45 Cartoon Portraits drawn under 3 hours at 5 Grade Graduation dinner

Event: 5 grade graduation dinner at school cafeteria 5-8 pm. Drew 40 students plus 5 adults and volunteers on 8.5" X 11" card stock with two 06 Sakura Pigma Sensei pens. Working side  by side with Melody Scruggs (Mimi the Clown) that I met tonight. She is very nice, and you should certainly give her a call if you need fun clean family entertainment services in the Triangle area.
Speed: 15 portraits/hour (though had some down time when no guest were waiting to be drawn). After drawing each portrait, I took a quick photo with my phone to keep track of my progress. Sorry for the blurry shots, for I did not allow the phone enough time to focus on some of them. Managed to document 41 of them, but my battery died by the time I completed the last four cartoon portraits for the evening.



Early in the evening my actual sketching speed was closer to 20 portraits/hour, and as the evening progress we tackled a few more detailed guests and special requests that required a bit more time per portrait.

Drawing Lions at Highlands Elementary Summer Art camp

My deepest thanks to the staff at Highlands Elementary Summer Art camp for your hospitality and support. Teaching in eight different classrooms each day would not have been as effective without your aid, and special thanks to those of you that doubled as photographers on my last day in Immokalee. Fellow instructors please remember as part of my continuous support for the creative endeavors of the students in the area you are welcome to download and print the coloring templates and activity sheets (included on the links list on the right) for future art classes. It was a pleasure working wiht all of you.
We had groups of kinder through 2nd grade work on tracing or drawing lions, giraffes, and other African animals as part of the day camp art activities.
A few carefully selected reference sheets on animal drawing, several packs of Crayola super tip markers, and generous supply of paper = groups of happy kids drawing their favorite animals.

Kids demonstrated their creativity by drawing their own backgrounds for their African animals.
Guess lots of the kids had seen the animated movie "Madagascar", for many included an airplane in the skies above their African savanna landscapes.
Being my last day at the summer art camp, we made sure that all my students got at least one souvenir cartoon portrait after our three sessions together.
You can see the influence of the animal drawing lessons in their customization requests. Many students asked to be drawn riding or holding some kind of animal.
Thanks again to the caring staff at Highlands Elementary for your support and the great work you did with the children every day of this summer program.

Gallery of Students' Work

Finished pop-up cards by 4-6 grade students.
Halloween was certainly a popular subject with this goup of students.


This student clearly enjoys her time spent at school.
A couple of students made good use of the Pentel Outline metallic markers for some decorative finishing touches.


Since we ran out of pre-cut blank greeting cards, the group of boys had larger blank cards to work with that were made by folding letter size card stock sheets in half. Most will finish coloring and decorating them on our last lesson next week.



Completed face drawing assignments.
Depicting Kaiju encounters (Giant Monsters battling) was popular with the boys.
A few students even found the time to color and decorate their customized name plates.
Most 3 graders picked Halloween subjects for their mini comics.
The older students also tackled some Halloween stories, and a few tried for romance comics.






Mini comic unfolded.
Definitely a Shojo mini comic.

2-Day RCMA Dragon Mural Project Photo Journal

The United Arts Council of Collier County sent out the call, and local volunteer artists came together to paint a Dragon Mural in two days for RCMA Community School in Immokalee, FL From our initial conversations, we soon realized that it was our first time for several of us tackling a mural project.
While keeping an eye on a nearby thunderstorm, the team managed to primed and traced the main dragon outlines on Sunday night.
We had to fill the holes on the walls right before painting them.
Getting the painting supplies ready on Monday morning.
Terri Wegman painting the Day Dragon wall.
Heidi Saletko and Cesar Aguilera working on the Night Dragon wall.
Patti Smith painting the Day Dragon's eye. From photographs the walls seemed taller, and it was hard to accurately judge the proportions of the walls to be painted. Thus the large dragons designed by Cesar ended up with a lot of empty space on either side of the wall. So baby dragons were hastily added to balance the composition of both walls.
Me finishing up a purple baby dragon.
During recess. it was great to hear how much the students and staff were enjoying the new art in their courtyard. Several of them were students that had attended my holiday cards and cartooning classes the last school year and were quite excited about the possibility of continuing their lessons later on.
Baby dragon close-up shots.
Finished Night Dragon wall.
Finished Day Dragon wall.
All done! This UAC mural project sure was fun with such a great group of volunteer artists. Working with latex paint was an interesting experience since it was my first time using it. Cesar mentioned that its consistency and handling made it ideal for creating Pollock-style drip paints.