Outsider Artist of the Week

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My Life in Records- Chapter 2 pgs 22-25

Read this comic from the beginning here or start at the beginning of the current chapter.

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MP3 Saturday: Nice Work If You Can Get It

One of my favorite songwriting teams is George and Ira Gershwin. I don't really care for George's symphonic pieces. They're a little too square for my tastes, but when he teamed up with his brother to write pop tunes, he really hit his stride.

I was first introduced to Nice Work If You Can Get It during my time in the pit orchestra for Crazy For You. The version we played in the musical was pretty bum-chucka in keeping with the 1930s feel of the show, but my favorite version is by Thelonious Monk.

Monk plays with the rhythm to a point where it is virtually impossible to tap your foot to the tune, but its still so enjoyable, you don't care.

My version of the song is not as adventurous as Monk's, but I tried to retain the chord voicings from that version.

P.S. Thelonious Monk not only has the coolest name of all Jazz musicians, but he also has the coolest goatee I've ever seen.

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Nice Work If You Can Get It (download)


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Not Quite Music That Inspired It All

This song from Oliver wasn't really on my mind when writing My Life in Records, but it was probably hummed quite a bit when I was four or five. Check out the meat tossing butchers about 2 minutes in!

New Character Designs for My Life in Records

I've been toying with the idea of changing up the style for My Life in Records for the second part of the story (after Chapter 3 wraps up) I've been drawn to a more realistic, yet angular style and I've also been using a simple crow quill nib pen. Unfortunately, the ink bleeds in my sketchbook.

Any thoughts on the change? Will the more angular character design fit with the flowy musical abstractions? Will it be more suited to mess with some of the harsher sounding music that will be discussed in the future stories?

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Art "Criticism" in the Elementary Classroom

I rarely get into much art criticism in my classroom. We do a lot of art making and art history, but we don't get much time (or I don't make enough time) to approach making judgments about art.

Last year I started with great intentions. We started with a game I learned back in college, but after that, I don't think we had one single critique or discussion about the nature of art.

This year I want to at least have a few classes carved out for self evaluation on projects. I tend to worry about getting my bulletin boards full of new work and neglect having the kids think about what they've done or what they're going to do.

Here's instructions for the game we've played from time to time in my classroom to get the kids thinking about what their personal tastes in art are and how they think art should be categorized.

I gave a Ziploc bag full of various art postcards to each group of four students. I told them that they were curators of a new museum and this was the collection of art that they had been entrusted.

First, I asked them to pick out one or pieces they liked the best and one they hated. Each judgment had to be backed up with a good reason why they liked or didn't like the artwork.

Next, I told them that they could make a map of this new museum and they need to think about where they would place each piece of art. I told them to pay attention to what was hanging next to each piece and to think about lumping pieces that were alike in the same room. (It was up to them to decide what made the pieces alike- sometimes they sorted thematically rather than chronologically or geographically.)

Some of the museums were very elaborate and interactive. I wish some of these kids would be in charge of designing of some of the museums I frequent.

Near the end of class, each group shared their museum with the whole class and explained their rational for the arrangement of the artwork

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Outsider Artist of the Week

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