away we go: the book sleuth (1 of 6)

all right, i'll admit that i'm making zero work right now that is not grad-school-flavored. in an effort to keep things at least a little bit updated around here, here's the first of my book sleuth spreads! fun fact: in a serendipitous trip to baltimore's book thing, i found a free copy of my father's dragon just days after i finished the series. hooray! if you'd like to read my lovely kid-oriented review of the book as well, click to enlarge, friends!

i did the whole spread: digital collage for the color full-page and the black and white spread, the writing, and the layout. i am so not a graphic designer, but i think the layout is pretty okay? maybe? i will even settle for not distractingly bad. stay tuned for the rest of the series, to be unveiled in a painstakingly slow manner. thanks for hanging with me as i try to, you know, get my masters.

INSTALL'D.

my show is up my show is up my show is up! thanks to everyone who came out to the opening last friday, it was lovely of you to join me. i like to think that me and the cupcakes got equal billing. for those of you that couldn't make it, here are some pictures that prove its existence:

it's still chilling on the 3rd floor of the fox building at mica, if you're in the baltimore area and just can't keep yourself away. if not, i'll post some fancier images of the finished spreads later. i'm gonna draw it out really annoying and slow-like, since i don't have a lot (coughanycough) of new work to show since, oh yeah, grad school has consumed my soul. boo.

in other news, i'm going to nyc this weekend for a super-speedy mini-vacation. that's right soul, i'm coming for you. grad school can't have you forever!

it's getting closer!

installation is in just two weeks! here are the postcards for the show, both mine and the group postcard announcement. we did a "dress up like we're in grade school and take a class picture" photoshoot for that one. classy. awesome. you can see a couple of the (silly) frames from the shoot below. because if there's one thing you should know by now, it's that we take ourselves very, very seriously.
the show will be up on friday, october 30th, and the opening is that night. also, this is a grad event, so the catering? twice as delicious and/or fancy. last year? there were cupcakes WAHOO.

in the meantime i need to finish the final touches on my work and put it all together for the show. snoop around the fox building or just ask nicely if you'd like a postcard.

i haven't abandoned you, internet!

hi, friends. i swear i haven't disappeared from the blogosphere, but some of my efforts have been redirected toward my other companion blog, "heart-sleeve teaching." i'm exploring the implications of visual/material/media/pop culture on art-making and education at large. so. if you miss me, i'm over there. so are some other cool things! so if you like pop culture, go take a look.

but! i'll be back here soon. i'm just getting things together and orderly for proper sharing. i ordered my postcards, and my thesis (round two!) show goes up in just a couple weeks! here is an actual illustration thing to leave you with, so that i'm not a total tease and/or jerkface:

tiny painting made as a part of a new fun thing called the nomadic playlist, a traveling sketchbook and flash drive where each track is illustrated in the book and added to the flash. first up: the coral's dreaming of you. fun, right? i'll keep you posted as it develops.

more slightly-less-sneaky previews.

so, it has been a little while, tiny collection of faithful blog readers. i'm sorry to be posting so sporadically - as it turns out, grad school is hard! go figure. right now, i am teaching fourth graders art and math together, an unlikely but pretty okay combination, as well as middle-schoolers in a book arts/reflective art-making class, and a portfolio prep after-school program for students who want to apply to attend the baltimore school of the arts. WHOA.

i am, however, glad to introduce the book sleuth, the host character for my series of articles reviewing various the children's/young adult books that i posted super-small slivers of a few weeks ago. each one matches up to the six books from last week (clockwise from top left): harriet the spy, the view from saturday, my father's dragon, the higher power of lucky, a wrinkle in time, and the wednesday wars. his behavior is dictated by some chunk of each story, as though he is taking on the persona of one of the main characters as he reads. then, he (meaning i) share all about the book to get other real-life kids excited about reading! hopefully. more soon! i'm prepping postcards for the show as we speak. and by speak i mean i type and some indeterminate time later, you maybe read.

super secret sneak peek.

i am finally finishing up my summer thesis! i am closing in on the 95% mark, wrapping up the final details, etc. the exhibition will be in october here at mica, but here is a sneak peek in the meantime.
if you'd like to do some matching, the following books are included in the series: harriet the spy by louise fitzhugh, my father's dragon by ruth stiles gannett, the wednesday wars by gary schmidt, a wrinkle in time by madeleine l'engle, the higher power of lucky by susan patron, and the view from saturday by e.l. konisgburg. wahoo!

dailies 8/24-8/30 + ANOTHER BONUS FUN TIME

so today was the first day of school! with that comes dramatically less life, so hopefully things around here won't thin out too much... i do have a slew of super-secret master's thesis things to debut, but i decided to just ultra-drag out the non-suspense i've been building for, you know, the whole summer and wait until they are all done to share with you. mostly because of the lazy factor.
one thing i am presently debating is whether or not to continue with the new(ish) non sequitur dailies, or to a) revisit the old mini hand-drawn diary thing (perhaps with a renewed sense of not-variants-on-the-same-few themes) or b) invest in a more fleshed out series of once-a-week things, like illustrating a song a week or something. thoughts? these present dailies feel sort of... question mark. anyway. this is me making the thinking face. any input you have on the matter would be greatly appreciated, mystery blog readers. do you prefer these ones? the old ones, if you have been around that long? something more substantial? TELL ME WHAT TO DO.

lastly, i am loosely obsessed with this ridiculous song "good day" by tally hall. you should go listen to it over at spin magazine's website. then you can download it from them and listen to it forever. like me.

oh hey, i forgot i went to dr. sketchy's.

so a couple weeks ago i went to dr. sketchy's! i nearly forgot, what with all the work-doing. here are two pages combo-plattered from the many many drawings i did that night. it's really fun! and outside my normal subject matter of cute and/or adorable things, and i love the change of pace.
if you haven't been, you should check it out dr. sketchy's baltimore, or a branch local to you.

whoo! also of note, the rollergirl with zombie-face in the upper right hand corner of that second image is my attempt at drawing with my opposite hand, i didn't have like a mini-stroke or anything. that's all. time for more more work work.

dailies 8/17-8/23 + BONUS HOORAY

a busy busy week. at the end of my first full week of nothing but illustration, i am feeling pretty good about my progress, and about the sheer quantities of marathon tv i can churn through in the background. along with dexter, i've devoured it's always sunny in philadelphia and the oc, both of which can be hulu'ed for your viewing pleasure. any suggestions for my next conquest?

first up are the dailies, followed by a fun surprise!


at the end of my walters classes, i got a little bit of time to draw from their collection, so here's a study of thomas couture's daydream! hooray academic exercises. i forgot how much i love doing these kinds of things.

dailies 8/10-8/16.

back from a long weekend of relaxation just in time to buckle down for lots and lots and lots of work. i finished up my summer camps at the walters and have two uninterrupted weeks to, um, get it together. this is me, getting it together READYSETGO. i'll be back soon.

dailies 8/3-8/9.

back again with more dailies. and! i've been trucking along on my master's thesis (this time for real!) and i've made lots of progress this week and last, since my daily schedule has basically devolved into teaching at the walters, illustrating children's books while watching marathon stretches of dexter (a very contradictory pair), and eating sugary cereal straight from the box.

i'm keeping things under wraps for the moment (plus, i have four underway but zero fully completed), but i'm basically illustrating a children's recommended reading column/book review series. i'll be tying up the loose digital ends on pieces for the view from saturday and harriet the spy this weekend on my SHINY NEW MACBOOK PRO. the days of typing a sentence and then going and getting a snack, making a phone call, and then having the letters appear on my screen are over. his name is quincy, and he is the unofficial sponsor of this week's dailies. WAHOO.

dailies 7/27-8/2.

more dailies more dailies more dailies! i'm in the throes of a swell comics class at the walters, and am finally in knee-deep in my thesis. embarassingly late, but better than not at all, right? so, brief now, more later! lesson plans and sketches await me!