Decembear

HohoDooDa (Holiday Doodle A Day) is here! Here is today's sketch:

Art By Linda Silvestri, host of HohoDooDa!

Bird Day

Happy Bird Day Birthday Card 

Movember

Happy Movember!

Art Power: CAEA Conference 2014

Art Power: CAEA (California Art Education Association) Conference 2014  was a blast! Thanks CAEA! I am not only an illustrator, but an art teacher and in both careers it is important to network and attend conferences such as these to stay connected with others with common interests, passion, and purpose. There were some wonderful workshops, speakers, and art teachers that inspired me to be a better artist and teacher! I am overflowing with new ideas that I want to implement in my classroom. Below are some highlights and quick resources from my experience!

Workshops: 2-D Animation(Tami Lincoln), Online Art Tools (Cris Guenter), Art Program Goals (Samuel Swail),Creative Quill Pen-Blick (Linda Carter), Gelli Arts Printmaking (Jennifer Marquez), Traveling Sketchbooks (Donna Banning), Handmade Book Ideas (Kathy Olsen), Observational Drawing (Wei Xu), Using Museums in the Classroom (Mallorie Marsh), National Art Honors Society (Linda Brown, Lucy McHugh) , Da Vinci Initiative (Nancy Hines). Keynote: StevenHickner, Kevin Staniec, and Nirvan Mullick.

RESOURCES:

NAEA: http://www.arteducators.org/

CAEA: http://www.caea-arteducation.org/

YAM: http://www.arteducators.org/news/yam

Online Art Tools &Apps 

list form: http://cguenter.weebly.com/free-online-art-tools.html

visual form: https://www.blendspace.com/lessons/Nlw6RshFG2fagQ/free-online-art-tools-where-the-wild-things-are

ipad: https://www.blendspace.com/lessons/nWWHWVzDh1BwcQ/art-ed-apps-for-the-ipad

Bulb (Online portfolios, image organizer): https://www.bulbapp.com/

Affordable Sketchbooks for art classrooms: http://www.sketchforschools.com/

Traveling Sketchbooks and Sketchbook Ideas ( Be involved if you are an educator!) cover illustration by moi: http://www.caea-arteducation.org/traveling-sketchbook-project

Circle Painting (community, school art activity) http://www.circlepainting.com/tablet/index.html

Identity and Art Presentation: http://msmernickart.weebly.com/educators.html

Contemporary Portrait Artist: http://kehindewiley.com/

Contemporary Photographer: http://www.jr-art.net/

Airbrush Artist Malcom McCrae: http://www.inspirethroughart.com/

Design Strategy Thinking: http://www.creativityatwork.com/design-thinking-strategy-for-innovation/

Observational Drawing from a Mathematical Approach:  https://www.facebook.com/DrawScientifically

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0079QJ7CA?btkr=1

Bowers Museum: http://www.bowers.org/index.php/education/k-12-for-educators

National Art Honors Society: http://www.arteducators.org/community/nahs

Imagination Foundation: http://imagination.is/

Caine's Arcade: http://cainesarcade.com/

If you have any other art teaching links please share! 

youarenowacat.com

Presenting youarenowacat.com where everyone is turned into cats! I will be completing cat drawings galore so feel free to check it out and comment if you want to be turned into a cat.. a cat drawing of course. I am also participating in inktober, an ink drawing a day in october which I have been posting on youarenowacat.com but will also post non cat related things here as well. Happy Cataween!

Flash Animation Class! Intro to Zephyr the Space Cat

As I practice sketches to honor Robin Williams, and get together photos from Comicon for upcoming posts (I know I am such a slacker), I will leave you with something else for today. I took a Flash Animation class last Spring at Laguna College of Art and Design and it was a blast! I had the pleasure of taking this class the first time it was offered by Sierra Lewis, flash guru and art director at Renegade Animation. We worked from concept to storyboard, recording sound (Andy Pluma stars as the voice), animatic, to final...well, sort of. I have a long way to go. Though I have always been in love with animation- especially the likes of John K's Ren and Stimpy and other 90's Nickelodeon shows I have not studied the fundamentals for animation or traditional animation yet I dared myself to try flash and boy I am glad I got a taste. It not only gave me the tools to someday perhaps explore more digital formats for children's books, but gave me a deeper appreciation for animation in general. "Pizza Time" is my very first animation and it demonstrates the "tradigital" animation technique- basically drawing each frame digitally. Maybe 200 drawings. The most challenging on this one for me was learning how to make the cat walk back to the table. There is some improvement from my initial animatic to the final. " Moon Jump" demonstrates application of a rig where all of the parts you need for the animation are created like a puppet of sorts, and you just move each part to create your animation. The most challenging for me in this was trying to draw the mouth movements. Enjoy!

Character Sketches

Character Sketches

Lion Mom

In pretense to launching youarenowacat, I drew my friend Sonja as a big cat lion mom for her birthday. I tried out some of the holbien gouache I bought at comicon. Stay tuned for Youarenowacat.com !