Bear James

Map-Making at Blue Star Art

Bear — Thu, 03 Nov 2011 16:08:56 +0000

"The _______ of Dead Mans' Land"

Recently, I participated in a really great event down in San Antonio (very near the Alamo!) called the Blue Star Art Family Day. Blue Star was once a really cool gallery in a warehouse, but has grown to have several galleries, studios, restaurants and other various shops and venues.

Once a year, they get a whole bunch of sponsors together and make a fully free and accessible event that is ALL about discovering (and expressing) your creativity. They have bands, free food, and of course.. some awesome art making! Sculpture, colorful toast-art, and break-dancing were some of the other contributions.

For my part I paired up with artist and friend Brooke Gassiot to help make a bunch of treasure maps with everyone. Over the course of a couple of weeks, Brooke and I designed 2 foot x 4 foot printing press for the initial map layout. It was really great to watch as the kids got their hands dirty with the inks and working the press. We made island templates out of wood for people to trace including a great ‘skull island’ which was pretty popular. From there, the maps were painted and finished out with about 20 some custom-made stamp designs, drawn by yours truly and made by the SUPER-awesome guys at Capital Stamp.

We had some truly amazing maps come out of the process. We were all so busy that I was only able to snap a few pictures; I wish I could have gotten more, but these will give you the idea. Big thanks to Mike, Carrie, Corinne, Rory , Emily Barker and the volunteers at Blue Star, and of course the guys at Cap Stamp. We could NOT have done it without your help! Thank you!

Blue Star Art, Capital Stamp, Brooke Gassiot

Just look at that happy face!

This map is great. The water spells out the word "Jose" who is their dad who couldn't make it to the event.

A good example of some of the stamps we had on hand. YARRRGH!

Trying out a new / old technique

Bear — Sun, 18 Sep 2011 18:43:02 +0000

Using pen and ink with a watercolor wash is nothing new to me, but I’ve recently gotten reacquainted via a fun artist’s tool called a Pen Brush (or Brush Pen, or Watercolor Brush.. all the same). Essentially, it’s brush with a small reservoir in the handle that holds water.

After watching this video about illustrator Tommy Kane, I wanted to experiment with these myself. He uses a brand called Niji, but the art store near my house carried a brand called Creative Mark. They seemed identical, so I bought them, drove home and my kids and I watched the video again. At the end, we turned on some tunes and got busy!

The kids really responded to the brushes and it seemed to make drawing and painting more fun somehow.. if you’re a parent, I you can’t really go wrong trying these out for roughly $4, eh? Here are two quickies I did on Saturday night and Sunday morning.. let me know if you like ‘em.

Droodles: A Mystery Solved

Bear — Tue, 05 Jul 2011 19:33:51 +0000

I have some great news: Mystery Solved! I had short but tumultuous time trying to solve the mystery of the unknown drawings from when I was a kid. What were they? Who was responsible for them… why are they so cool?

As always, I got the answer with a little help from my friends and rediscovered Droodles! by legendary author/children’s book magnate Roger Price. Following is a super-quick summary of what I’ve been able to find out so far .. if you have any more information, get ahold of me.

Droodles was a series of books created in the fifties by Roger Price. The success of these books led to him creating his own publishing house, Roger, Price, Stern now owned by Penguin. The drawings are wonderfully simple and straight forward… there’s a quality to the drawings that is quintessentially 60′s and 70′s.

From a review on Amazon:

According to the author, a droodle is a simple drawing with a nonsense and humorous caption associated with it. Some examples are the clam with buck teeth, a hive of ants walking through spilled champagne, a man playing trombone in a telephone booth, the leaning tower of pizzas and a foul ball as seen by Roy Campanella. While many of the combinations of drawing and text are of the groaner variety, there are some that are very funny.

I have to admit that it’s true. When I got my book in the mail.. I took some time alone to relive the glory of my 7 year old self. And guess what? It all came flooding back. I love these drawings, and the humor behind them. I used to draw the simple shapes for my friends who didn’t have the books at home.

I’m off to draw some droodles. If you get inspired to do some original droodles, let me know.. I’ll upload them and share them with the rest of the Ursa Major Club.

Visual Puns Mystery / Help!

Bear — Wed, 15 Jun 2011 17:53:49 +0000

“A witch about to be run over by a ship”

I’ve been searching for several weeks for a series of children’s books that I read in the 1970′s that was full of images like these. From what I remember, the idea was to see if you could guess what was going on in the image. I distinctly remember this one as being something like ‘a witch about to be run over by a ship‘ .. but it could have easily been ‘a pyramid committing suicide‘ or ‘a closeup of a crocodile’s mouth.‘

Anyhow.. I can’t seem to find evidence that these books even existed. They were sold at the same type of store that would have carried Mad Libs, The Klutz Book of Juggling, and the Maze books during the ‘maze craze’.

If you’re reading this and you have any information on these books, I would greatly appreciate you contacting me and not allowing any more of my sanity slip away slowly.

Here are a couple more..

My guess for the above is ‘An ant watching the sunset‘ ..

.. this one I think I remember from the books, but my take was ‘a caterpillar walking across a razor blade‘

Martian Snow-Cone

Bear — Sat, 04 Jun 2011 20:39:55 +0000

… what do they taste like?

Sketches / Ch. 8 — The Green Pool

Bear — Mon, 30 May 2011 18:32:39 +0000

Mississippi is chasing the mouse around the pool, while Hobo Mary is trying to catch Mississippi!

This is a quick sketch I did in an effort to have a color drawing to show when I’m telling the story. I’ve found that kids dig having something to pass around when the story’s being told.

This also represents the first time I think I’ve codified Mary’s look … green hat, feather, long sleeve shirt, jeans and boots. I’m still working on Lida-Bee Taylor’s look, but I think it’s somewhere between Mrs. Howell from Gilligan’s Island and Oprah, with a large helping of tattered thrown in for good measure.

Bear — Sat, 29 Jan 2011 04:38:52 +0000

… I’m not sure who was supposed to be at the event, but everyone in the industry was there. Good job SCBWI!

I met the 2011 winner of the art award, Katie .. who was super sweet.

Also, I took this picture.. and surprisingly, I know like 12 people in this photo. Had a great night!

Biz Cards … Whew

Bear — Wed, 26 Jan 2011 23:34:20 +0000

Got my new cards in…

Just in the nick of time, before leaving for NYC and the big SCBWI event. If you’re going, be sure and say hello. I’ve gotten some great recommendations on food and drinks from friends, and I’m hoping to see at least one art show .. perhaps the Warhol Polaroids exhibit or an hour or two at The Frick? Never know…

Summary of Experiences – CV

Bear — Fri, 17 Dec 2010 23:07:58 +0000

Summary

From art school at the University of Texas, to Yahoo!, to teaching art to children in Santa Fe to being a storyboard artist for children, an entrepreneur, and a father I’ve developed skills that will be relevant in the coming months and years as an author/illustrator.

Yahoo! & Ask Earl / 1996-2000

My second big break was when I went to work at Yahoo! Inc in Sunnyvale, California as an illustrator and UI professional. Please read more about this here, but to summarize, I worked on Yahooligans, Yahoo! Games, and Yahoo! E-Cards in their formative years. I worked with world-class talent, from the Smithsonian, to Peter Max, to KISS and Ben and Jerry, my graphics and content reached millions around the world each month. Ask Earl was (and is) a forum where children can write-in questions, and answers are then published out to the world. This is still the 4th link on the Yahoo Kids homepage, and is considered an important tool in online childrens education. It’s the kids version of Quora, circa 1997!

Storyboard and Concept Artist.

Read about those here.

Boys Art Director / Brush Ranch Camp — 1991, 1992, 1993

I started in 1990 when I was the Head of Boys Art Department at an art-oriented camp located in the mountains of Santa Fe, New Mexico. During my awesome three summer stint at this wonderful camp, I developed my loose and open-ended style of storytelling as we would gather around fires in the evenings, and had larger assemblies during the day. I would relay stories that I had heard at camp when I was a kid, and created, of course, created ones of my own. The best part about this storytelling experience was being able to really feel what the kids liked and didn’t like, and have the ability to change and manipulate the endings on the fly. I played a game where I would get the kids to shout out an ending that I would then flesh it out best I could. I do this with my own children to this day, and it’s a riot!

Gloria Walther, Kalani, and The Walther School / 2001

A lifetime friend of my family, Gloria Walther, asked if I would help her illustrate a children’s audio book that she had developed for kids and their parents. The story was popular with the children at the school she founded Los Angeles, The Walther School. We worked and worked, but the book version of the tale of Kalani has never been fully realized, although I’ve got many many drawings from those days. I chatted online with Gloria, recently, and she mentioned our project. Someday, Gloria! Regardless, I was exposed to a way of thinking about children that is so profound, it’s hard to put into words. Gloria is a great human and is probably the single most important person in Hollywood. She’s been on Oprah, and has recently published Eye to Eye, a remarkable book on a lifetime of experiences around children. Don’t even hesitate picking up that book.

BFA / College of Fine Art / University of Texas

Drawing/Painting, video, and the emerging ‘super highway’ aka ‘cyberspace’ aka ‘the world wide web’ aka ‘the tubes’ also known as: The Internet, circa 1993. At college, I had been VP of the Fine Arts Council and had been a Baccalaureate of Art at Richardson High School for two years, my junior and senior years. I’m a believer in school and learning, although I’m also a believer in getting out in the world and experiencing. Sometimes these line up in good and interesting ways. (Hence my fascination with children’s lit).

Before all of this, though, were my early years and some of my influences and inspirations.

Thanks for reading! Contact me with any questions, comments or suggestions.

Big Shoe Holiday

Bear — Fri, 17 Dec 2010 22:34:22 +0000

Love helping out the fans of Bear James. I was asked by the guys at Big Shoes to liven up their homepage with a holiday illustration. These guys are great, plus I love the idea of REALLY BIG SHOES… like something Paul Bunyan would wear (or Santa would fly in). I hope I get to do more illustrations like this in the future. -Bear