The rest of the chalkboard drawings are behind the cut, but this one is different from the rest and got a pretty great reaction from the kids. Jerry Nelson’s work with the Muppets was a HUGE part of my childhood. I didn’t realize how big a part of my students’ childhood he was as well. I’m glad I could share the guy’s life with everyone.
The rest of these are Nintendo themed.
Here’s the first week’s worth of chalkboard drawings. Later in the year, I’ll try and do theme weeks where all the drawings have something in common… but for the first week, I try to keep it fairly straightforward.
For this last one, I did something I NEVER do. A kid asked me to include him in a birthday drawing. My rules for drawing caricatures of students are fairly ironclad, but I thought I could violate it just this once for reasons I don’t even really understand.
I debated long and hard as to whether I wanted to continue posting my chalkboard doodles for the upcoming school year. After three years solid of Sunday postings, I’ve done just about every character or situation I can think of. Further, I often draw the EXACT same drawings, year in and year out. It’s the nature of the job. Just as I teach Romeo & Juliet to every new group of Freshman, I’ll continue drawing myself as various superhero characters on the blackboard.
I’ve decided to keep posting these however, because… quite simply, they’re popular. I understand very little about “site views” and all that jazz, but when I do look at that widget, these are always amongst the most viewed of my posts… and that includes the comic. Over the past six months, a number of these have become popular on the website Pinterest. I know less about Pinterest than I do about site views, but if people are liking something I do well enough to share it somewhere, I should probably keep doing it.
Anyway, here’s the first drawing of the year. I decided I wanted to go big for the first week so I designed an elaborate Welcome piece for the Class of 2016 which took up the entire space of the classroom’s chalkboard.
I have to be honest- this was a larger undertaking than I anticipated! I thought I’d only need a half an hour to draw this beast, but it took double that when you figure in the sketch planning I needed to do to fit in as many characters as possible. I tried to run the gamut of cartoon characters that I found interesting and were relevant to someone who’d be in 9th grade this year. The only one I might have missed the mark on is Yakko Warner, but as established this summer, the characters are making a huge comeback, if only with my sons in our house.
A brief word before the chalkboard drawings this week: If the incredibly angry person from Columbus, Ohio would e-mail me, I would be happy to address your admittedly quite valid point. It’s a shame, because I’d love to think we could talk. I’m fairly certain you missed my intent, but that in no way excuses my unclearness in that Tweet last night.
Despite that, I will not publish your comments as they stand now. There was too much cussing and they were left anonymously. E-mail me though.
Now, on with the chalk scratching, featuring a guest artist this week!
Hope everyone out there’s having a nice weekend and a good Easter… if that’s your thing. My mother’s visiting us from New York for the long weekend!
Here are this past week’s chalkboard drawings… keeping in mind, that we had a short week due to the holiday.
I was going to do an all X-Men themed week until I realized that I didn’t know how any of the other X-Men look! I know how they looked back in the 1990’s when the cartoon was on TV… but I don’t have a clue now! I think I’m going to do a Fantastic Four themed week, starting tomorrow… they’re a bit more consistent in their fashion choices.
November 3oth is Mark Twain’s birthday.
I was falsely under the impression that CBS was airing Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer this past Thursday. I was wrong.
I was kind of impressed that most of my students knew who this was. Of course, I suppose we’re not too far removed from a time when Cartoon Network showed old cartoons like Space Ghost… and true, most kids recognized him from Space Ghost: Coast to Coast… but still, with how quickly pop culture moves these days, I wouldn’t have been surprised if he had been forgotten.
FREE IDEA: Hanna Barbera should do a new version of Space Ghost a la Batman: The Animated Series, where they treat the character seriously. I know Space Ghost was never all that serious, even in the ’60’s and ’70’s, but it’s SUCH a great Alex Toth designed costume. I’d love to see the character lavishly animated someday.
A bit of a slipshod week for chalkboard drawings- a friend of our family died during this week and I ended up missing a few days of school. I haven’t decided if I’m going to include that in the comic, but there it is.
I probably should have waited for this upcoming week to do Harry Potter, seeing as Deathly Hallows hits theaters this coming Friday. Ah well.
I had to take this picture with my Mac’s Photobooth, as I left my cellphone at home this day… hence the backwards lettering.
…and Friday’s drawing was this picture of Kang and Kodos I posted a few days ago.
October is an all-monster themed chalkboard drawing week. Last week I did the classic movie monsters… this week, I did modern monsters.
Two notes about this one: Firstly, the “Friday the 13th sound effect” should probably be written as “ch-ch-ch, ah-ah-ah”. Secondly, right after I took this picture, I realized that having Jason brandishing a machete on my classroom’s chalkboard was probably too intense for anyone so I erased it.
…see, you can kind of tell with my drawing of Ghostface here that I avoided that “waving a deadly weapon around” quagmire. It looks a little strange though.
This one is “by student request” since I’ve only seen the first Saw movie and found it pretty repugnant.
…this one came out pretty good. I like that it’s a joke on how ugly I find myself to be, as well as a general dig at the Child’s Play movies.
I do Halloween-themed drawings all October.
The mummy one is really creepy. I think it’s my gigantic stomach in that one that’s unsettling.
…and with this one, you can really tell I was rushed for time and gave up somewhere in the mid-torso. Still, it’s a passable Creature from the Black Lagoon/Chris Pearce-esque face, I think.
Teachable Moments 