Morning.

Oh, I hear you.

Step:

1.  Outer space.

2.  Inner space.

3.  Draw you playing it cool.

4.  Title: “Cool.”

5.  Date it.

6.  Send it to me.

See you at 10:00!  Cruciverbalists, assemble!

Morning.

Yep: that’s about right.

Steps:

1.  Outer space.

2.  Inner space.

3.  Right-click (or ctrl-click) here to open Lynda Barry’s Etsy page in a new tab or window, and then click on the “Quarantine Cat” painting that calls to you.

4.  Once you’re set, come back here and press “Play” below, then go back to your Quarantine Cat and draw it with as much precision as possible.

Remember Lynda Barry’s incredible advice about images being like a map – where does one line end and the next begin?  Your have about a little less than five minutes – go!

5.  Title: “[the title of your painting],” by Lynda Barry.

6.  Date it.

7.  File it somewhere safe so that we can look at it together at a later date.

See you at 10:00!

ps: Grade 6s – don’t forget to bring any questions you may have about band for Mr. Cohen!

Morning.

Steps:

1.  Outer space.

2.  Inner space.

3.  Draw you in the dream world.  (You can listen twice if you need to.)

4.  Title: “A Message from the Dream World.”

5.  Date it.

6.  Send it to me.

See you at 10:00!

Morning.

Yep.

Steps:

1.  Outer space.

2.  Inner space.

3.  How much time do you have/do you want to take?  This will determine which music you use today to do your drawing to.

a)  Six minutes?  “Printemps qui commence” (“The first of spring”), from Samson et Dalila, by Camille Saint-Saëns:

or b) Nineteen minutes?  “Printemps” (“Spring”), by Claude Debussy:

After you press “Play,” your job is to copy this iconic cover of The New Yorker in as much detail and with as much precision as you can within the time limit.  How do you capture the entire image?

4.  Title: “Soundtrack to Spring,” by Tom Gauld.

5.  Date it.

6.  File it somewhere safe so that we can look at it together later.

Click here to view the cover in a mode where you can hover over each of the measures to music to hear it played!  (Dang: that doesn’t work on my computer; I’m crossing my fingers that it might work on yours…)

See you at 10:00!

PS: The New Yorker covers are eagerly awaited by subscribers and newsstand oglers each week, sometimes for their artistic beauty and their ability to make you sigh wistfully, sometimes for their political or cultural commentary and their ability to make you think.  Click here to see some of the most famous of these covers!

Welcome back.

I know, I know…

Steps (a gentle reminder to try to do these things for reals):

1.  Outer space.

2.  Inner space.

3.  Before you draw, watch this.

4.  Now, press “Play” above one more time and draw:

What would you do with your fish head(s)?

5.  Title: “Fish Heads!”

6.  Date it.

7.  Take a clear photo and email it to me.

See you at 10:00!

PS: My feeling is that asking you to draw to that video the first time you watched it would have been akin to asking you to draw the very first time you saw this:

AKA Impossible!

PPS: Anyone still practicing their sidekicks?

PPPS: “Joni Mitchell.”

…but not quite yet.

Steps:

1.  Outer space.

2.  Inner space.

3.  Copy this, in detail and with precision…

while you listen to this:

4. Title: “Forest Magic.”

5.  Date it.

6.  File it somewhere safe and organized so we can look at it together later.

See you at 10:00!

Morning.

Exactly.

Steps:

1.  Outer space.

2.  Inner space.

3.  When you are ready, press play below to listen to Debby Boone belt out the 1977 hit “You Light Up My Life” while you copy the debut cover of our class mascot, the incredible “I’m a singer, not a fighter” Dazzler!  You only have three and a half minutes – how will you balance precision with speed?  How do you capture the essence of this amazing Disco Queen?  What are the Important Details? Go!

4.  Title: “The Incredible Dazzler!”

5.  Date it.

6.  File it somewhere safe and organized so that we can look at it together later.

See you at 10:00!

PS: don’t forget: you need to bring in one idea that you discovered while looking through our Daily Diaries – something that you noticed in somebody else’s approach that you might apply to your own.

PPS: Isn’t “dazzle” a great word, to look at, say, and think about?

Oh, and this:

Some interesting possible scenarios: at least six in which someone could walk away with the entire pot; and one where most of the class gets about half a Hi-Chew…

Remember: “Are you caught up?”

Morning.

Yah, me neither.

Steps:

1.  Outer space.

2.  Inner space.

3.  Choose two seniors from Hornell High’s class of 1987.  Copy their pictures in as much detail as possible while you listen to a song they probably danced to at their prom, a number 1 hit power ballad from the same year, “Nothing’s Gonna Stop Us Now,” by Starship.  Consider starting with their eyes.

If you need to, listen to the song twice, once for each head (and really get it lodged into your auditory cortex for the rest of the day) (you’re welcome!).

4.  Now, look through the “Heard” section of your Daily Diaries.  Give each head a speaking bubble and have them in conversation with each other, each saying something unusual that you have overheard.  It does not need to make sense – non-sequiturs are totally okay!

5.  Date it.

6.  Email it to me.

See you at 10:00!  If you have not already done so, please let me know your final Survivor pick!

PS: my neighbor left his bathroom fan on all night last night.  You stand warned.

Rise and shine (or whatever).

Steps:

1. Outer space.

2.  Inner space.

3.  This is a copying drawing.

After you press “Play” below to start the iconic 1970s Pink Floyd hit “Us and Them,” copy this photo of the cast of my Grade 2 production of The Wizard of Oz.

You need to strike a balance between striving for precision and detail and completing the entire image in the just-less-than-eight-minutes time limit.  Think about Lynda Barry’s advice: this is a map, made up of a collection of spatially related lines.

4.  Title: “The Wizard of Oz, 1978.”

5.  Date it.

6.  File it somewhere safe and organized so that we can look at it together later.

Fun fact: rumor has it that if you start the Pink Floyd album The Dark Side of the Moon at the third roar of the MGM lion at the beginning of the movie of The Wizard of Oz, the music and the film sync up in unexpected but satisfying ways.  This phenomena is called “The Dark Side of the Rainbow“!

Challenge: bragging rights to the first person who, in our Class Meeting, can enter into the chat the name of the character I played in the play.  Hint: I got to reuse part of my Halloween costume from earlier that school year.

See you at 10:00!