Mt. Sinai Hospital 05/27/15

We had a great show today! Elana Amity taught a lesson in drawing Disney’s dog, Pluto. He’s a lovable, playful character, perfect for springtime.

A Caring Hand 05/21/15

We had a beautiful first event with the kids at A Caring Hand! These children are brought together for support and encouragement while dealing with the loss of a parent or other close family member.

We asked the kids what kinds of things were their superpowers: were they really good at math, could they run really fast, paint, sing, or tell a good story? Then we asked them what other superhero powers they’d like to posses and then we combined all that into a tailor made self portrait. Each child stood up at the end of the night and explained his superhero: we had Freeze Time, a boy who could stop time with his watch so he could stop crimes, we had leaping Spiderman style web spinners, super spellers, Flash fast runners who could even flee from school (but only for just a little while), we had kids who could transform into brilliant dancers and designers and one who called Phantom who was a shadow that could move other shadows at will, and on and on. Such creative brains on these guys!

Thank you kids and volunteers: Scott Brundage, Sangjun Chon, Pedro Delgado, Barbara Garrison, Oded Naaman, Franz Palomares, and Elizabeth Winter.

Childhelp L.A. 05/16/15

We loved making flip books with the kids at Childhelp this weekend! (We even got to draw along with two moms too.)

We brought hand-made books with pages that flipped in three sections so we could draw characters and switch out their body parts: boots of a cowboy, body of a Mutant Ninja Turtle, head of a giraffe, that kind of thing. There was lots of laughing going on when we changed up the the various characters to make completely new and very whacky characters.

Childhelp is situated within two converted Hollywood mansions (built in the 1920’s) joined together and remodeled into a beautiful facility. Their staff are always well prepared, well organized and welcoming. Kimberly, Hector and one assistant managed everything beautifully this Saturday and provided us all with snacks and beverages. Thank you Childhelp!

A very big thank you also goes out to our incredibly talented artist volunteers: Michael Kenny, Kataneh Vahdani, Mike Wetterhahn, Chris Harmon and Monica Tamova. And Joseph Scott, our West Coast Ink Well Director, you are amazing!!! Thank you so much for putting everything together and rallying such a great crew.

New Alternatives for Children 05/16/15

We are feeling pretty proud of our AMAZING claymation day, yeahhh! We’d never tried this before but the brilliant kids at NAC were able to whip up their own characters and stories so fast and pose them in front of our cameras so expressionately that this project worked like a dream.

We had a snail who wandered the bottom of the ocean, lost in thought: a hungry alien on Mars who ate space flies: a ladybug and fly back on Earth who fell in love: a Hello Kitty hula girl who just wanted to swing her hips: two glob goblins who did a war dance under the stars: a caterpillar who giggled her way across the desert: and a puppy and bunny who nibbled their bones and carrots under the setting Serengeti sun.

Thank you to Stuart and the staff of NAC for letting us take over your playroom and for always being so supportive. Thank you kids for coming up with these fantastic ideas and throwing yourselves completely into your art. And thank you dear volunteers for your laughter, talent and reliability: Elana Amity, Sangun Chon, Pedro Delgado, Barbara Garrison, Oded Naaman, Tim Savage, Elizabeth Winter and a very big welcome to first timer, Stefano Imbert!

Bellevue Hospital 05/12/15

We had a blast on the rooftop with Science Ninja, Nathan Schreiber! Nathan taught us all about what makes rockets go, what air would look like if we could see it and why, and how chemical reactions can be explosively cool.

We got into some great conversations while we experimented and the kids shared their own extensive knowledge with us: one boy explained that water’s symbol is H2O, that Oxygen’s O2 and that both these molecules may be contained within other molecules and how they can be released in explosions. One boy described how air moves from higher to lower densities to ease pressure and another predicted what would happen when we mixed Alka Seltzer with water and put it in film canisters. Pow!

Thank you to Nathan Schreiber and our Director of Bellevue Events, Jane Archer, for putting together such an active, engaging experience. Thank you to the staff of Bellevue for being cool enough to let us try outlandish activities with the kids 🙂 And thank you to our fantastic, enthusiastic lab partner volunteers: Joan Chiverton, Sangjun Chon, and Elizabeth Winter.