Reviews

Classroom Books: Some Thoughts About what you Leave Your Students With

| ellenanneeddy

I taught twice over the last two weeks. I had a magnificent class with Gems of the Praire Quilt Guild and with a group of teen artists at the Peoria Art Guild. Seeing that I hadn’t taught a full day class for over ten years, it was a wild experience. I haven’t quite caught my breath. But I had a great time. I hope they did too.

At Gems of the Prairie, I did a classroom book for them, just because I hadn’t done one for that class. Over the years I’ve done a number of classroom books. I taught the Thread Magic Stitch Vocabulary Book, where we make a book out of samples of different kinds of free motion work. The booklet covered it all with step-by-step photos, tips, and tricks. It’s available now from Amazon in Kindle and in print.

Classroom books are not just for a pretty coffee table. I’ve always loved designing eye candy books. Who doesn’t like eye candy? And feeding your eye is an important part of any art. You need to see things that excite you to go on to exciting work of your own.

But classroom books are for a different purpose. They may feed the eye, but they’re there as a guide through a class and as notes for someone who doesn’t normally take good notes in class. Why would I do that?

Because different people learn in different ways. Some folk learn auditorily. They need to hear everything. Some learn visually and need to see everything. Some learn only by doing. In class, you hope all those modes will be covered. If I offer a comprehensive class guide, I’ve doubled down on the visual mode which is usually the most common

How do you know which mode is operating for people? They’ll usually tell you. “I see that…..” I hear that…”The kinetic mode is the least common, but it’s obvious when you see it. They have to touch everything. And they are the ones who probably take the most thorough notes. It involves physical motion.

None of that is good or bad. It just is. Most folk operate in all modes to some extent. They do better when you hit on all three, but they can absorb information from each mode.

Unless they are in some way dyslexic or distracted. At which point, it’s crucial to have a mode ongoing that they can utilize.

Why does that matter? I came out of school to teach first grade. I don’t believe in the bell curve. I believe everyone needs to learn their colors, tie their shoes and read. And have a fighting chance to learn what they want to learn. I believe in meeting a student where they are and leaving no one behind.

So rather than do dense note handouts on boring white paper, I’ve made classroom books for my students. Due to the wonders of print on demand, it costs as much to print a short booklet as to bring in handouts. And the handouts don’t have as cool pictures.

Sadly, the company I printed my other classroom books discontinued my books, when they stopped doing saddle stitched books. So they’re now out of print.

I don’t know that I’ll take up traveling to teach again. But I do think I’ll teach, just because it’s something I really like to do. And I think that the books I did for class are still important ways for people to learn whether I teach them or not.

The downside of a classroom book is that it’s meant to cover just what’s in a class. Usually, they have a supply list, patterns, step-by-step pictures and instructions, a short gallery, tips, and a source guide. They cost more because they are self-published. It’s a limited scope.

So I’m revisiting those books. I’m hoping on reprinting them, although the format needs to change a bit to accommodate perfect-bound books.

Because, even without class, a classroom book is there to share information, to teach whether you are there or not.

So I’m planning on reprinting these with booklets put together in a series of books called Skill Builders, What do you think? Is it something you’d like?

Let me know what you think.

The Dark: A Look at the Scary

| ellenanneeddy

A Strange Smell in the Sewer

Why do we need the dark? What part of us craves the shivery story, the one that wakes you up and says, “It could be true. Did you check under the bed?” What calls us from the dark?

It sounds like pathology. Something wrong in us. That we would look at those negative images, bad self tapes, dark personal moments. There’s a part of me, even in thinking that wants to run away into the sun and pretend there is no dark.

There’s a dark that really is evil. It does want our destruction. It feeds self hate and self loathing. Sometimes it comes in the form of voices from the past. or part of the culture. Sometimes it’s a voice out of nowhere.

There’s a dark that’s just plain reporting. We’ve seen this stuff. And we need to say what we’ve seen, just as a reality check.

Where does that take us as artists? Do we run from the dark? Paint rainbows and unicorns and refuse the scary? There are artists who seem to have done that. Although the comment about unicorns is unfair. It’s as if they stared into the dark and then turned around and stared into the light.

These are pictures by Odilon Redon. He was a symbolist at the turn of the twentieth century. He went from some rather disturbing images to luminous paintings of what could be either saints or gods.

I haven’t found any research that says why. I can guess.

There was a country that tried to stop grandmothers from reading fairy tales to children. The children suffered all kinds of disturbances, mostly about fear and and loss.

We need to look at the dark, sometimes. Not as our only focus, but so we can really look at the light in comparison. Because the dark is real. As we tell tales about it, we are transforming ourselves in the story. We are creating a people that can go from dark to light.

Do I think everyone’s dark is the same? Heaven’s, no. I know that for everyone there are insurmountable problems we have to surmount, journeys into nowhere that need a destination. We win over those things by transforming ourselves. By  changing the story.

The World in Reflection,  the third book of Sight Unseen series, is a journey from dark towards the light. It’s not a tidy story. Life is too messy for tidy stories. But I think you’ll find it intriguing. Perhaps even transformational.

If you are willing to help me with a review on this book, I will send you a free ecopy in the format of your choice. I ask you read at least three stories, and write a short review. Naturally I probably won’t use your review if you give me a negative three stars and a string of four letter words. But I am asking for honest opinions.

If you are willing to help, email me at ellenanneeddy@gmail.com and I will send you a book to read.  Perhaps it will help you transform something for yourself.

And Thank You!

The Pushme Pullyou: Stopped by Outside Influences

| ellenanneeddy

Dr. Doolittle talked about the Pushmepullyou as an animal that could go any direction once it got a mind as to what it wanted to do. Loved it as a child. Still love it. Sometimes you need the pushmepullyou. Sometimes you need to be the pushmepullyou.

It was almost a year ago when I stopped writing. Not entirely, but close. I had a book almost done and I showed it to a person who told me it was a road to hell.

He hadn’t read it. He just made a judgement.

It stopped me. Cold. I could be told I’d written a bad book or a silly book, or a boring book. All of those things would have sent me skittering back to my computer to do better. This stopped me cold.

Mind you, it didn’t have a sex scene in it. The morally reprehensible in the book learn from their mistakes or don’t but it’s address.

I really do expect to piss off everyone before they’ve finished because it’s a true story of how I’ve come to believe what I believe, even though most of it is fictional. A truth story doesn’t necessarily need to be true.

But I figure people who are pissed off are at least engaged. And it’s written in short story/ novella size chunks where you can pick and choose what you like.

I’ve sat frozen on an iceberg of disapproval and guilt until someone said the magic words. “You mean this person didn’t think like you.”

Well duh. Thank you.

I’m back finishing up stories and polishing them into volume three of the series, The World in Reflection. I’m almost there.

But I do need your help. I have several stories I’m deciding whether to include or not.  Would you look at this one and let me know what you think? It’s called the Rocking Chair. It’s a bit odd, even by my standards, but gentle. My question is, is it too dull? Help me here.

You’ll find Rocking Chair at https://sightunseen2016.wordpress.com/home/stories/the-rocking-chair/

First Reviews: Private Moments Gone Public

| ellenanneeddy
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I just got my first review on One More Once Upon a Time!

one more once upon a time print final8-16_Page_26It’s always a scary moment. I woke up to Don saying, “You’ve got a review today.” And in my head, my mind is going, “Did they like it? Did they? Did they?”
Books have a life of their own. From the moment they’re published they will do things you can’t and go places you can’t. As an author, you just have to get over that.
Books are so private in their making and so public in their lives. You make them mostly in the silence of your study or studio. Then you put them out to do anything they will do in the world. And all of a sudden, people who don’t know you from Adam, know all kinds of things about you. I have, in the past, forgotten what I wrote and been deeply unnerved by what they knew about me.
one more once upon a time print final8-16_Page_34But that’s the wonder of books. We are broader, wider, more public, more real for having written and for reading. Our world is more deeply connected. 
Doing art is similar. You do it because it’s important, vital, to you. The miracle occurs when it matters to someone else as well. Art changes what we think, and how we perceive. It changes what we perceive. What could be more important than that?
But in the end, it was just you fuddling around in the studio. Private becomes public. But maybe, in a small corner, in a small way, we change the world.
So nothing matters quite so much as whether people get it. Did they like it? Did they?
With One more Once Upon a Time, I wanted to showcase the universality of some great older illustrators. And I had a party with the Photoshop toolbox. It’s unabashed eye candy. But who doesn’t have a hungry eye? A huge part of my happiness is when I find something that makes my eyes feel like they’re there for a reason, to see something of delight.
I also had a personal triumph. I figured out how to publish a color book in Kindle. I’m very pleased to be able to share things in another format.
So this is the very nice thing someone called Pedalpoint said about my book.

 

Not your run-of-the-mill picture book, Eddy has used her well-known creative eye and flair for color to create a whole new book experience. This collection of digitally created artwork is based on traditional illustrations used in a very nontraditional way. Be prepared for the unexpected. Some images will bring a smile, others will bring a pause to ponder. Each image is titled, then a short sentence follows to guide your thoughts…or not. And that is precisely what I suspect Eddy is encouraging each of us to do: to think, to visualize, to personalize, and look beyond the obvious. The book has few words, but is large in vision.

Thanks! From my point of view, she got it. Pretty much that’s what I had in mind. That and a party plan with eye candy in a candy bowl.one more once upon a time print final8-16_Page_08

A word about reviews. Even if you don’t like a book, review it. But especially if you do like it. Your word counts! And it helps build interest! As an author I am always grateful for every review.

Check out One More Once Upon a Time. It’s on both Kindle and in print at Amazon.com.

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