For the first success of the year I have the pleasure to announce 2009’s first signed caricature: Buddy Guy!

For those that do not know who Buddy Guy is, get out that rock that is on top of you. Buddy Guy is a legend of music and especially blues. Chicago Blues. He is over 70 years old now but he still plays a nasty good guitar. Eric Clapton is awed by him.

I now have two great blues guitarists, Buddy and the Kind himself, B.B. King.

How do i get the stars to sign for me, a little, old, teacher from Spitsville, U.S.A.? Well to clarify I am 35, 200 lbs, and I am from Two Rivers, Wisconsin, Birthplace of the Ice Cream Sundae! But that is not the point…..

I am a proud member of the StarTiger community. StarTiger.com is the place to be if you want to know or how to get the signatures of the stars. Granted you have to pay for membership, but the friends you make there are awesome and the connections to the famous autographs that you crave are just a couple of bucks away…

I have been a member for over 10 years and the majority of my signed caricatures are attributed to their input and know-how.

Anyway Buddy Guy signed my caricature and sent it back in my self-addressed stamped envelope! In 12 days or so.

Not a bad start for the new year!

This was inspired by taking the 30 minute drive to Denmark that took 45 minutes instead….

You will need:
a pencil
a piece of paper
a ruler
and three of your favorite color crayons (try to avoid black as it could be used after the project is completed)

1. Take the pencil and make some swirly lines. I tell the kids to let your pencil go for a skate. Lots of swoops and such.

2. Take your ruler and with your pencil make about 5 lines going vertical. They don’t have to be spaced perfectly as long as it “cuts up” the design a bit.

3. Now the cerebral part of the project; with one of the three crayons color the space that is formed in the lower left-hand corner of your paper. Stay within the lines. I tell my students that the lines are like an electric fence and the color is a certain breed of cattle that cannot intermingle with another color. I know that sounds racist but the picture will turn out better. Plus I am not a racist. Bigotry is not part of good art. Anyway…..

4. When the one color is finished with that space filled, choose another color next to that space and color that space. You should have 2 colored spaces. Add the third color to you guessed it the third color. After that is completed, the rule is that the same color cannot touch the sides of another space. EXCEPT where it hits in the corner. Then the same color can touch at that minimal point.

5. Make sure all of the paper that is colored is dark enough so the paper does not show through. Finished projects should look like a Calder mobile or a Kandinsky painting.
Extra step: You could make a simple drawing over the completed piece in black to create a stained glass effect.

Good luck!

You know how sometimes inspiration can come at you like a train and you can do one of two things: jump out of the way or get smacked. Well I did the latter and I did not get hurt so much.

I always had an idea for a mini-golf course in my head. Not just any “run-of-the-windmill on #12” mini-golf course but a “putt around the world” type of mini-golf. On a big scale. Now you may think, hmmmmmmmmm….where did I hear this before, could it be the Goldie Hawn/Kurt Russell movie OverBoard? Well yeah, but remember that was just a movie. I was just 12 when the movie came out. On long car rides to and from some relative’s house, I would plot out 18 holes and find the best countries or symbols of the country I wanted to represent.

It all came to a head when I was put on the disabled list last Spring. For about 2 weeks I had an infected jaw that went haywire and the medicine that eventually cured me, actually made these far-fetched ideas seem like a possibility. Funny how that worked out. In fact I kept a notebook on the great ideas I had, and the golf idea was by far the best and most difficult to pull off. It came to the point that my brain would not stop harassing me about this idea. It was difficult, but not impossible. The labor would be very time consuming but if I combined it in a project for 17 eager and impressionable 8th grade students, it just might be crazy enough to work.

I had to get approval, and Sr. MaryLee did give me her Principal blessing. Great! Now I needed supplies. I shied away from wood and saw blades as these were just kids and I had a limited budget. I quickly before school started up, collected as much cardboard as possible and then realized how will the ball go down the hole? Ah-Ha! Toilet paper rolls can provide a base and the space for the ball to go down. A simple plastic soup bowl could provide the balls resting space after it was sunk. Perfect!

I was flying around with ideas and solutions even before school started! But there was a problem. Have you ever putted a golf ball on a piece of cardboard? The ball can go anywhere. Grass provides enough friction and go for the ball to move. How to replicate that was the next step. Then Luck struck once more!

To Be Continued…...