Help Me!

Red Hot Jazz

I don't even know what to think about this! I've been messing around with acrylic paint. What a struggle! I am having trouble with the color being bright enough, drying darker, drying different. This painting looks okay for real but the scan is ghastly. This is totally doctored up digitally.

Shall I:

a) keep going, keep growing- change is good

2) stick to what I know

x) get a job as an animal trainer

OM - now on to STATE!

My rockin' Road Rally team with the first place trophy

This may be boring for some of you but for me - it's all it! I've spent the last six months coaching not one, but two Odyssey of the Mind teams at the elementary and middle school level. Let me tell you, it's time-consuming to coach one team. With two teams I was meeting with seven kids - mostly at my poor house - four days a week. They were using power tools, painting scenery, using hot glue guns, and eating everything in sight. We went to our regional tournament this past Saturday and had a terrific time.

The good news - BOTH my teams are going on to the state tournament. The bad news - there's no bad news. Sibling rivalry is thwarted for another month. We'll see what happens at the state tournament but after that we may be on to the world competition.

My elementary school team totally rocked the tournament. They had to build and operate a vehicle that was solely propelled by them through a series of mechanical tasks (also engineered and built by them) while presenting a skit that worked to support the theme provided. Of all the teams - and there were 168 from elementary school level all the way up to college - my team had the third highest score of the entire tournament.

My middle school team came in second in their division but it is a more competitive atmosphere among the older teams. Their problem was to perform a story about one of the Greek Muses and incorporate several works of art including dance, sculpture, drawing/painting and music. I have an incredibly gifted bunch of kids on that team and they got the top score for that portion of the competition.

So, I'm still buried in OM for a while - hopefully a long while.

Win a Turtle Tie

My friend Ian Sands is one incredibly diverse guy, a regular Renaissance Man. He can write, he can paint. He says he can sing (I haven't heard anything live though so not going to any lengths to endorse this), play guitar, and do super cool and mysteriously powerful things on the computer. He can bend forks with the sheer power of his fingertips and defend a hockey goal with his life and his poor not-so-young-anymore knees. And he has a huge, soft heart. He does nice things for people and here's one of them: He's selling this hand-painted, one-of-a kind, collectible, signed, limited edition turtle tie on EBay to sponsor a skater from the Triangle Special Hockey Association.

Check out the tie, bid if you can, or just give Ian a pat on the back if you can't.

Spring Cleaning!

It's gorgeous out today - warm, sunny, breezy. Time to open the windows, grab a rag, and see what kind of crud has accumulated on top of everything. The first thing I noticed was this blog. It's dusty and a bit smudged in places. It's time to clean it up, touch up the paint, and get it running smoothly again.

What I've been doing the last few months:

I've been working, silly. I finished another of the fantastic math books by Doris Fisher and Dani Sneed for Sylvan Dell Publishing. My Half Day is about fractions and is crazier than ever. It has been a riot to do these books. They are fun and funny but are curriculum connected and full of ways to extend the learning through a For Creative Minds section at the back of every book too. All good stuff.

I did the art for a poster that will be given away at the IRA Convention in Atlanta by Highlights For Children. They are sending me to Atlanta as well to hang out in their booth and sign too. I will also be in the Sylvan Dell booth where they will have pre-release copies of My Half Day. Drop me a line and let me know if you will be in Atlanta during the conference May 4 - 8th and we can hook up!

I've been coaching two Odyssey of the Mind teams! These are competitive creative teams consisting of seven kids. They have to write, choreograph, perform, build sets, costumes, design and build devices all by themselves that solve a particular problem in just an eight minute performance. They use power tools. They paint stuff - well everything in sight actually. Duct tape is used by the case. And all in my garage. Oy, my garage. Help me now! But most importantly they become brave, use ingenuity, team work, and dedication to make magic. We go to tournament in just six days. It is one of the things I like best - guiding kids to do the impossible with creativity and humor. It's all super-secret before tournament but I will post more later on the incredible things these kids have created.

Other things - Our new web site should be launched in a week or so depending on what the web-master/husband has planned.

I've finally updated most of my images to Children's Illustrators dot com. I was the featured artist last week and saw some good results already.

I'll be involved in the Carolinas SCBWI conference in Durham again this fall. Mark your calendars for September 19-21.

Okay - I'm getting winded. Out of shape. Flabby. More tomorrow...