Musical

I was commissioned to paint this poster for a great musical coming up.

A Man Called Destruction

This was a reading at storybooth last night.

That's the author, Holly George-Warren.

You can see me sketching in this photo! I'm the one with the braid.

 

I kind of felt bad about drawing unsuspecting people... Oh well. This lady kept turning her head to talk to the person she came with, so I decided to work on two sketches of her simultaneously. It was a challenge!

 

This woman had gray shoes to match her suit. She and her date were very well dressed.

 

I also had fun bicycling to this event and back. I went even though thunderstorms were predicted... It didn't storm! It's best not to take weather reports literally.

Reading Magic

I was sitting at Otherlands today, and this beautiful woman sat down in front of me, so of course I sketched her. I was looking right at her, and afterwards she told me she knew I was drawing her, but she was nice enough to stay relatively still.

One of the reasons I found her so captivating was her resemblance to the woman in this painting by Eldzier Cortor. This was recently in an exhibition at the Dixon, and I spent a long time looking at it. The painting was made in the 1940s. 

What the woman pictured above was discussing with two other people at Otherlands was literacy education, a topic I love and think about often. Here's a sketch I did of what I consider to be literacy education done right:

This was sketched during the last Urban Sketchers meeting at the Pop-White Station Library. (There's another sketch group this Saturday!) As I sketched it, someone sketched me!

The reason I love what the children's librarian, Michelle Allen, has done here is because it allows children to believe that the animals are reading. This element of play is not just a good thing to have when teaching children to read, I believe it is the most important thing in the education of young children. I have taught kindergarten and first grade, and some of the fondest memories I have of the school year are when I would give them all a puppet, and tell them they must "read" a book with or to their puppet (we would do this every day). This happened after I had just modeled this behavior to them by reading aloud a story to my own puppet, Esme, and asking her questions about it. 

Too often, the bureaucrats try to take this element of play out of the schools. When I hear them use the word "data," I cringe. Why is that word so often spoken by bureaucrats who are involved in schools, but rarely do we hear the words "play," "magic," or "childhood" in connection with teaching literacy? I have a challenge for non-teachers involved in schools: every time you hear yourself use the words "data," or "assessment," create an opportunity for using one of the following words: "joy," "play," "magic." That will go a long way towards making the public schools better.

/end public service announcement