Happy July 4th!

Hope everybody has a fantastic Independence Day. If you're off, enjoy your picnics and fireworks. If you're working, well, so am I. So you're in good company.

Now, as a public service to my fellow Americans, in an effort to help you look as well-informed as possible if you get ambushed by one of those man-on-the-street interviews, here's all the info you may need to know about why we celebrate the fourth of July.

Why we celebrate the 4th of July

What's the deal with Uncle Sam?

And, as a further public service, I just reviewed the 2011 U.S. Fireworks Annual Injury Report put out by the Division of Hazard Analysis (a part of the Consumer Product Safety Commission). Let me break it down for you:

Last year there were four deaths (seems low, considering) and an estimated 9,600 injuries treated in U.S. hospital emergency rooms. And remember, these were all non-occupational. Just people having fun. So let's all be careful out there. -v

The Field Day T-Shirt, 2012

I was commissioned by a local school to design their Field Day t-shirts. What's Field Day? It's a day-long, school-wide event where teachers, staff and students get together and go crazy with a bunch of games and contests. The photo above shows the final design on paper and on an actual shirt. I had a lot of fun designing this shirt, but we went through a few different versions before landing on this one. I'll go through the process below.

Ok, the first thing I had to do was get the design approved. I roughed out a concept based on one of the games the kids play during Field Day: Mummifying teachers in bathroom tissue. I went a little retro with the design, gave it that inky, comics outline with hatching and fun, bubbly text. I also created a caricature of the school's director and cast him as the "maypole" in the design. So, roughs, then pencils, then inks done in Photoshop. Approved. Time to move on to color...

Originally, I was given no limit on colors, so I went nuts and used twelve. Twelve!! Then the school got the printing estimate and we all stopped kidding ourselves and decided (reluctantly, but wisely) to reduce the number of colors. What you see above are some different passes on the design with different color themes. That first one was something friend/illustrator Pat Lewis threw my way. He's a huge fan of retro design so I figured he'd nail it. The warm colors Pat used hit just the right 70s note and fit the design perfectly. But the printer considered both the solid red and the red dots (skin tone) two different colors. That made it a five color design. So I tried both a four-color and seven-color design before settling on the eight-color design you see at the top of the post.

   

Here's a shot of some of the kids and faculty modeling the shirt on Field Day. You should be able to spot the school's director (and star of the t-shirt) at the back-right wearing the tie-dyed version of the shirt. I'm told he loved his caricature on the shirt. Note that I ran this photo through the Googly Cartoon Eye filter to protect everyone's identity.

And here is the entire Field Day crew wearing a rainbow of shirts (different teams, different colors) on the field, ready to begin the games. I'm told the shirts were a hit with both the faculty and kids and that Field Day itself was a blast. I had a great time working on the design too, so I guess everybody wins. -v

My Violin Girl Got Another Job

You might remember my violin girl illustration from a while ago. Recently she was licensed to appear in the header of a very informative website that's a treasure trove of resources for the budding violinist.

The-Violin.com offers everything from basic violin terminology and tuning tips to short, online video lessons and even tips on purchasing your violin. The site also serves as a storehouse of links to various online drills, tricks and practice methods for the violin.

This is clearly a labor of love for Stephanie, the proprietor of the site (designed by her brother, Charles). I try to support sites like this, where someone just freely gives of their time, knowledge and expertise in order to help thousands of anonymous web-users from whom they'll rarely hear a 'thank you'. I like that. Giving is good. So if you're an aspiring violinist (or know someone who is), you should check out The-Violin.com. It's a great learning resource and I hear there's some nice artwork in the header. -v

Families, Fun and Fitness? Sign Me Up!

I was commissioned by a local grade school to create a t-shirt design for a recent event. Falk Family Fun Fitness Night was touted by the Phys Ed department as an opportunity for families to come together, play games, enjoy outdoor activities, and get fit. There was trail hiking, basketball, yoga, tai chi, zumba and family tag games. I'm told it was a rousing success.

No doubt an enormous part of that success was my brilliant t-shirt design. The brief called for "a family having fun and getting fit." That's pretty much the only direction I got other than the clients' intent to get the design printed on orange t-shirts. So this is what I came up with. The work-in-progress steps are below, as well as a photo of the finished t-shirt (modeled by the very picture of fitness himself). -v

Beethoven Rocks!

A friend of mine is in the midst of teaching her grade school kids about Beethoven. Since both of us are fans of the old Schoolhouse Rocks! educational shorts, we were lamenting that those cartoons aren't around anymore for the current generation of school kids. That's when she decided to take a page from that notebook and start fiddling around with funny little songs about Beethoven. Of course, they were a hit with the kids.

While she was busy writing hilariously abridged versions of Beethoven's life, I was charged with doodling a little caricature of the composer reminiscent of the style of those early 70s cartoons. We both had so much fun working on this that it'll probably be an ongoing project. To the left is a short sampling of some of the stuff we came up with. Below are the very simple work-in-progress steps for the Beethoven caricature. Pencils, inks, flat color to simulate an animation cell. Look forward to more of this silliness in the future. -v

Doing Squat And Getting Paid For It!

Finally,I offer you Squat. The final member of the perpetually active, ethnically diverse "Rhythm Kids" that are at the forefront of grade school kid wrangling. Again, this was a piece done for a grade school music teacher and is used with all the other rhythm kid illustrations, alternately, to teach rhythm and work off the sugar rush from lunch. (see "Stretch" below this one and the original four Rhythm Kids here).

I've posted the work-in-progress below. There's the very rough pencil sketch. Then the inked line art (inked digitally, by the way). And then the flat-color version, the last step before smudging in the highlights and shadows. It's a pretty simple illustration done in under an hour, but I'm told the kids in the classroom are "transfixed" by these things. Go figure. Now if these kids would just hurry up and become art directors at major publishing houses, I'd be in business. -v

Everybody Stretch!

That's right, stop whatever you're dong, stand up and have a good stretch. Get the blood pumping, get the oxygen flowing to your brain. There. Didn't that feel good? Now you're refreshed and ready to do some productive work instead of falling asleep at your desk and drooling on your keyboard. Now get back to work!

That's the theory behind this illustration -- just the latest in a series -- commissioned by a grade school music teacher who happens to be a friend of mine. Apparently, every once in a while you need to shake those kids up, get them refocused and burn off the desire to fidget. It improves learning, emotional positivity and physical health. So go ahead...stand up and stretch. It's good for you.

The work-in-progress steps include the very rough pencil sketch, the inked line and the flat-color version. -v

Clap Slap Step Stomp - The Sad Tale of The Rhythm Kids

Always willing to lend a hand, I did a little favor for a friend of mine who teaches music to grade school kids. These are illustrations for a rhythm lesson she's teaching to a kindergarten class. The idea, as it was explained to me, is to get the kids to perform a series of different moves in rhythm with various songs. Clap, clap, stomp, step, slap, clap...you get it. Although it sounds like a good teaching tool and a fun game for the kids, I think the real goal of this exercise is to exhaust the children so they'll stop running around like sugar-addicted baboons.

And, though it wasn't necessarily a requirement of the project, I gave each of these characters a little back story to make it interesting for me. So...

This is Harvey Clapton. Once a promising child actor, Harvey grew into a sullen teen with a foul temper and even worse breath. At the age of 19, having been fired from a string of low-paying, menial jobs, he ultimately found employment at a puzzle factory where he lost his left hand in a bizarre jigsaw accident. He would never clap again.

This is Rebecca Slapski. She was a perfect little girl with perfect grades and perfect attendance at grade school. But stooping constantly to slap her thighs worsened an undiagnosed spinal condition. By the age of 15 she would be permanently bent at the waist, unable to straighten up. Never a quitter, Rebecca thrived in a series of jobs where her handicap would prove useful -- gardener, softball umpire, worm collector, etc. Today she lives in London where she makes a comfortable living cleaning baseboards for a wealthy clientele.

Meet Rhoda Jean Stepford. Despite her prim, girlish appearance, Rhoda Jean's tastes ran to the decidedly un-ladylike. Her favorite pastime? Squishing bugs. No beetle, ant, caterpillar or spider could escape her wrath. It's said that, in her neighborhood, even the worms refused to surface after a rainstorm. Ironically, Rhoda Jean was killed at the age of 25 when a giant loafer fell from a shoe store billboard and squashed her flat.

Finally, we have Stephen Stompowitz. Stephen was an outgoing boy with many friends. An avid hopscotch player, he made it to the state hopscotch finals in the fourth grade where he took second place. As an adult, Stephen moved into a high-rise condo in New York city where he continued his stomping. Though this often caused problems for his downstairs neighbors, Stephen refused to stop stomping. That is, until a 7-foot professional wrestler moved into the apartment below Stephen's. To this day, they have not been able to untie Stephen from the human pretzel Battling Bruno twisted him into.

So that's the story of four promising kids with great rhythm and how their lives turned out. I hope this helps those kindergarten kids learn rhythm. I'm sick of seeing five and six year olds walking around with no rhythm. As for the illustrations, there's not a lot of difference between the finished pieces and the original sketches, but I've included the work-in-progress steps if anyone's interested. -v