A good art week!

First off, I finally finshed my 'Cool Hand Luke' painting.

I had a pretty short week at work. Monday was a holiday, Tuesday and Wednesday, I didn't have to teach my 11 History, which freed up a lot of time. Thursday, I went to an Arts conference put on by the province and Manitoba Arts Council. I thought initially it was gonna be all curriculum stuff, but there was hands on-stuff. I also filled the Batmobile full of crap from ArtsJunktion. They're an organization that collects "crap" and makes it available to art teachers.
Chewie was my MondayArtday contribution this week, for the theme 'getting ready.' As a husband, I think Han would've been waiting for a looooong time. I sketched this guy during the talkie parts of the conference on Thursday.
This guy was what I did in the afternoon. I was stoked, as one of the things I wanted to do with my kids this year was create puppets or marionettes. This guy is a cardboard tube, duck tape, tin foil, beads, stones and that piece of material. The afternoon workshop I hung out at was put on by this great Winnipeg artist who is a big proponent of using whatever is at hand and creating. She made some amazing stuff...I made this guy...I'm stoked to see what the kids'll do.

Friday was a workshop here in Gimli for us teacher folk. I sketched a current self portrait on my coffee cup during the keynote. I also took notes on it.

I'd be painting this weekend, but I got kind of engrossed in Stephen King's Dark Tower series. I bought a couple of the later books that I hadn't read at a charity book sale recently, and decided to get the beginning of the series out of the library and read the whole deal.

I am Jay's ink stained fingers!

Another piece for Monday Artday's 'favorite book' theme. Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk...a longtime fave. I got to see him read last year, and actually won a signed copy of the book. The audience was given Easter baskets or inflatable moose heads for answering questions or asking questions. I asked him if he'd ever considered writing for kids. (He said he'd love to get "a piece of that Harry Potter money.) As he was answering my question, somebody shouted something, after he had asked for the shouting to cease. He left the stage for a bit, leaving us all thinking that was the end of things. He did come back and finished out the event.

Later in the event, some jerk actually took a call on his cellphone in the middle of one of Chuck's stories. I imagine he was lynched later!

Apparently I have more time these days...

She got some odd shadows when I scanned her, but I kinda like 'em. Just messing around. Lately, I've been cruising ffffound.com, checking out what's been posted. I snagged this pic for inspiration. I have my students doing a series of three pieces (realistic, abstract and non-objective) based upon the same image. I think, as I play too, that I'll use her as my realistic.

Paper towel mucking about

One of my students was having some issues with the angle of a face she decided to draw. I showed her how the line should go on a piece of paper towel, and then just kept going with the line. Stuck this guy up as a late post for the 'half-beast' challenge on MondayArtday.

Favorite Book(s) for MondayArtday

Hunter S. Thompson's Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas















Mark Bowden's Blackhawk Down