Kingdom Bound? A Family Made Comic Strip

Our local radio station is having an art contest. They will choose from among art made by entrants illustrating this theme, "What if Your Family Went Camping at Kingdom Bound"? Winners will get six full event tickets and a campsite at a Christian music event at Darien Lake. Here is the entry my family and I made together.

Five Happy Years

It was five years ago today that Kristan and I tied the knot. After my friends and my sons helped me overcome my last minute jitters
...the joyous occasion took place. We began our marriage with a readymade family. Below I am threatening my boys if they don't stand still and smile, I'm gonna cuff 'em.
The kids were happy about the day, but kind of grossed out by the displays of affection.
It was the best day of my life, and the first day of five very happy years and a whole bunch more to come.

T.A.I.L.S. #50: Sand Storm

If you've been reading my posts lately, you know I've been getting a lot of inspiration and enjoyment by doing the Art by Committee challenges from James Gurney's website. As a creative exersize, I've been trying to weave them into a single story. Some of them just don't fit. I'm wondering if I'll be able to continue, since they may add too many disparate elements to a single story. We'll see!

For now, the challenge for this week seemed to fit perfectly as part of an upcoming T.A.I.L.S. comic. Here's the challenge we were given this week.

Interdimensional Art Thieves

Here is my entry for this week's ABC challenge. Our prompt this time was

I think these challenges are an example of apophenia -spontaneous perception
of connections and meaningfulness of unrelated phenomena.

Memorial Day

My Art By Committee Challenge entry is a very loose interpretation of the prompt,

--but when I read the challenge, this is the comic that popped into my head.

Drawing Time

Sometimes I wish I had more time for art. But maybe I don't because I'm making time for other things that are even more important.

Sketchapalooza

In Curriculum Comics #1, I described our Sketchbook contest. Everyone who participates gets some kind of prize. Kids who just did a few drawings might get a free Big Mac at McDonalds. Those who do quite a few get larger prizes including art supplies or comics. The big winners' prizes this year were donated by McNamara's Office Supplies and Art Supplies. Here are just a couple of the top winners.

Hulk Smash?

We went to see the Hulk movie last night. I guess it was okay. If I were grading these movies, I'd give Iron Man an A and this Hulk movie a C+. What I didn't like about it was that they just made a Hulk movie four years ago, which I guess we're supposed to forget and I didn't really see that this one was really that much different or better. My verdict is, it's worth seeing, but there will probably be moments when you're checking your watch.

What I did like about it is that the stories of these comic book movies are interconnected and appear to be setting the stage for an Avengers movie that features many of the heroes in one movie. What has always been cool about Marvel comics is that the characters appear in one another's stories. It's one universe and they interact. With the right director, some of those classic stories would make great movies!

ABC Challenge -- An Electrifying Experience

For this week's Art by Committee Challenge at the Gurney Journey, we were given the assignment to illustrate this line of text,

Wildon, a big hulking dude, went into a crouch and threw out his arms, ready to catch the running Jeremy.

I cheated a little, making no effort to draw a Jeremy, but continued with my own character. The big hulking dude has yet to throw his arms out as well, but give him time! I had to do two pages to bring the story from last week's challenge to this moment.

Curriculum Comics #1 -- Part 3

Here is the final installment of my comic book The Teacher as Reflective Practitioner.




The first (and most important) review is in -- that of the professor teaching the class. I received a grade of 100% and these comments:

The comic strip sketch book chronicled your experiences with reflection, as you stated, even before you knew you were engaged in reflective practices. Each segment added personal and scholarly applications in terms of continued reflection and its subsequent impact on your teaching.

Your experiences introducing the sketchbook to your students, reflecting on their responses, and then making necessary adjustments were a testament to the power of reflective practices to inform instruction. I know that your students and colleagues will benefit greatly from your talent and ability to bridge humor and reflection in order to stimulate creative change in education. Excellent work!

Curriculum Comics #1 -- Part 2

Here is some more of my comic book about Reflective Practice. I really enjoyed getting into drawing autobiographical scenes -- and thinking about how my childhood helped shape the kind of teacher I became.

Curriculum Comics #1 -- Part 1

I've just finished a major project I've been working on. I was taking a class about Reflective Practice. For a final project I was to write a sixteen page paper. I asked for special permission to make a sixteen page comic about the subject instead.

It may sound complicated, but it's basically stopping to think about what you're doing as a teacher and if it's accomplishing the goal you want it to. Sounds simple, but unfortunately in education we often continue to use practices that aren't really working.

Any way, here's the first five pages of the comic. I'll continue to post the rest of it in the posts that follow.

From the Archives -- Childhood Drawings

A while ago, my mom gave me a folder full of drawings I had made in elementary school. I don't remember a lot about my art classes from those days, but I do remember making this drawing. This is one of those drawings the art teachers tell kids they can make when they are done with a project. "Now you can draw anything you want." I was interested in Beethoven because I had read about Schroder's passion for him in the Peanuts comic strip. This led me to wonder what he looked like and what his music sounded like. There was a poster of him in the music room.

I quickly made a drawing of him. There's a reason he has a five o'clock shadow. One of my classmates said, "Ooh, look, Andy's drawing a girl, he must like girls." I quickly made his eyebrows thicker and gave him some stubble to show his masculinity. I'm guessing I was eight or nine.