Continue reading »]]> Here are some artwork from the 826 Valencia field trip story book that I illustrated this morning. It was written by second graders and I did the drawings in real time while it was written by the kids with help of typist Bonnie and leader Chad. It’s always fun to participate and I recommend all artist should give it a try if their schedule allows it.

I started with using a light blue or yellow highlighter to block in the art and then rendered it with black sharpie and a pink highlighter that shows up as gray when copied.

Click for a bigger image on Flickr…

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This is an illustrations I did for a field trip at 826 Valencia writing center in San Francisco this month. The illustrations were drawn in real time as the kids wrote the story. I roughed them out with a light blue highlighter on 8.5×11 paper, going over with them with black and pink (which shows up as grey) to finish them off.

The collaborative story was formatted and printed out with copies of my drawings. Then each kid wrote their own ending and the books were bound and sent to our publisher Mr. Blue.

The story is of a half boy/half girl superhero monkey and their friend the fire demon and devil who is nice.

CLICK HERE to see a list of all most posts with my 826 Valencia artwork.

Continue reading »]]> This month I returned to do some illustration work at 826 Valencia writing center in San Francisco. The kids wrote the story and I illustrated it in real time. But the kids decided to write about our boss, Mr. Blue and when the kids were done he approved the stories and then fired me. I had such a good time though I thought that I might just go back and do it again next month.

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Continue reading »]]> For the latest 826 Valencia field trip I arrived Thursday morning and was surprised to see a group of folks from Santa Fe New Mexico who would help out with the field trip to see how it is done. That meant instead of the 5 people who usually work the field trips, there was more like 12. The group was also going to compete in a spoken word slam this weekend (which is very cool).

I set up my work area to illustrate the student’s story and help re-arrange chairs and tables and even drew a quick pirate….

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…But the kids never came. The school class canceled at the last minuet, which kind of sucked and here was 12 people with nothing to do (plus there is a year wait for another field trip date for the school, bummer) . So our leader Chad went on and explained how the event went which was hard since our publisher Mr. Blue was none too happy at the circumstances. No kids=no books to publish.

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So I did drawings while Chad had these older students through the process with a sample story that featured a female toe nail clipper made of peanut butter and her best friend a non gender specific jar of concord grape jelly. The dream of the toe nail clipper…to clip the toenails of the queen.

Here are the drawings I created.

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Continue reading »]]> Annie is a funny colored hamster who wants to mine for gold during the American Gold Rush in California. So she leaves from her home in Spain to go to California on the back of a swimming horse. She’s attacked by flying pigs before being rescued.

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This is the latest book I illustrated at the 826 Valencia writing center for their book making field trips. The kids write the story and Illustrate it in real time. It’s a blast. It challenges you to create faster and more creatively.

From the website:

This is our most popular field trip. Students are charged with the task of writing, as a group, a story, with the help of 826 volunteers. While the students decide on character and plot points, an 826 volunteer is typing the story into a computer, which is projected onto the wall. The students can track the story’s progress, and make corrections as needed. Meanwhile, the story is being illustrated by a professional artist. As the pages are finished, they’re being copied — one set for each student — and collated in our back production room. Thus, as soon as the class finishes creating the story, we’re ready to bind the books with our in-house tape bindery. The students illustrate their covers, add their photo to the back (for an About the Author page), and go home with personalized books created as a class. This field trip teaches students about collaboration, self-editing, the bookmaking process, and elements of successful storytelling. And it’s really a good time for all. Recommended for students 7–11 years old.

Continue reading »]]> Today was the first 826 Valencia field trip of the year in which I work with a school group to illustrate a story they write as a group. Now, I won’t post the whole story like some folks have done (I am lazy I guess), but I will show you the drawings I created.

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The story is of a French, blue, carrot named Jon. He lives in a mushroom with Tom the tomato. Now Jon has a crush on the evil rotten peach who wants to take over the garden. The carrot love to play Ro Sham Bo (Rock, Scissors, Paper).

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The plotting rotten peach send our hero a gift that is the remains of his brother Jim, now a jar of carrot juice.

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The ending was written by each student and approved by our editor Mrs. Blue.

Continue reading »]]> Yesterday I was the artist for another field trip at 826 Valencia. I really love the challenge of drawing quickly for the kids story with no idea how the final drawing will look. These were drawn in front of a group of 2nd graders as they helped write the story with the leader and typist. This story featured a school of pirates with the teacher who was a hamster.

Enjoy.

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Continue reading »]]> These are some drawings I did at the 826 Valencia writing center in San Francisco CA. I volunteer to work as an artist and illustrate the work of visiting school groups in real time. Instead of my usual storybook illustrations these were storyboards drawn with preteens. I really like the mixed media approach that happened on these drawings. I would start with a quick rough blue pencil drawing and then work it up to a mixture of pen and pencil shading. The look/technique was partially inspired by the work of Ruben Procopio from his illustrations and concept art. The illustrations were bound with the script the kids wrote as a group along with their own ending.

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These are from last month, but I forgot to post them. Whoops.

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This was drawn a week ago, but I forgot to upload it till now. It’s the latest collaborative work I illustrated at the 826 Valencia writing center in San Francisco. This story, “the 3 Friends and BIG fight in the Zombie Castle on Pluto,” is the longest name I have seen to one of these stories. Pictured is the cover and the Alien Zombie Skeleton who lives in a castle made of water.

The kids where so enthusiastic, but sometimes I went ahead and had a drawing almost done when they would want to change or define something else more. Luckily Bonnie (the field trip leader) convinced them to use a version that matched my drawing so the story would make sense.

One thing I like about creating art on the fly like this is that you have to be more creative and resourcefully, but that is what makes it so fun and alive. Setting up to do the drawings I took the 8.5″ x 11″ frame from the book and blew it up on the xerox machine to fit on 11″x17″ paper. That way the drawings could be created larger and then shrunk down with little struggle for the final book. Also the final drawings can be given to the class to take back to school with them which the kids seem to like. I love mixing up mediums too: Different Pencils, Different Pens, and White-Out. The storyboards I did at 826 in October I think are a good example of mixing mediums to get some unique effects.

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OK, heres another story written by 2nd graders that I illustrated at 826 Valencia. The story concerns a giant caterpillar and her friends the wig wearing bald eagle and the toucan who loves to talk on her cel phone. They have there tickets to Texas Marine World Rodeo stolen by the cowboy-alien and enlist the help of a tough hyena to help get them back.

These were drawn in real-time as the kids came up with the story. Drawn first with a light blue Color-Erase pencil and then inked with a medium tip sharpie. The drawings are then reduced down on a xerox machine and pasted-up for the book which is combined with each students individual ending and bound into a book. Very cool.

The hyena at first looked more look a giant rat, and the kids told me so. So I quickly ripped off a piece of paper and drew a new head and taped it on.

Continue reading »]]> Well, it’s my turn to add to the absolutewrite.com blog chain again. Preceding me was Peggy at the Road Less Traveled blog who talked about Paying it Forward. She writes:

“I try to do my best, but I know I could do more to “pay it forward”. So that’s one of my goals for the year: do more for others. Check back next February to see how I did.”

Now, before I start my post I have to say Peggy already is a big giver, for without her help much of my projects would have been filled with spelling and grammatical errors and my website would never get updated. She is the one who I turn to when I need a logical voice and a person to listen to my problems. Of course she is also my sister which dose not cloud my judgment…too much.

Now I can attest to the power of “Paying it Forward” since I volunteer for causes I believe in…namely the arts. Peggy’s post got me thinking of all the experiences I have had with volunteering AND the karmic rewards received. I have been volunteering at is the Cartoon Art Museum(CAM) for the last 5+ years by giving classes, doing graphic design work, and bar-tending at fund-raisers. The result of giving of your time and experience is Karmic. It’s great way to get job experience, reach out to a community of choice, share your passions, meet new people, and to even get out of the house more often. For instance I have now taught quite a few cartooning classes at the museum, which in turn has lead to paid teaching work.

Of course there are other places I like to help out at besides the CAM. (I hope my post does not make me sound like a self-centered-ego-maniac)

I thought it would be fun to pass along an experience that I had just two days ago, on Thursday February 15th, 2007. 826 Valencia is a writing center founded by author Dave Eggers who is the editor of McSwneey’s literary magazine. The center is a special place as it works at its goal of helping kids to improve and enjoy writing. Beyond the Pirate Supply Store there are areas for writing with desks, computers, comfy couches and sofas. Now you might ask, how does a guy who mostly draws pictures fit into volunteering at a writing center for kids. Well…

A couple times a week 826 Valencia hosts a special field trip. School groups get to come to the center and work together to write a book for our unseen editor, the mysterious Mr. Blue. The team includes a story leader, typist, production staff, and my role…the artist. The goal: to create and publish a original story in two hours. Usually this happens thanks to the help of modern technology with the kid’s story being typed and projected onto a screen while I illustrate the story in real time on a pad of paper. When each of the two pages are done they are handed off to the HAND OF DOOM who makes sure they get prepped so each child gets to take home a one of a kind book all their own.

Well, that’s how it usually works.

So last Thursday we were starting out with a group of young and eager (and amazingly polite) school kids from the third grade. The leader had helped them come up with a main character (a Mantacore named Bob) and all the other details for the story. Then it happen….the construction workers doing road work outside somehow shut down the power for the whole block.

Here we had 25 kids sitting in the dark as we tried to continue as normal. But there was no computer to type on, no lights to see, no xerorx machine to print the pages, and no binding machine to put it all together…all of them require electricity.

So our publisher Mr. Blue told us to take the kids outside to a nearby playground where our typist wrote down the story by hand in ball point pen and I did my drawings in the hot glaring sun of a spring like day in San Francisco. The kids were troopers as they wrote in their best penmanship their own personal endings to the story.

In the end it worked out fine. For me, having been thrown off for the normal speedy schedule given by Mr. Blue, I was actually able to draw more art. Plus I gained a bit more confidence in my power to adapt when things go haywire. It was fun being around the kids and there boundless energy, so I am sure I will be there again next month.

Next week, each kids will each get a bound one-of-a-kind book with their personal ending of the story typed up for them. (and my artwork too, yay)

There are seven 826 locations including: Michigan, LA, Chicago, Seattle, New York. If you live near one, why not donate some of your time.

Next up is Dawno with her NVNC ID VIDES, NVNC NE VIDES blog.

So here is the Chain List:
asorum – A View From the Waterfront
BK_30 – Just A Small Town Girl
Gillian – Even in a Little Thing
aruna – Down From the Garrett
Simran – Writing-From-Within
Forbidden Snowflake – Incoherent Blabbing From an Incoherent Person
Cath – Curiouser and Curiouser
Peggy – The Road Less Traveled
YOU ARE HERE: Atomic Bear – BTGC Production Log
Dawno – NVNC ID VIDES, NVNC NE VIDES
XThe NavigatorX – Fireflies in the Cloud

Continue reading »]]> Here is the latest work I did with the kids of Ygnacio Valley School at the 826 Valencia writing center. As always I had to illustrate the book in real time as the kids wrote it as a group. And this time I tried to sneak in my own ending with the rest of the books, to get approval from our publisher Mr. Blue, but he did not like it and TORE IT UP. I was heart broken. But that won’t stop me from trying again. Mr. Blue is MEAN.

tags: 826 Valencia|826Valencia|story book|cartoon|pepper|cat|

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Here is the cover from the book I illustrated for the field trip kids at the 826 Valencia writing center. Always lots of fun, but crazy doing drawings really, really fast.

This is our most popular field trip. Students are charged with the task of writing, as a group, a story, with the help of 826 volunteers. While the students decide on character and plot points, an 826 volunteer is typing the story into a computer, which is projected onto the wall. The students can track the story’s progress, and make corrections as needed. Meanwhile, the story is being illustrated by a professional artist. As the pages are finished, they’re being copied — one set for each student — and collated in our back production room. Thus, as soon as the class finishes creating the story, we’re ready to bind the books with our in-house tape bindery. The students illustrate their covers, add their photo to the back (for an About the Author page), and go home with personalized books created as a class. This field trip teaches students about collaboration, self-editing, the bookmaking process, and elements of successful storytelling. And it’s really a good time for all. Recommended for students 7–11 years old.

The kids seem to really enjoy these field trips, and I had a good time too.

Tags: drawing|sketch|painting|art|Brian Kolm|comics|Atomic Bear Press|AtomicBearPress|ABP|