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  Tue, 22 Jul 2008 02:01:00 +0200
This is a really cool project that came out of nowhere while we were messing with folding and cutting paper.
This is just a piece of thick paper, folded in half. Then we put two cuts in the middle there, and popped that piece out in the opposite direction.
Then, we took pens and decorated the folded part like a chair. The chair's back goes on the background, the seat goes on the top folded part and the legs go down the front of the folded part. Then we added a little rug, a bed and a window.
This one is a work in progress. You could certainly add more, like a popup table, or a cutout window. You could make a copy of your own room, or a room that you make up. Put posters on the walls. Add wallpaper or an electric guitar or stuffed animals or monsters.
But there's something about just the little chair that is also very neat to look at.
  Mon, 21 Jul 2008 02:05:00 +0200

As I mentioned in my last post, here are some drawings I made this morning while listening to some choral music - I'm not sure what piece it was - it was on the local classical station. I started out with the flowing shape at the top, then did the bubbly thing on the left, and then the sharper shape on the right. The cathedral-like structure came last. I'm not sure about the potted plant. I don't think that's related - just happens to be on the same page in the sketchbook.
When I listen to music, I often draw shapes that don't look like anything in particular. You might do the same, or maybe music inspires you to draw people or places. Give it a try and find out! It's also fun to contrast classical music with, say, Weezer or Red Hot Chili Peppers.
  Fri, 18 Jul 2008 19:04:00 +0200
Okay, what does this guy have to do with art?

Well as it turns out, a lot.

Ludwig van Beethoven is considered by many to be the greatest music composer we've ever had. Even if you don't think you've heard his music, you probably have. And to top it off, for most of the later part of his life, he was deaf. Stone. Deaf. And he wrote his 9th Symphony, while stone deaf. When they premiered it, someone had to turn him around on the conductor's podium to see that the crowd was going wild. That's how deaf he was.

Anyway, what does this have to do with art? Well, the arts are connected to each other and to the world. Paintings and symphonies. Dance and writing. Beethoven often said that he got his inspiration from nature. He would take long walks outdoors.

So, here's a cool site by the SF Symphony that has a "radio," that lets you play bits from all kinds of pieces of music, including Beethoven's. Poke around. And while you're listening, close your eyes and imagine what the music looks like. Does it look like warriors riding huge horses? Or hippos doing the ballet? Or just colors and shapes? Then draw what you see.
  Fri, 18 Jul 2008 03:18:00 +0200

There's a Frida Kahlo exhibit in San Francisco right now at the SF Museum of Modern Art. Kahlo was a Mexican painter, who had quite a colorful life to go with her colorful paintings.

If you aren't sure who she is, the easiest way to tell you is, "She's the painter with the big ol' unibrow on her forehead in all her self-portraits." Ring a bell?

Kahlo was married to another famous artist, Diego Rivera.

Frida Kahlo had a lot of physical problems. She was in a bus accident when she was young, in which much of her body was damaged. She ended up having something like 35 operations. She also had polio as a child. So she was in pain a lot, but lived a vibrant and interesting life.

Take a look at her paintings and see what you think. I don't know what to tell you about the unibrow - she didn't really look like that in real life, as you can tell in photographs. And she gave herself a moustache too! But her art sure does stick in your mind, and it was clearly done by a vivacious person with her very own way of seeing the world.
  Tue, 15 Jul 2008 20:39:00 +0200
ASK JACKSON is a new art advice column run by my best friend's dog (that's him, peering at you at the top of the page). Besides being good at eating pine cones, Jackson is also great at answering kids' questions about art. I (Betsy) might also kind of help him sometimes since he has a hard time with the keyboard. You can send your own Ask Jackson questions to: mail@betsystreeter.com.

QUESTION: I am bored and I can't think of anything to draw. How can I come up with a good idea?

JACKSON: You, my friend, need to jump-start your pencil! Here's what you do: first, write down every kind of creature that you can think of. You can make a list, or put each word on an index card. Octopus, fireman, worm, moth, etc. etc. Get a nice long list going.
Now, close your eyes and pick two of the words. Like, alligator-panda. Or, Bug-policeman. Now draw what you got. Before long, you'll be creating characters and stories. Maybe add some scenery. Do a couple of combinations and have your characters talk to each other about how weird-looking they are. Figure out where they live, what they eat, where they go on vacation. Maybe make them into a monster movie.
This is a great way to get things going. To use your words again later, keep the list or index cards. You can make a game out of this with your friends too. Enjoy!
  Tue, 15 Jul 2008 18:18:00 +0200
ASK JACKSON is a new art advice column run by my best friend's dog (that's him, peering at you at the top of the page). Besides being good at eating pine cones, Jackson is also great at answering kids' questions about art. I (Betsy) might also kind of help him sometimes since he has a hard time with the keyboard. You can send your own Ask Jackson questions to: mail@betsystreeter.com. Here we go!

QUESTION: The other day, I drew a picture at school and a couple other kids looked at it and laughed. It made me feel really bad. What should I do?

JACKSON: There are lots of reasons people laugh, and they are not all bad. But it can feel bad if you think someone is laughing AT you. First of all, when people see something that makes them feel good, they might laugh. This is good. You made them feel happy. Often grownups will do this when you show them art. They are not laughing at you, so don't take it that way.
On the other hand, sometimes other kids laugh in a mean way. This is because they are not as brave as you are, putting your ideas out there on paper like you did. These people would probably be mean no matter what you were doing, and are not worth bothering with. If they are a good friend, you can say, "Hey, that hurts my feelings. I didn't mean for this to be funny." If they are a real friend, they will listen to you and apologize. If they are not, they should go fall on their head on the playground and leave you alone so you can draw.
  Tue, 15 Jul 2008 18:06:00 +0200
... For some change.

You'll have to excuse me, you grownups out there, but I need to talk to the kids.

About Important Art Stuff.

It's been nice being all big and wordy and all that, making various graphs and things.... but frankly, I do better when I talk to my kids. Not so much the big diagrams and squishy words and all of that. Too mooshy! Too boring!

So, here goes. You grownups are more than welcome to listen in. And, share this with your kids. We'll have advice, stories, project ideas, and experiments. Shoot, grownups can use some of that stuff too. We can all use more reasons to get out the crayons, frankly.

And it's all about being the Best Artist in The World. So there!!
  Tue, 15 Jul 2008 17:48:00 +0200
Many of the most successful drawing projects have to do with telling something about yourself. Yesterday we did coats of arms. We drew shields, and then divided them up into fourths. You could put your favorite animal or pet, food, superhero, plant, whatever in the spaces.

All I can say is, if we were back in medieval times right now, there would be a lot of knights riding around with pictures of ice cream on their shields.

I've mentioned before - when I draw with kids a whole lot of it is me seeing and hearing them, and making a safe environment to be seen and heard. Putting your thoughts in visual form is a risk - you are externalizing your ideas, and you are trying to make a drawing that shows what you mean. Both of those things are risks. You risk being misunderstood, you risk being made fun of, you risk messing it up, you risk having people think your unicorn is a turtle. So it's vitally important to pay attention, watch, ask questions, and acknowledge the artist's effort. It's all about acknowledgement and feeling safe.
  Thu, 10 Jul 2008 22:31:00 +0200
The first part of summer has been mainly about superheroes. Pictured here are Pice Man, who shoots jelly out of his eyes, and who is apparently battling Captain Planet. The line through the middle is a zip line that Captain Planet uses to get around.

We've also had Doctor Spleen, and heroes based on a squirrel, a hedgehog, and a dragon. I generally help the kids come up with a "recipe" for a superhero -- things like a cool name, a logo, a costume, a sidekick, an arch enemy, and of course powers and weaknesses. Then I work on one along with them. They can do a trading card-like format where they draw their character and list important facts, or a movie poster, or maybe the cover of a comic book.

I had the kids help me create Ultra Kitty, who can shoot hairballs and whose weakness is anything shiny. Her enemy is Dogzilla, a chihuahua with an attitude and a scaly tail. Dogzilla's sidekick is Gadget the Robo Bird.

Oh, and then there are secret identities. Dogzilla spends the days as a celebrity purse-dog. We also had a mild-mannered toaster, and a hippo who lives at the zoo when not fighting crime.

Each kid will focus in on what is most interesting to him or her. Some are really into listing lots of important data. Others are into the relationships among a vast array of characters. Still others just want to show stuff blowing up. It's all good. Again, it's creating a safe place to generate lots and lots of idea and mess with them. And, the sound effects they make while demonstrating their characters' powers are pretty fun, too.
  Wed, 09 Jul 2008 06:10:00 +0200
Wow, it's been hard to post lately between all the teaching -- but it's yielding some great insights!

For example:

Brainstorming. I know, it's a word we're used to hearing in Corporate America - but it's a wonderful thing to do with kids. I use brainstorming to create lots of ideas that kids can then use, steal from, borrow, or ignore.

Today we brainstormed a bunch of adjectives, then a bunch of nouns. Then we picked from the lists to create things to draw. Weird things. Like, a gigantic metal banana.

Then, we brainstormed lists of superpowers, types of sidekicks, parts of a superhero costume, and other stuff. I left it on the board for people to use -- if they wanted to. A lot of them did something totally different, but having lots of ideas flying around really got the pencils going.

I did this in a room of 18 kids... so it was loud, and funny, and chaotic. I happen to think these are signs of success in a class. I always figure I'm doing things right if I'm having to calm the kids down periodically.

Anyway, you can brainstorm with just a couple of people, or by yourself, or in a big group. Just please don't break into discussion groups or do a mission statement or anything like that. For kids, it's a terrific way to get them talking, yelling, and getting ideas.
  Sat, 28 Jun 2008 05:36:00 +0200
Never underestimate the power of drawing to give kids connections with one another. I love to take a big white board and lay it flat, and then divide it into sections and turn kids loose. Group projects often get everybody talking, and there's negotiation as to who is working on which section. Sometimes they talk about what they are drawing, sometimes they are just gossiping or free associating.
If kids are going to work together, you may need to set some ground rules such as outlawing marking on someone else's drawing. Also, you'll want to allow lots of space so battles for spots don't break out. I find this circular arrangement shown in the picture works well, because the kids can approach it from any side. And, some can stay longer while others do a drive-by and then come back later to add something else. The result is always fascinating, and I can look at these for a long time. It's also fun to hang on to them for a while and let the kids appreciate the whole thing too.
  Sat, 28 Jun 2008 05:27:00 +0200
One of my favorite things to do with a new group of kids is to brainstorm a whole bunch of words and then use them to generate ideas. This week I taught a drawing camp at my son's school.
I don't know if you can see this too well, but what we did was to think of a whole bunch of nouns that were creatures of some kind - and wrote them on index cards. Then the kids would pick two cards, and draw the result. We got things like a mer-panda, a gangster cow, a monkey chicken, and lots of others. For some kids, this bloomed into a whole society of characters. For others, one quickly became a favorite. They got names, personalities, and even relationships.
Later on I took one of mine, "Gangster Cow," and turned him into a sort of bad guy who was going after another student's creation, "Laser Man."
Then as another twist, you can create another set of cards that has places or adjectives and mix them in. One good combination of cards is Adjective + Adjective + Noun. Another is Noun goes to Place. As you can see, there are a whole lot of combinations. And, kids can run the game themselves. I really enjoy watching the whole thing take on its own life.
  Wed, 25 Jun 2008 06:20:00 +0200


This weekend I went to see the Women Impressionists Exhibit at the Legion of Honor in San Francisco. It incorporates the work of four very different female Impressionist painters. I was struck by how distinct they were from one another, and by the absolutely impeccable drawing skills that were evident underneath and inside of every painting.
When we got up close to the first painting my daughter asked her usual question: "Mom, is that the ACTUAL thing?" To which I replied, "Yes, that's the real painting. Her hands actually put those brush strokes on there." To which she replied, "Woa." Or something like that.
Every time we go to an exhibit I am struck by how, in this day and age, it is so common to see media and copies of things and digital stuff that it's easy to "see" something in some media form without ever getting the chance to appreciate it as an object, as the work of someone's hands.
There is a wonderful book called "What Painting Is" by James Elkins. It is all about the physical act of making a painting - what happens to the canvas, how the paints are mixed, how paintings are taken apart and put in different frames and moved around. It makes you wish you could see the backs of all those paintings hanging in the museum. What stories are hidden there!
  Thu, 19 Jun 2008 18:07:00 +0200
Okay, while I firmly believe that there is no substitute for studying real-life objects to learn to draw them, especially people and hands, I also think there's no substitute for watching someone work. So, here's a nice video on a particular way of drawing hands - one of those elements that drive people crazy.

  Wed, 18 Jun 2008 00:08:00 +0200

Off the Ground, originally uploaded by betsystreeter.

... when you just feel like you can't get off the ground? That's what this piece is about.

Never underestimate the power of art, music, writing to let out complicated feelings. Sometimes keeping a journal works, sometimes it's just a matter of having a pencil and paper handy. But I find that with me, and with my kids too, getting stuff out in visual form really helps you both calm down and understand your feelings.

  Sat, 14 Jun 2008 01:32:00 +0200
http://www.imaginationcubed.com/

I don't know why this is there, or what GE has to do with it, but there it is. And it's pretty fun. If you feel like just drawing something quick, it's great. Shoot, if you had an idea and wanted to shoot a friend a sketch of what you're thinking, you could use this to do it. Hover over Tools to get a stamper or text thing or to change the background.

Cool!
  Wed, 11 Jun 2008 17:47:00 +0200
This summer will be exciting, since I'm teaching in one-, two-, and three-hour formats. I'm doing a weeklong cartooning camp, a series of long workshops, and a bunch of short workshops. All at different venues with different kids.

My plan for the summer has a few simple elements:
1. Have a theme for each week and use it at all my classes, regardless of format. This way I can put together materials and use them multiple times. My themes are going to include superheroes and sidekicks, fairytales and monsters, lost in space, the zoo, and surf and skate. Each theme offers cool ideas like movie posters, or designing a skateboard.
2. Follow the same basic pattern for the classes, just make it longer or shorter. First, I like to goof around and play some games. Then we talk about the theme/project. Then, we brainstorm together (this is often the funnest part, kids yelling out crazy ideas and me writing them down). Then, we do a project together, and then I set them loose on their own stuff.
3. Then, I always have some random inspirations and projects in my back pocket - a cool art or animation book, or a paper-folding idea. Often the kids have their own suggestions like fortune tellers or checkerboards.

I'm looking forward to posting artwork and lessons learned as all this stuff unravels (I mean, unfolds!) - and hopefully you'll find lots of project ideas too as we go.
  Mon, 09 Jun 2008 21:57:00 +0200
Okay, I'll admit something - very often, most of the time actually, I haven't got the slightest idea what's going to happen in my classes.

Oh, I go in there with an intention, a theme, even a project - but it's hanging out with the kids and seeing what's on their minds that really makes things go.

For example: The other day, I brought in a book on Disney animation because we had been trying to remember what Tinkerbell's hair looked like. But as soon as I got there, one of the kids pulled out his binder which had a picture of a bunny character on it that he called "Happy Bunny." So, we drew Happy Bunny for the rest of the hour. We colored him. We put outfits on him. I didn't even know the bunny existed before that.

I find teaching art is as much about being willing to receive ideas as being ready to give them. Because artistic expression is about getting heard and understood. So, I do a lot of hearing and understanding, and then I offer ways to get stuff down on paper. Or cut out. Or glued. Or whatever.

So, the most important thing I take with me to any drawing class isn't materials or a lesson plan, it's readiness to hear about what's interesting, and then turn that into ideas for projects. It might be a movie that just came out, or a picture on someone's binder, or even a t-shirt someone wore to school that day or a book they brought. But the result is something totally unique and spontaneous. So I guess I don't really teach creative material as much as creative thinking. Even though I show up with a project that we're not going to do.
  Mon, 09 Jun 2008 04:46:00 +0200

Coin Gets Stolen, originally uploaded by betsystreeter.

In this page, our main character (whose name, incidentally, is Helen) is trapped when her coin is stolen from her by an unknown entity.

It's fun to put this stuff up one page at a time, because I can show what it looks like without giving away the plot.

The arched doorway gives way to a dark space filled with arches, which seems to grow in complexity as the story unfolds.

  Sat, 07 Jun 2008 00:03:00 +0200

Self-Drawing Map, originally uploaded by betsystreeter.

In this page, the main character is shown to the Map Room by the Librarian, only to find that the maps appear to be blank... that is, until the Librarian shows her that the maps draw themselves.

I'm drawing each page as a mini-story, and not in order - so the whole book will take shape a piece at a time. It's fun this way because each page has to hang together on its own and I have to really think about how I explain the action a piece at a time.

  Thu, 05 Jun 2008 18:59:00 +0200
Garr Reynolds did a very nice summary of "If You Want to Write" on his blog - so here it is, if you want to get the salient parts of Brenda Ueland's book in just a coupla minutes. I'd still recommend getting a copy and stashing it somewhere - as a creative artifact of sorts. Having books in your life changes things. But in the meantime, have at it!

Book summary on Presentation Zen

Enjoy!

Bonus: Check out the link "How to be Creative" at the bottom of the page. Also useful!
  Wed, 04 Jun 2008 01:56:00 +0200

I just finished this book by Brenda Ueland. She was a prolific writer and a teacher - and this book, though written way back in 1938, is often cited as the best book on creativity and the artistic spirit that you can read. I think this book can be life-changing. If you are either pondering your own creative path or are someone who inspires and teaches others, this book is a very important one. There are many books out there about creativity, including some that I will highlight here, but at the core many of them are re-stating what's in this book. This is one you want to stash in your nightstand.
  Sat, 31 May 2008 05:28:00 +0200
I've always loved stencil art. Particularly graffiti. It comes out so graphic and stark and cool. So I'd like to show some here.

Having said that, general searches on Flickr under "street art" and "stencil art" yield some, um, questionable results. Since a lot of street art is political, or violent, or adult. So, I handpicked some examples to look at. I dig these.

R2D2 Stencil

Wall Art

The Clash

Multi-Layer Stencil

Cool Tricky Stencil

These make you think of positive and negative space in a whole new way. Enjoy!
  Wed, 28 May 2008 22:34:00 +0200

coin_door_appears, originally uploaded by betsystreeter.

I thought it might be fun to post what I'm working on periodically - since I'm developing a graphic novel based on a story I wrote some years ago.
It's been a long process determining the layout and how I want to draw it. I've spent a lot of time looking at picture books, comics, graphic novels, and paintings. I've looked at how I tend to like squares and grids based on squares. And I've had to make sure that I love each and every frame - the composition, the story in it, the drawing itself. Because that is how I will make sure that there is truth in every frame and every page. By truth I mean, what is true from my own imagination and abilities to get it on paper.
Each page will work as a mini-story and then they will string together to make the book.
I'm not going to spend a lot of time explaining the plot or characters - instead I'll let the pages speak for themselves. That's what they should be doing, anyway.
Enjoy!

  Mon, 26 May 2008 22:44:00 +0200

I am thrilled to see more and more graphic novels taking new directions visually. I have to admit I've never been that into the classic "comic book" style, probably because my own drawing style is much more textured than those are and so I don't relate that well. But there are lots of neat graphic novels out there. This one, "The Arrival," has no words at all. It's a great surrealistic story of the immigrant experience. Shaun Tan creates a world that is impossible to interpret - you can't read the signs, everything looks weird and unfamiliar - and in doing so really drives home what it's like to be an immigrant in a new land. This is a popular theme in this medium - "American Born Chinese" covers some of the same ground. I'll elaborate on that one soon.