On Bubble Charts
"Wherever we go, we are friends" -Sloth and Manatee
Special Announcement for Bay Area folk!
I’m teaching an illustration class for teens/adults for 8 weeks in October/November at Richmond Art Center! Thursday nights we’ll mess around with all different types of illustration from stories to infographics to comics. Big fun, if you are in the San Francisco East Bay, come join us!
Okay onward:
Sloth and Manatee
When I was in grade school there was some sort of a progress report that we did every so often, where we got to go out in the hall with a teacher’s assistant, or somebody, I don’t remember, and fill in our “bubble chart.”
I have no idea what the bubble chart was for, I think maybe completing reading or math units or something like that. Probably a state standards thing.
But what I really DO remember was, how much I liked filling that thing in. The teacher or assistant would let me pick out a color, and show me the bubbles I could add, and I’d get to color in those lil buggers. It was so satisfying.
This has really stuck with me. Unlike the actual reading units or whatever it was we did to get bubbles. Or why we had a chart.
Our brains have a natural bias toward completing tasks and making progress and deriving satisfaction from doing that. This gives us dopamine or some kind of chemical goodness I think. It’s probably also evolutionary to need to get stuff done, and not just wander around the meadow waiting to be eaten.
If you are like me and your consciousness is like having a beehive installed in your skull, completing things is really important for regulating yourself. So even now, I’m still reminding myself to pay attention to doing things that require focus and completion and filling in some sort of bubbles.
Brainwaves
Best of Brainwaves Volume One: The Fountain of Stuff
Best of Brainwaves Volume Two: Mom, Dad, I'm a Cat
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Art!
Another thing that is good the way bubble charts are good is, making little mechanical things. Like automata. I am not good at this, which is fine.
Eventually I’ll arrive at some something, like this spectacular result:
I hadn’t really thought about what to put on top ‘cause I was so wrapped up in all the moving parts. But it worked out.
Shrimp guy in the back was pretty impressed. Here’s what that fellow looks like:
Anyway, from all this mess I believe we can conclude:
It is always legit to solve problems with tape
Dumb looking things are worth making for the experience of making them
I make dumb stuff.
BunnyFrogCatSnake
In which snake takes a nap
Things Of The Week
This is so very much my stuff. Animation and printmaking and grid systems and music all together. All the food groups!! Watch the music video and then the making-of at the end.
Every so often I must revisit this video about Azikiwe Mohammed because I love it/him so much
Oh hey, draw a fish.
Okay! That's enough nonsense for now.
May you make something dumb yet magnificent, may you get to fill in the next bubble on the bubble chart in whatever color you want, won't you be my neighbor? - Betsy
HELLO AND THANKS FOR READING!!
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