School Mural Project: The Next Panel!

We're on the third panel (out of 5) of the mural for the science building at my kids' school.

The first two panels are up, and they look just fantastic. And, they have withstood some serious amounts of rain here in Northern California.

Here you can see where the mural is being installed - there will be 5 panels altogether. Note also the variety of sports equipment that has been launched onto the roof of the science building....

And, here's a little closer view. We've gone from DNA to cell stomata, and cell stomata to oak leaves.

So, continuing our "powers of ten" concept, the next panel goes from oak leaves, on the inner panel, to oak trees, on the outer frame.

Here it is sketched out. The trick is to get the oak trees to "read" like oaks, which have this unique shape - especially since the mural is so bright, almost Matisse-like in character.

And here is the whole panel, sketched out. I used chalk to sketcha nd suggest the colors, and then a big fat Sharpie to put in the lines so it's like a giant coloring book.

Next up, kids with paintbrushes!! Wish our science teacher luck.

School Mural Project: Plywood Squares Aplenty

Our mural for the science lab at my kids' elementary school is taking form! As I mentioned before, besides making something cool to look at, we also want to:

- Involve as many kids as possible in painting the mural

- Break it down into manageable pieces that can be easily handled

- Use paints that will last and varnish the heck out of it

- Show tons of science concepts and terms

The sketch we're working from looks like this:

It's a variation on the "powers of ten" concept. We work our way from DNA on the left to space on the right. It will be five panels, of 4 by 8 feet each. Each block is a 1-foot square.

Another parent took on the big job of cutting plywood squares (it's 1-inch thick plywood) and priming them, then I rolled them home in our red wagon. Each one of these will make up one square of the grid. This way, kids can take them and paint them without having to crawl over one another - and they can feel ownership of their square. It's part mural, part mosaic.

I've got the squares for the first panel laid out, ready for the line art of DNA/cell stomata (I'm also going to number/letter them all so we know where they go). They look like this:

Once I've got the line art and numbering on there, we'll enlist some students to put little dots of paint in the various spaces to show what should be painted what color. Then the kids can have at it!

I'm tempted to expand the space dedicated to the DNA to 4 squares tall rather than just the two in the sketch - I think it would look better.

We're using mural paint for this rather than exterior paint - we considered recycling house paint but it just wasn't going to look as vibrant. And since I walk through the Mission in SF all the time, I'm very biased toward vibrant! We've been referring to this cool site about the Mural Arts Program in Philadelphia. They even talk about what paints and varnishes they use. And, there's tons of inspiration there.

So, time to get out the pencil and Sharpie I think... and draw some DNA!

Rocket Science

I just got back from my daughter's science fair at school. There was a sheep heart, and some worms, and solar panels, and catapults - one of my drawing students used one to shoot a piece of cereal into my shirt that I think is still there. Anyway, it was cool. I know there's a lot of concern about getting kids interested in science, but I think anything that's applied to the real world is inherently interesting to a kid. Also, anything that's in story form is inherently interesting to a kid. And, as was clear from the cookie tasting experiment, anything that involves eating cookies is inherently interesting to a kid.

Anyway, it was great fun. And as an offshoot to my earlier rant about art here, I think the same goes for science - showing how everything in your world came from invention, and experimentation, and knowledge of the properties of materials and DNA and mechanics and all of it, is very much like showing how everything is designed. It's all the result of creative thinking and investigation. I think kids get that - if it's shown to them in the real world. Kids are sort of the ultimate reverse engineers - they see something and want to know how it got that way. And it helps to have cookies.

BTALD: Earthlings Attack!

I know there are lots of movies about aliens coming to Earth and attacking us and people running scared in the streets and having bad experiments done on them and all that.

But, what if we turn out to be the ones who freak out other civilizations? What if we look like we're hurling big metal probes at people every time we launch a new satellite?

Never mind that nobody can come land on our planet anyway because they'll get pelted with space garbage.

One other question: On that golden record that we sent out into space that introduces the human race and has Beethoven on it and all that great stuff - why are the people in the little picture naked? Isn't that a little confusing? These are things I want to know.

BTALD: Compliments of...

So it's a New Year, when we're supposed to get all Big-Picture and try and resolve to do things differently. Or, boycott the process because we think it's dumb. Whichever you prefer.

If you don't have any particular resolutions, or can't think of any, I'd like to propose one: Pay more compliments.

You can make a person's whole week just by saying something nice to them. I know that when I get an email from a reader saying a cartoon made them laugh or they put it up in their office or sent it to a friend, that makes my whole career worthwhile. Seriously.

It's a really big deal for people to feel like they are seen. We do so much seeing of celebrities and lifestyles and reality TV and cheap plastic junk and... and...

What really makes a difference to a person is to BE seen.

And if you pay someone a compliment, it means you saw them and you noticed them.

So, that may not be a big ol' resolution like losing 50 pounds or traveling somewhere or whatever, but then if you did those things it would all be so worth it if someone complimented YOU on your tan, or how slim you are... see?