandala I was working on and made comparisons etc. between our works. I explained that I had been practicing all my life and had learned some little tricks.

I showed her how to vary the amount of pressure put on the pencil to achieve lighter and darker areas with the same color (red ring, blue backgrounds, and body of fish)...


And how to outline an area with more pressure, then ease up in the center space (the orange face in the middle).

And her favorite - how to blend two colors together! I start with a darker color, like orange on the fat end of the sun rays. It is darker (more pressure) at first, then I ease up as I spread into the ray. I go back over the whole section with a lighter color, like yellow, and blend it all together. I did the same thing on the blue rays - starting with a nice deep blue, then going back over with a light blue color, but pressing harder.


Lilah watched carefully, then applied these tips to her second page, the Moon mandala. She varied her pressure and blended colors...


Wow. That is quite a transformation!


And she taught me about choosing colors fearlessly...


... and knowing when to stop!!  Did you know that it is OK to stop coloring, even if all the spaces aren't filled yet?


I chose bright colors for mine.


But I insisted that I LIKE to fill in all the spaces...

Sun mandala - colored by Sandy B.
...although I agreed that leaving some spots white looks very nice.

While waiting for our lunch at The Foothills, we passed a story-picture back and forth. It was funny to watch it develop... it started with Lilah drawing a smiling face that was divided in half, just like those from the mandalas, with detailed eyes. When I embellished her simple seagulls so that they looked like they might be attacking the sun - Lilah changed the sun to be a pig (from Angry Birds). And then there were more birds, and bombs, and a story, and we were applying skills from Comic Camp...

Sun-pig mandala-comic - by Sandy and Lilah B.
And then we came home and colored some more!

I picked the color palette - fearlessly.


And Lilah decided we would each work on the Mother Nature mandala.

"Nice blending, Lilah!"


"Nice white space, Mom!"

Mother Nature mandala - colored by Sandy B.
I love to color. I had forgotten. If you love to color too - you'll adore this little book. There are nine mandalas and they are just the right size to work on comfortably. I enjoyed learning about the symbolism of the images too. My advice, if you plan on using this with your kids, grandkids, or students, is - get more than one copy! My... ahem... "our"  copy is quite beat up now. [Each book is only $8 and the shipping is very reasonable the more copies you buy. Click here for more info.]

Oh - and one more useful tip! If you mount your finished mandala on black cardstock or black matboard, you won't see any shadows of text from the back of the page.

I plan to bring the book with us on our adventure next week - I still have seven more mandalas to color!

Minou and Lilah both find mandalas to be very relaxing.

June Journal Pages

Here are my pages for Journal52 - I'm trying to keep up with July's and forgot to post June's!

Week 22 - Traveling

This is my favorite way to travel... by book. But that might just be because I have never gone first class. Next time I go to Egypt, I would love to see it from the luxury-travel point of view. I've been-there-done-that as "family trip," "archaeology student," and "tourists packed into a motorcoach." Maybe it's a bit shallow of me, but I want to know my salad hasn't been served to someone before me, and my mattress is 100% synthetic - not one bit of camel hair included! ;-) I don't mind get dusty and sweaty climbing through tombs and pyramids, but at the end of the day, I want a clean shower in a safe hotel.

This drawing was done with a UniPin pen, Tombow and Koi markers, and a waterbrush.

© Sandy Steen Bartholomew
Week 23 - Passion

Passion... I am actually struggling with this very thing right now. I know when I am excited about something, but I can't seem to make a list of passions to help me decide what to focus on... So I did a journal page more on the topic of what "Passion" feels like to me. Parts are a bit muddy, but this is not meant to be negative - there's a lot of cool colors and patterns in there.

© Sandy Steen Bartholomew I used Tombow markers to draw the word "Passion," then coated it with a Gelly Glaze pen and drew all the designs with the Glaze pen too. Then I poured acrylic inks over it. Let it dry, drew more with the Glaze pen, added more ink. Finally, I drew the other words, and outlined "Passion" with a white Souffle pen. Seemed kind of symbolic since it started out nice and clean and pretty - and ended up looking like a mess. But that is what I had intended.


Week 24 - Courage 
I saw this prompt one morning as I was panic-ing about an upcoming meeting. I was trying to distract myself by scanning email and was drawn to this quote in a post from the FoodBabe: 
"First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win." - Mahatma Gandhi 
And I realized that was the path of my entire marriage. And my divorce. Except for the actual legal part of the proceedings... we didn't "fight". And that's where I lost. I knew what was right, what I "should" do, but I lost my courage. 
I'm not sure why this popped into my head as a "comic" - maybe the irony? It's drawn with a UniPin pen and colored with Tombow markers.
© Sandy Steen Bartholomew  Week 25  - Nature Inspired

I guess life inspires art.
I wasn't picturing anything for this prompt except pretty landscapes, etc. But I don't DO pretty landscapes. So I was stuck.

Then one day, I had just returned home from an awful meeting and was trying to decide if I should just sit in my carport and cry? I didn't want to bring all my yuck-brain into my house. 

As I sat,  I realized I was watching a very pretty spider wrap a much larger, very ugly spider, in her web. I was fascinated, and strangely encouraged. "If she can do it - I can do it." Plus... the image would work for this week's journal homework. Yeah!

The whole piece is done in watercolors. I was going to say "No spiders were harmed in the making of this piece..." but, well... that's just not true. 
 
© Sandy Steen Bartholomew
Week 26 - Under the Sea

Materials: crayons and small children
 
I spent the day at a Garden Party. I felt out of place among the big people (I never know what to talk about!) Then, I saw two small tables with tiny chairs and crayons and piles of white paper and tiny people...OMG... my tribe! Along with my daughter, my nieces, and some other random little boys - we drew lots of horses, unicorns, seahorses, unicorn-seahorses... and mermaids. This one was my favorite! (I'm completely in love with my daughter's seahorses!) 
When I saw this week's prompt, I was SO excited! 
I've GOT this!! Yeah!

© Sandy Steen Bartholomew
Since I had quite a bit of...assistance... with this piece, I thought I should include a piece I did on my own as well. The day after the Mermaid fiesta, I drew this one with a Papermate ballpoint pen while my daughter tried, unsuccessfully, to displace all the water from the hotel pool!

© Sandy Steen Bartholomew
Wow - we are halfway through the year - how crazy is that? I'm hoping I can keep motivating myself to make these journal pages!

Blip, Bleep! >Sigh< - Comic Camp

The >Sigh< is because today was the last day of my comic adventure. But it was a great way to end it. Marek Bennett spoke for most of the day with a presentation after lunch by Cara Bean. Marek had been tutoring my son in Spanish for years so I know how multi-talented he is... languages, musician, world-traveler... cartoonist. He also travels to Nicaragua and draws with the younger kids who aren't out working on the coffee production.

He led us in some exercises that would work great in a classroom. But they would also work well with reluctant adults!

One of my favorites was to start by folding a paper into 8 sections. Each person makes a random doodle shape in one box, then passes the paper to the person on their left. Everyone makes another shape in a box and passes it to their left. This continues until all boxes have some kind of mark/shape in them. The papers are passed one more time. Then each person looks at the shapes on their page until they start to see some kind of image emerging. We added Faces, Action, Text, and Settings (F.A.T.S.) to change the doodle shapes into tiny comics or characters.


Then we created a three panel page. We could choose to do it with the big box on the top... with a large Setting to begin, then an Action, then a Result in the last box. Or flipped over, these with two Detail shots and then a Result shot in the big box. I chose the second one.


I took the birds from the first two boxes of the first exercise (did you notice that all my doodles turned into birds of some kind?) and the action from the 6th box. In this new page, the birds are attracted to each other - one is stunned, the other, a bit shy. But, together, they are unstoppable on the dance floor!


We also created a little strip to show what we would like to do with comics. In my case, I'd like to work with younger kids to write and illustrate their stories and turn them into little comics. Marek showed us how to make very cute, very simple, teeny comic books out of one sheet of paper. Here's a link to a site that is a great resource if you are interested in one sheet comic books.

My favorite take-away from Cara Bean's presentation was that it is very important for the teachers to practice cartooning - not just the students. It changes your outlook on life... not only can you communicate information with your students, but really crazy days and incidents become fodder for your own comics! Her blog is Bad Gigi and she started an illustration class and comic book art club at her school in Lexington, MA. The students became so passionate about comics, they started their own convention, called "Lexicon" (held in May each year) and they have some big names in the industry join them for the two days.

And speaking of kids... here's a picture of my Lilah showing her own comics to Marek. He's seen her work before (when he was tutoring my son), but Lilah has learned a lot this week about comics. Although she wasn't officially IN the camp, she spent a lot of time hearing about projects and exercises (and trying them out), using a dip pen to ink her comics, and lots of time in the comic library. She is working on a comic about a girl from India, who goes to Germany and then takes a boat to the US. Her drawings of the Statue of Liberty are adorable. Her character has very sweet braids and the details in her scenes are mind-blowing. She has a scene of a decrepit playground and all the rungs on the ladders (monkey bars and slides) are split in two and pointing every which way.

She wants to do some more work on it, but when it is finished we'll scan it and put it on her blog. She wants to make some mini-comics of it too.


 Looks like I achieved more than my own goals this week! I wanted to get inspired, get back to pursuing my love of comics and sequential art, get a taste of what going to this school would be like, and learn how to get kids motivated to write and draw using comics. I'd say I could definitely check off the entire list!

If you get the chance to attend a program or workshop at the Center for Cartoon Studies, go for it. You won't regret it!

Zip! Squeeee! - Comic Camp

We finally got to hold our comics in our hot little hands! To recap - yesterday, we had two hours to draw our page and ink it. We went from brainstorming the story, characters, etc. right through to silkscreening and assemble... in one day. Phew. Today we did a critique of the pages.

Here's the front and back covers:


Here's a collage of some parts of interior pages by various classmates:


And here is mine, page 16, the FINAL page:


 And a couple close-ups:


The evil doctor, Snackenstein, gets pulled up into the disco ball by the ghost of Lord Clefer. It snaps shut behind them. In the next scene Miss Terry, the sleuth, is back on the train, having solved the problem of the Zombie food and the grateful Danceylvanians are dancing her off at the station. Frankfort, the dog, has eaten way too much de-zombie-fied food. Yes. It IS a very strange story!


 Oh, and in case you were wondering, yes, I did illustrate my notes this week:


After the critique, we had a great presentation from Steve Bissette about producing, distributing and marketing our comics. He gave us all copies of his comic, Tyrant, and I got mine signed.


 Although he draws mostly monsters, he draws them SO well. And I grew up reading Swamp Thing and seeing his name on the covers. It is just so cool to have had two classes with him this week. (He also did the post-apocalyptic movie night). It was sad to have the camp end. :-( And most are headed back to their regular lives. A few of us are continuing with the Symposium.

During lunch - I FINALLY got to walk around the corner and visit Vermont Salvage. Amazing place filled with reclaimed clawfoot tubs, doors, weird furniture, doorknobs.... I saw so many things I wanted to photograph and sketch. And a few things I wanted to own!


The antique train is parked at the train station. It provides an incredible contrast to the Amtrak trains screeching by and the train that pulls the huge packs from the paper mill.


Then, it was time for Part Two of the comic adventure. This one is more theory, not drawing. The Symposium for Applied Cartooning is geared toward teachers and librarians and how to use comics and cartooning in the classroom. I am really intrigued by "Applied" cartooning and want to learn more about it.

As an aside, two asides... 1. My Zentangle for Kids! book is now part of the Schulz Library collection! Woohoo! and 2. Although I have no need for another tote bag, these we pretty cute. Linus is on the other side. Someday, I might write a comic book about all the retreats and conventions I've been too, called "Yet Another Tote Bag."

 
The keynote was by James Sturm who founded the Center for Cartoon Studies in 2005. He did an interesting lecture on the history of Haiti (none of which I knew) and then told a story about a Haitian hobo and his monkey in White River Junction, fruit from Haiti that came through on the train, voodoo curses, lost comic artwork, and bizarre serendipitous events. All to illustrate how a good story can pique the listener's interest, make them care about something (like the history of Haiti) and intrigue them enough to do more research to learn what is fact or fiction.

We had some discussions, varying opinions, about how to plan a curriculum and the validity of using fiction with kids who are increasingly susceptible to believing everything they hear and see (I don't believe that) and how to get people to draw comic images, even if they don't believe they can draw. Ed Emberley was mentioned because he uses shapes and icons to represent characters and objects and anyone can draw his shapes. Comics are about telling a story, not just illustrating a picture, so the quality and detail of the images are not as important as getting the story across.


 Later, for her birthday dinner, we took my mom out to Elixir's, an upscale restaurant, with no childrens' menu, but farm to table food. I can't even describe how delicious the food was, but Lilah gobbled down everything in front of her (as did mom and I!). I'm sure you are very curious to see what our deserts looked like? They were so pretty we had to take pictures before we would dare to eat them. Lilah noticed that each was served on a different shaped plate!

Bananas Foster cake with toasted cinnamon ice cream and caramel-something sauce, on a square plate...

 So good!

 Chocolate-almond-something cake ice cream sandwich on a rectangular plate...


Yes. So, SO good!

 And mom had strawberry-pineapple (?) sorbet on a triangular plate...


Even the ice cream was made at Elixir's.
I think we all felt like the dog in the last panel of the comic book! (see above).
But very happy. :-)

Ka-zaAM! - Comic Camp

If there were an AP test for Comic Book Design... today would have been that exam.

We spent the morning learning the Old School (photocopies) and the New School (InDesign and Photoshop) methods of creating the actual, printed and bound, comic books.

Then, after lunch, we got really serious!

We learned about World designing. We created the history, economy, fashion, language, flora and fauna for a town known as "Danceylvania" (rhymes with "Transylvania"). Everything had a dance theme or pun and a touch of the sinister.


Next, we were given some characters, the main one being Miss Terry, a young sleuth, as well as the villain, some Zombie food invading the Danceylvania town, and the title... "Miss Terry and the Midnight Snack". And then we were each assigned a page number (I was 16 - that's the last page of the comic!) We ALL brainstormed and worked our way through each page determining where each page began and ended in the plotline. The best part happened when the teachers all "performed" the story back to us. It was so funny - I wish it had been videotaped.

And then...

Our teacher yelled "Go!"

We had from 2:30 to 4:30pm to layout, sketch, ink and clean up our entire page!  By 4:00, my hands were shaking so much my lines got wiggly, and I had to pee something fierce.

At 4:30pm they yelled "Pens down!" And we all ran for the bathroom and then trudged off to dinner.

When we returned, it was to learn about silkscreening the covers. They had been photocopied onto purple paper and then we screen-printed the white letters and details on top. The white glows in the dark!!! How cool is that?


After our assembly line... assembling the comics... we gawked at our masterpieces laid out on the ping-pong table. So beautiful.... sigh. BUT we were NOT allowed to take a copy. No, no. Tomorrow we would get them. I think it's to ensure that everyone shows up for the last class! Good thinking.
Shown above are our teachers, John Chad, in orange shirt, and, in purple, Beth Hetland (who teaches at the Art Institute in Chicago).

Isn't it just SO beautiful!?


Tune in tomorrow to see scandalous interior shots!
And learn the secrets revealed during the critique. Oooo, tremble. ;-)

Splotch! Ploop! - Comic Camp

After hours and hours of drills and practice, I can now honestly say that I am definitely a brush person, and NOT a nib person.  More on that in a bit...

First, I want to show you the bathroom. I was really surprised that the walls of this school are so clean. And white. My own home and studio have murals everywhere. I was sure there would be cartoons scrawled all over. Today I heard about this room and two other ladies and I ventured down into the basement classroom to find it. (Because girls ALWAYS go to the bathroom in groups, right?) It had an out of order sign on the door and, inside, it looked like a crazy cartoonist had been locked in there for years! Wowza. And this is just one wall in the photo! The drawings covered every surface.

  
 See... our classroom is pristine. And our bathrooms are unblemished. It's 9:30pm and I am heading back to my room. But that's why the windows are dark and there is no one here. Actually, I think most of the students are at Game Night next door.


Earlier that day...

We did some more anxiety laden, time-restricted games. This one incorporating a lot of rules, like "Pay It Forward" - in which you draw the first panel of the comic and then write the dialog for the second panel, then pass it on... yep, in just one minute. Sheesh. Other rules were "Snowball" - where every image in the panel needs to be included in the next panel, plus one. That worked fine for the first few panels, but there is no way you can draw all the elements by the sixth panel... in one minute. "Zoom In" was one of the most fun. The first person draws something kind of far away, like a city skyline. Next person zooms in a little to show the top of a building with silhouettes of Ninjas running. Next, zoom in more to show one dangerous Ninja, then zoom more to show his face... etc. And there has to be a story and text as well. In one minute.

We learned about the origins of the graphic novel. In Japan, of course. In the 12th century, a form of visual and oral storytelling was developed using picture scrolls in a little theater (like a mini puppet theater). So our next challenge was to form into teams and divvy up a strange Japanese story, design comic stills, assign roles, rehearse, then perform... no, not in a minute, but felt like it. We had under an hour.

Here's what our panels looked like. Each is something like 11x16 or some-such.


The story was really weird! Man walking in forest runs into a wealthy lady in a kimono who is weeping. He tries to console her, and when she turns toward him, she lowers her arm and her face is missing! He runs off screaming into the forest until he sees a light. It is a noodle vendor (seriously?!) who asks what he is so afraid of. The man says he met a woman and it was such a horror he can't describe it. The noodle vendor says "Was it like... THIS?" and he steps into the light revealing - he has no face. AAAAAAAH! Scary Japanese ghost story that makes no sense. (It's not the "no-face" part I can't believe, but the noodle-vendor in the middle of a dark forest.)

But it was fun to illustrate. I did the lady revealing her face by making a flap of her kimono-ed arm...


Eeeek! No Face!



Most of the day, we worked on INKING. We practiced with a brush, then with a dip pen. The pen made beautiful, detailed tiny... straight lines (see middle page in photo below). It needed to be filled often and cleaned after every third dip. Ergh. Fagettaboutit. I went back to the brush. I loved the expressive quality of the brush lines and it didn't feel so foreign or high maintenance to me.


 Then we spent the rest of the day inking our comic strip from the other day. Here is my character, Amret, flying into school and speaking her mind (it was an assignment, kind of Mad Libs-ish - not my personal opinion!) I did the entire thing with a regular little brush dipped into ink.


I went back after dinner and inked the Lilah Bean adventure...


I did this one with a Japanese brush marker (which I ADORE). I have no idea what it is called since all the writing is in Japanese, but I do know it is made by Tombow. One end is black and the other is gray. The paper in all these pictures is actually bright white, but the classroom lights have a yellowy glow. So it is hard to see the gray marker shading and the pink cheeks on the Lilah Beans.


In case you are scratching your head - this comic was the one based on the Mad Libs story. Lilah Bean is laughing in a cave, but laughing in a cave is illegal. She is almost caught, but a happy cat rescues her from the cave. "Woohoooooooo..." is the flight path out of the cave.

Fine. But it makes more sense than the Japanese stories!

It took me ages to figure out how to draw Lilah Bean climbing on to the cat! Lilah Beans are only every seen from the front. Momentous event here!
I took my cue from the Pillsbury Doughboy to give her some movable stumps instead of simple flippers.

Tune in tomorrow when we... OMG... do an entire comic book from very beginning to very late night production and printing! Should be fun. :-)

Pop-Pop-BLAM! - Comic Camp

The teachers here are either wind-up toys or highly caffeinated! They have so much energy and enthusiasm, even at 9:30 in the morning! Me, I'm exhausted just typing the exclamation marks! ;-)

Seriously, they are great. Very dramatic and funny... hmmmm... just like cartoon characters?

Today we started off with a very hyper, nerve-wracking, exercise. Kind of like a cartoon version of a cross between the game "Telephone" and "Exquisite Corpse". If you aren't familiar with them, you will have to look them up. It's almost midnight and I'm anxious to get some sleep so I can go back to class tomorrow morning. (My mom is probably reading this thinking "Wait! Excited for school?! Who are you and what have you done with my daughter?!") Tomorrow we are learning INKING! And that's, like, you know, with a brush and pen nibs, and... INK! Terrifying for sure. But we have been doing so much "penciling" the sides of our hands are all smudgey and gray and there are streaks across our faces. We are ready for some new marks on our bodies. And I'm hoping the photos will look more exciting - or at least show up better than the pencil.

Ah, back to the Exercise.... The first person was given a phrase and they drew a picture of it in the first box, folded over the phrase, so it couldn't be seen, and passed it on. The second person looked at the picture and had to write a phrase describing it. Then they folded over the picture so the third person only saw the new phrase - and they had to draw a picture of it. Repeat.

It's a lot harder than it sounds. But, in case it doesn't sound hard, each person only had a minute. The second time we played, we had 45 seconds, then 20... by the time we ended, there was barely enough time to pass the paper! Eeeek! Nevertheless, we were WIDE awake by 10am!!

Here are a few examples. Some were hysterically funny.





In the afternoon, we played another game. That one was like Pictionary on speed!

We also learned about gestures, layout, pacing, expressions, all kinds of serious stuff.

Here's my unreadable photo of some of what I worked on today.


I particularly love lettering. No surprise there. It was fascinating to see how much can be told about the character and story just through the way the letters of the dialog - and the speech balloons - are rendered. We also penciled another comic page (the pale sheet in the background) that will be inked tomorrow. My story is about a Lilah Bean who almost gets arrested for laughing in a cave, but is saved by a happy cat.... oh, did I not mention we also played Mad Libs and used them to design a comic page? There's another great idea if you have trouble with "what should I draw?"

This evening we had a lecture by Steve Bissette, who is wicked famous. He is even on Wikipedia! Alright, who am I kidding, "lecture" isn't the right word. We laughed hysterically while watching nuclear bomb propaganda films and an episode of Ultraman. (Who also has his own Wikipedia page, but is not nearly as clever as Steve Bissette).

Steve told us the history of post-apocalyptic film, illustrated with previews from the films he mentioned. Then we ate popcorn and watched "The Road Warrior" - also, unofficially known as "Mad Max 2" which changed the world (of sci-fi) forever. This was before movie ratings, so there are some really gross, though engrossing, yicky bits. And - women are treated... badly, and the bad guys look like they belong in a porn flick. Or maybe "50 Shades of Mad Max." But it actually has a great plot. Who knew? Then you can move on to Thunderdome. There was another movie shown after, but I could no longer feel my lower half so I headed out.

Mad Max also has great learning experiences for cartoonists - like character development. And I learned a rule I had not known, yet had actually recognized from years of reading X-Men - once a character has been tagged in some recognizable way, they must not EVER change their clothes. That works well in Mad Max. Where would they get clean clothes anyway? And some of those guys... well, I'm sure they lost the instruction manual for their harnesses years ago.

Tune in tomorrow to learn the secrets to quick and easy, do-it-yourself INKING!