Wednesday, September 28, 2016

Rock Around


Video fun ahead:



For our first Family Street Art outing, the three oldest kids and Dad painted around 40 rocks and hid them all over town.
For our second time out, we painted around 40 sticks to scatter.
For our third project we painted around 40 leaves and did the same.

For our most recent Family Street Art project, we took things to epic proportions!  Over the course of a full year, all six kids and Dad have been painting over 1,000 rocks.  YES!  1,000.  Not only that, we painted them all in matching pairs.  Here are a few of the sets to give you an idea:



Right now, one rock from each pair is at the Grand Rapids Children’s Museum, gathered all together in a giant, sprawling display – a full kaleidoscope of colors and shapes and wild faces:









Now the fun part!  Remember that all 500 rocks there at the museum have identical matching twin rock counterparts?  We took these other 500 matching rocks and hid them all over the city of Grand Rapids in random locations for a GIANT community scavenger hunt during the world’s largest art competition, ArtPrize.

When people wander the streets of Grand Rapids during ArtPrize, they can be on the lookout for the hidden rocks.  How many will they spot during the day?  Who in their party has the fastest eyes?  We're instructing folks that when they spot a rock during ArtPrize, they leave it where it's at and snap a photo.  Then they can share photos on social media sites with the hashtag #RockAroundGR   There is a wonderful growing community of families playing along in this giant interactive art game!

Here are some of our own documented photos below:













































Update:

Out of 1,450 ArtPrize entries, the public voted "RockAround" into the Top 20.  We went on to place 3rd in our installation category!

As the scavenger hunt we created was going on, we got quite a lot of local, national, and international attention.  "Rock Around" was featured many places -- I won't post them all, but it included:

The Scary Mommy blog: here
The Grand Haven Tribune: here
The Grand Rapids Press: here
The Rapidian: here
Inhabitots: here
The UK Daily Mail: here
Dads and Design: here

National News:


and Local News:


People who played along and spotted hidden rocks posted close to 200 photos of their finds on social media sites like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.  You can see highlights in the next post: Here!

It was a fun, fun ride!


ArtPrize!

People have shared over 200 fun photos on social media as they play along with our "Rock Around" Family Friendly Street Art project during Art Prize 2016! Here is just a small sampling:


A photo posted by Nell Colyn (@nellolbelle) on
 
 

A photo posted by linaenichols (@linaenichols) on
 
 

A photo posted by Kristan (@mommakrout) on
 
 
A photo posted by Alex Parton (@lexylouwho31) on
 
 

A photo posted by Liz Craft (@liz_crafty17) on
 
 
#RockAroundGR
Posted by Christine Sikora on Wednesday, September 21, 2016
 
 
3rd one she's on a roll! #RockAroundGR
Posted by Jp Adam Burrell on Saturday, September 24, 2016
 
 
shannonruland says: He found one! #ArtPrize #RockAroundGR
Posted by Rock Around on Saturday, September 24, 2016
 
 
A photo posted by Frankie Foote (@frank_footer) on
 
 
A photo posted by Tracy Will (@tracywillwhat) on
 
 
So excited! The first rock he spotted! #RockAround GR
Posted by Julie Doll on Sunday, October 9, 2016
 
 
 
 
Tom says: Our kids enjoyed this with the few we found
Posted by Rock Around on Friday, September 30, 2016
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
A photo posted by Marissa Corder (@marissa.corder) on
 
 

 
 

A photo posted by Michelle Elizabeth (@me32788) on
 
 

A photo posted by Jessica (@13mcgrj) on
 
 
Urban monsters in downtown GR. #rockAroundGR #ArtPrize
Posted by Luke Robinson on Sunday, September 18, 2016
 
 

 
 

A photo posted by Jessica (@13mcgrj) on
 
 
 
 
#RockAroundGR
Posted by Jill Dragt-Hall on Wednesday, September 28, 2016
 
 
 
Andrea Koopman says: We walked right past this guy on our way to see #rockaroundgr
Posted by Rock Around on Sunday, September 25, 2016
 
 

A photo posted by Alex Parton (@lexylouwho31) on
 
 
 
 
 
 
A photo posted by Kristan (@mommakrout) on
 
 
A photo posted by Kathya (@boninaboutique) on
 
 
Posted by Rock Around on Saturday, September 24, 2016

Tuesday, September 20, 2016

Monsters Go

Dad has a new book out called "Monsters Go Night-Night," (find it here!) and all the characters are based off drawings Elijah made when he was 4 & 5 years old!  Many of those drawings are stored right here on this blog.

Here's a video Elijah and I made about it:



Well, I thought it would be fun to see how other artists would interpret those same original monster drawings that Elijah had made.  So I whipped up a Twitter page (@Monsters_Go) and put out the invitation.  I had no idea if anyone would play along, but this whole amazing little community sprang up around Elijah's drawings!  Artists from all over the world started doing Fan Art of Elijah's drawings in their own fantastic, diverse styles in a #MonstersGo drawing challenge.  Over 60 Artists made nearly 200 drawings based off Elijah's monsters!!  Here's a small sampling:

"Smag" by Elijah:

by @edwardiantaylor:

by @AdamDix:

by @Flodego:

by @HiAdamReed:

by @HarveyBeardman:

by @morenoarte:



"Tweap" by Elijah:

by @joshalves:

by @akhdraws:

by @DebIllustration:

by @MH_illustration:

by @AdamDix:

by @pixeltomu:

by @edwardiantaylor:

by @starkelstar:

by @geeksarecool:

by @westinchurch:



"Ippity" by Elijah:

by @edwardiantaylor:

by @SamShawDraws:

by @katowokato:

by @pixeltomu:

by @IanSummersart:

by @geeksarecool:

by @amymariestad:



"Splue" by Elijah:

by @pixeltomu:

by @starkelstar:

by @morenoarte:

by @Drewvis_UK:

by @TheJasonMartian:

by @westinchurch:
by @markaaronyoung:



"Grubba" by Elijah:

by @katowokato:

by @Dave_Windett:

by @Flodego:

by @TheJasonMartian:

by @bluelily17:



"Wobb" by Elijah:

by @westinchurch:

by @katowokato:

by @geeksarecool:

by @starkelstar:

by @jodie_bowden24:

by @SamShawDraws:



"Numsy" by Elijah:

by @markmeyersart:

by @david_buist:

by @TheJasonMartian:

by @katowokato:

by @jodie_bowden24:



And a couple of group shots that came in:
by @geeksarecool:

by @MH_illustration:


It was lots of fun!  So after we made it through the seven original monsters, we decided to keep going.  Now I post one new monster each week by any of the Z-Kids from out of the Chicken Nugget Lemon Tooty archives.  Check it out here!  And if you're an artist who would enjoy a fun morning warm-up prompt, I invite you to come join the fun!

To get a copy of "Monsters Go Night-Night" click Here