A Quiet Moment Amongst Friends

Heart Hospital 911

Every day on my way to work I pass a temporary mural created by children that sits in front of a construction site at San Francisco's General Hospital. Most of the mural depicts anthropomorphic hearts that have fallen ill. This is their story. 

It had been a normal morning at the hospital before ambulances began showing up with dozens of critically ill hearts. Alarms bells sounded and physicians were called in from every department to begin a triage.

Time was of the essence. 

While the day was stressful in some ways, the doctors couldn't help but smile as they operated on hearts instead of people for a change.

The human patients in the hospital enjoyed meeting the hearts, but the hearts were uncomfortable around the humans.

As soon as the hearts started to feel better, they would get up and dance around. Some of the hearts would also sing. The hospital staff were not amused. 

While there were many happy stories at the hospital that day, sadly, not every heart survived. 

The End. 

A Walk In The Park

It's been a while since I've had a piece of kid art to work on. Yesterday I found this anonymous child's artwork on the sidewalk in front of my apartment. I can understand why someone would toss this in the street; it's awful. First, you can barely discern the person standing beside the anthropomorphic sun, then, there's the blatant attempt to cover up the sloppy illustration by haphazardly piling on stickers. It's a complete mess. Mercifully, I brought it home and shaped it into a beautiful artwork. As you can see, my version is so much better it's not even worth debating.

UPDATE: I'm trying to start up a business where I critique and improve children's art. Send me your kid's art and I promise to give it an honest assessment. For the time being, I'm providing this service for free. 

The Cruelty of Children

Found items and doodles, mixed media, 2009

My friend Nathan L teaches middle school in New York and comes across all types of student doodles on a regular basis. Most of the doodles he finds are charming, but some of them can be nasty. Nathan recently found these two examples of mean-spirited notes on the floor of his classroom:

While I don't condone this anonymous attack on a fellow student, I decided to take a stab at improving the work. In my version, Stacy actually is a dinosaur who goes back to school and spooks the bullies. 

I'm not sure if this helps Stacy. Probably not, I really just felt like drawing a dinosaur. 

These dinosaur notes reminded me of another note found by my friend, Lila K, in an elementary school playground in Seattle. In this note, a young girl attacks her classmate Mia with a couple of harsh put-downs. 

 
In response to the note, I drew an unflattering portrait of the note's author. I hope my drawing teaches anyone considering writing a mean note a valuable lesson: What goes around comes around.

 

UPDATE: Nathan was recently the target of friendlier caricaturists at his school:

Los Origenes de los Hebreos

Found drawing, pencil, pen and colored marker on paper, 8 1/2 x 11 inches, 2009

Cover translation: "The Origins of the Hebrews"

Panel One: "The road taken by the Israelites when they left Egypt."
Panel Two: "God gave the Ten Commandments to Moses on Mount Sinai." 
Panel Three and Four: "Drawing" 

I found this water-damaged booklet about Jewish history on the sidewalk in my neighborhood. The spanish-language fold-out tells the tale of the Exodus from Egypt and Moses recieving the Ten Commandments. Interestingly, the Red Sea is depicted as an enormous half-tomato, half-caterpillar monster.

As I have done in the past, I took it upon myself to restore the piece and help the original artist flesh out their concept. I started by giving the Red Sea monster a more realistic facade. I then used colored pencils to add depth and texture to the desert landscape. Moses and the Israelites were given nicer clothing and fun hairstyles. For the final touch, I wrote "Exodus" and "10 Commandments" in a cool, heavy metal font. You have to admit that this new version is pretty bad-ass. 

Click the images to view larger versions

I'm On A Boat (Remix)

Found drawing, crayon and chalk on paper, 8 1/2 x 11 inches, 2009

I was walking in my neighborhood yesterday when I found this drawing on the sidewalk in front of a middle school. It had been stomped on a few times and the artist appeared to be long gone.

In the drawing, a young girl in a small boat bobs around in rough seas. For a scribbly crayon drawing, I was struck by the sadness and isolation it depicts. I liked the drawing so much that I was compelled to dig deeper into the story and bring additional details to life. With pencil and colored pencils, I completed the drawing exactly as, I assume, the original artist would have liked:

 

In the modified version, the girl has a more measured take on her predicament: her messy scowl replaced by a disturbed pout and her freightened stare calmed by the presence of friendly marine animals and a larger, more comfortable boat. I actually destroyed a lot of what was good about the original drawing, but you have to admit that it's nice to have some depth and shading.

That really worked out great! I'm currently exploring this concept of adults finishing the art of children. I think I can make some serious money on this. Most parents would happily pay $50-$100 to have a guy with a blog punch-up their kid's work and make it look professional.

SPECIAL OFFER: For the next few months, in order to build my portfolio and create a business plan, I will finish any kid's drawings for FREE! Send your (young) kid's art to aquietmoment@gmail.com.

Move Over And Let Me Show You How It's Done!

Doodled logo, pen and colored pen on paper, 6 x 9 inches, 2009

My friend Ben Y alerted me to a contest called, Doodle 4 Google, where Google asks people to come up with new designs for their logo. Unfortunately, Google decided to make this contest only for kids in grades K-12. Thanks a lot, Google. That's really cool how you completely exclude middle-aged guys. What a joke! 

Well, I decided not to abide by Google's stupid, ageist rules and I made my own submission for the contest. I drew this logo just now in the span of 45 minutes (Can you believe it???). Take a peak at the finalists for each age bracket and tell me I'm not one of the best. I definitely have the best doodle in the K-3 group. There are some really good ones in grades 4-6 (and one that a parent clearly drew), but I still think I come out on top. Next, I would crush the 7th-9th graders if it wasn't for that amazing owl and cobweb composition. Still, I think I'm competitive here. Then we get to the 10th-12th graders and, surprisingly, the artwork takes a step backwards creatively. I beat this group handily. Hey guys, just because you know computers doesn't mean you can coast to victory. (Perhaps the Google judges were showing their Adobe Illustrator bias). 

Honestly, I think this entire competition comes down to me and 13 year-old Deldar G's owl. He's got a cool bird and a beetle and I've got a bunch of snake-looking things. It could go either way. If I lose to that dude, I can live with that. 

Man, I really hope it's not too late to get in on this contest. I've been messing around with the code on the voting page, but I can't find an easy way to hack into the server in order to add a field for write-in candidates. C'mon Google, give a guy a break! I can win this!

 

UPDATE: 05/21/09 - Oh brother, they just announced the winner. Really? I could have been a contender!

Climate Change Is a Problem for the Children

Four drawings, pencil on paper, 3" x 5", 2009

On a recent visit to the new California Academy of Sciences, I came across an exhibit where visitors were asked to write down their solutions to climate change. The responses were posted on a wall for everyone to see. I stole these four examples because they caught my eye and I figured that the janitor was probably going to toss them in the trash later that night regardless.

As we all know by now, the children of today are going to be the ones bearing the brunt of the climate changes that our generation created. These kids are going to have to roll up their sleeves and dig out of this mess just like our generation had to dig out from under all the crap that previous generations piled on us. While it's tempting to kick back and cheer the young'uns on from the sidelines, there is no good reason why we can't all chip in a little bit. I decided to do my part by punching up these four drawings to make them clearer and more effective as pieces of propaganda:

 

The first panel didn't need much improvement, so I simply fleshed out the animal in the tank and had him eat junk food instead of fish food. In the second panel, I made it so the bird is saved by flying into space to escape Earth. The space shuttle in the background has the same idea. In panel three, I added more plantable items. This piece was already strong, but I felt that adding more items enhanced the creator's original intent without cluttering it. In the final panel, I clarified that people should stop eating microwaved meat (gross). I assume this is what the artist meant.

A High School Dream Catcher

Found item, youth art, 9" x 12", colored pencil on paper, 2009

 

Nathan L submitted a cell phone photograph of a dream catcher created by a student at Taft High School. You have to give this student credit for being a straight shooter. This piece does a nice job of capturing the grown-up reality that no matter how great things seem or how much cool stuff you have, there will always be some negative shit creeping around.