Tag Archive: 826 valencia

May
20
2010

826 Valencia: The Funny Adventure of Grumpy’s Dream

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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…

826 Valencia: Funny story of Grumpy's Dream

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Feb
02
2010

826 Valencia: Mick the Ghost and Mr. Blue

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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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826 Valencia: Mick the Ghost and Mr. Blue cover

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Feb
29
2008

826 Valencia Field Trip artwork: the Day the Kids didn’t come

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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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Feb
08
2008

826 Valencia Field Trip artwork: Annie’s Gold

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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.

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Jan
24
2008

826 Valencia Field Trip artwork: The adventure of the French Veggies.

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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.

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Nov
24
2007

826 Valencia Field Trip artwork: Crystal Blue

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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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Nov
24
2007

826 Valencia Field Trip artwork: the 3 Friends and BIG fight in the Zombie Castle on Pluto

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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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