Art History Bio-Pix

Children's books about artists used to be few and far between. Now there are tons of them and many of them are excellent. At my request, our librarian has accumulated about 50 of them over the years. Some of the best ones, in my opinion, are:

1. Chuck Close Up Close by Jan Greenburg.



2. My Name is Georgia by Jeannette Winter.



3. Roy Lichtenstein: The Artist at Work by Lou Ann Walker.

We have enough different books that I can sign them all out, set them up on a table, and allow a class of students to choose which artist they would like to learn more about. I ask them to read some of the book (not all) and then to make a drawing that shows the artists' name, what the artist looked like and what one of their works of art looks like. I ask them to write a couple things that they find interesting about the artist. Sometimes they find a quote to include.

Here are a few that I've made over the years...

...and here are some of my students' drawings.

The First Bank of Wales

A while ago some fifth graders were making caricature mugs. Mine was a self-portrait, but to do my chrome dome justice, I had to turn it into a bank. I'm not crazy about how the color turned out with glazes, but the kids get a kick out of it.

Advice for Young Cartoonists Starting Out

I found a great article about an artist named Gene Yang. This creator is especially inspiring to me because he's also a teacher. His latest graphic novel American Born Chinese has gotten a lot of positive reviews and it received several awards. His advice to cartoonists is to "get a day job"! He then explains how it can actually help your art. Here's some of the article:

Advice for a cartoonist who’s just starting out? Get a day job. I know people tend to see day jobs as a sign of failure, but really, there are so many benefits:

1. By separating your comics from your need to feed yourself, you keep full control of your comics. You’ll never have to draw someone else’s story simply because that someone else is going to help you make rent.

2. Health insurance.

3. Your day job can be a great source of material. Stories occur
around us all the time, especially when we’re interacting with other people.
I’ve found that some of the best stories come out of interactions that you
wouldn’t necessarily choose to have: ones with your co-workers, your customers,
or your students. There are lots of great characters out there, walking around
on the street and in office buildings and on campuses, just waiting for you to
bump into them.

You do have to exercise good judgment in picking a day job. It should be something you like – not every day, but overall. It should be something you find meaningful. And it should be something that will leave you with enough energy to make your comics after work. For a lot of us, that means a day job that doesn’t involve cartooning.

Personally, I think classroom teaching is a great way to go. Everyone knows we need good teachers, and teaching, at least for me, draws from a different “energy well” than cartooning. Teaching is so extroverted, so people-oriented. At the end of a day of teaching, when I’ve had all the human contact I can stand, I go to my drawing board and recharge by inking a page. Then, when I’m sick of being holed up in my home office, I go back into my classroom. Plus, you can catch up on your comics
during summer vacations if you fall behind during the school year. If you’re a cartoonist who’s ever even had a passing interest inteaching, I’d encourage you to explore it. Heck, I’m one of three cartoonists on staff at my school, and we all put out comics fairly regularly.

Of course, plenty of comics creators do just fine with art-oriented day jobs. The incredible C. Scott Morse works at Pixar during the day and still finds the energy to create brilliant graphic novels at night. Plenty of others don’t have any day jobs at all. Jeff Smith hasn’t had a day job since the start of Bone.
But for me, I’ve found my own day job to be a blessing rather than a curse.

Stan the Man

Stan Lee is the writer who along with some fantastic artists brought to life such great characters as Spider-man, the Fantastic Four, the X-Men, Daredevil, and so many more. What made his work so cutting edge at the time was he introduced to comics characters that were powerful yet flawed. They had problems or disabilities and this made them more naturalistic and complex.

He is 85 years old now, but in almost every Marvel movie they give him a small part. One of the fun things about watching the movies the first time is seeing where he might pop up. Someone has put together a compilation on You-Tube of many of them, which I've embedded below.

An interview with him about these appearances can be found here.

Iron Man -- Then and Now

Last night the boys and I went to see the first of the summer superhero movies. Some of the critics are saying that this is the best of the comic movies so far. I'd say it's at least in the top 3. I really like how they didn't stray too far from the original comic book stories, but they did make some changes to make it contemporary. For instance, in the comics, his foes were the "commies" in the Viet Cong. In the movie he is captured by terrorists in the Middle East. I think anyone who likes action movies would enjoy it even if they've never read any of the comics. However, there are some cool details only nerds will notice. I caught every one! I always especially enjoying the Stan Lee cameos in every Marvel movie.

Making Comics to Learn

My son Daniel had to learn about the reproductive system of earthworms for a test in 10th grade Biology. He found that the best way to remember all the details was to make a comic strip. Here it is!

Oral History Fair

Look who made the front page of our local paper -- my stepdaughter Marissa Eddy and her great-grandfather Cecil Morningstar. Marissa made an awesome display and report about Grandpa, a World War 2 hero of MacArthur's army in the Phillipines. You can read about our district awesome Oral History curriculum in this article. It is headed up by a great teacher named Dick Heyler, who's also the director of the Endless Mountains Writing Project -- something I'm proud to be a part of.