Mississippi Arts Commission Artist Fellwoship Award

The Mississippi Arts Commission supports all aspects of the ARTS in Mississippi. For more information about the Commission, please follow the link posted above.
I am honored to be one of the recipients of this year's Mississippi Artist's Fellowship Awards. This award is given to professional artist toassist in their art careers. Much time and consideration is given to select the annual awards. Thanks to everyone who assisted in this process.

Berkeley Heights Illustrator Visit

I had the pleasure of visiting Berkeley Heights in Martinsburg, WV for two days this week. I had four sessions each day and the kids were awesome!!! Thanks to everyone who made this possible for me. I was sponsored by Berkeley County Title I. My author and good friend visited with them for two days at the beginning of the month with his absolutely fabulous presentation about his writing process, and always ends each presentation with his "famous rap song". You have to see him in action to get the full visual and audio effect. With my follow-up as the illustrator, the kids got a double shot of what writing and illustrating our books are all about. Thanks to all who were involved in making this happen. Here is the link to a PowerPoint presentation that one of the teachers produced. Thanks to her for taking the time to create this. Another shout-out goes to Mrs. Shickles' kindergarten class for the wonderful book I was presented with called, "Drawing" our Attentions to Illustrating! The kids each drew a picture and wrote a sentences like , "I like your book", "I like the picrsrs", "My farvit prt wus you!", and tons more. These kindergarten children were so sweet. I am attaching a  photo of one of my presentations.

20 day research trip for new paintings

Merrie and I are completing our twenty day tour from Salt Lake City to San Francisco, to Southern California and up to Oregon. We have taken about 1000 or more photos from the desert of Nevada to the beautiful mountains of California and Portland, and so much more.

The Mississippi Arts Commission

As a follow-up to receiving an individual artist's mini-grant from the Mississippi Art Commission, I want to give them a special thanks. Money provided allowed me to purchase supplies that were used in creating about a dozen paintings during the year. Most of these paintings were displayed at art shows and festivals, and a few were purchased for corporate collections. A good link to follow would be the following: http://www.facebook.com/feeds/page.php?format=atom10&id=40356507113 

Eva, Cotaco, Union Hill Alabama & Clarksville, TN

I spent several days in schools in Alabama and Tennessee. In Alabama, not only did I spend time with the kids during the day, but I conducted two afternoon "Family Painting" workshops where parents and kids spent about two hours painting together and creating a "Masterpiece" they could take home and proudly exhibit-not on the refrigerator-but on the wall, PERMANENTLY .

In Clarksville, Tennessee, I also spent two days visiting Barksdale  and Norman Smith Elementary, and conducted an evening event at the Clarksville-Montgomery county Title I CMCSS Learning Center.

International Reading Association Conference

Eric Kimmel was gracious to visit my booth for this "Photo-op". Thank you Eric.
The International Reading Association Conference in Chicago just wrapped up. Mike Shoulders and I were extremely pleased with the launching of our book, E is for Eucharist, a Catholic Alphabet Book. We sold out of the copies we brought for the convention.  Hopefully, we will have a booth in Orlando at next year's conference, along with several other conferences prior to IRA. I sold a number of my other books as well, and talking with many educators, librarians and  literacy coaches about possible visits to their schools next year. I was very pleased with the event, not to mention getting books autographed by EB Lewis and Steven Lang.  I also signed my books at Sleeping Bear's booth.

Morgan County Alabama School Visits

I spent three exciting days at three schools in Morgan County Alabama- Union Hill, Eva Elementary, and Cotaco School. An additional experience was the evening Parent Engagement Nights. I was told that we had record crowds of parents attending these events. The kids and parents worked together creating their "Masterpieces". Everyone had a great time. I especially want to thank these wonderful people.

Jane McCutcheon, Title I Resource

Eva School - Morgan County Schools

Honi Smith, Reading Coach

Eva School, Morgan County Schools

June Golden , Title I Resource

Union Hill School, Morgan County Schools

Brickell, Dennis  Art Teacher, Eva School 

I will have photos coming soon.