August 20, 2008

ART BOOK(S) REVIEW: DROPPING IN ON ......

The Dropping In On series of art books & DVD's(author Pam Stephens/Illustrator Jim McNeill) are wonderful. If you haven't had a chance to see them, you can find out more information at Crystal Productions ( http://www.crystalproductions.com/). You can also find out more about the author, Pam Stephens, at http://www.artresourcesforteachers.com/ If you want to learn more about the illustrator, Jim McNeill, check out http://www.jimmcneill.com/ .
The story line of Dropping In On is Puffer the art interviewer( he's a Puffin)....falling out of the sky into the world of an artist. He interviews them...and interacts with them in their time & environment. The author, artist, and voice actors have done an amazing job capturing some of the interesting nuances of each of the focus artists. My favorite is Dropping In On Andy Warhol. I had a few of my art friends watch it with me, and I must say, we laughed ourselves silly!!! It was dead on Warhol!!!! They also place actual art images from that artist into the book/dvd. This is worth your time & money to get for your students. The books are more toward mid/upper elementary I feel, but the DVD's are from K- on up!! The only one out of this series that I wasn't real excited about was Dropping In On Matisse. It had nothing to do with the content. No disrespect to the illustrator(who only did this one book in the series), but I do enjoy the illustrations of Jim McNeill a great deal more. I just found out that they now have Dropping In On Grandma Moses! I will be using some of my classroom funds to purchase it this year(yes..that is how much I love this series!!!!!).
So..check it out...DROPPING IN ON...

2 comments:

  1. Hi, Ted.

    Thank you for your kind remarks about the Dropping in on videos.

    I was an elementary art teacher for quite a while. During that time I found so few videos about artists that were appropriate for young kids. That's when Jim & I decided to try our hand at making an animated video. Dropping in on Rousseau took 18 months! It now takes us about nine months from start to finish including publishing a book with the video.

    Dropping in on Grandma Moses should be available within the next few weeks. We are currently working on Dropping in on Impressionism with a total of six artists. Whew!

    Here is my website: www.artresurcesforteachers.com

    The blog has become a bit much to keep up with and I admit I have not contributed to it in a long time.

    Jim & I on occasion visit schools where we read one of our books to the younger kids and then teach a lesson about simple animation. We have also been delivering keynotes at state art ed conferences. As Puffer would say, "Perhaps one day we can visit you!"

    Thanks again for your kind remarks.

    My best wishes to you,
    Pam

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  2. Whoops --

    Here's my website address:
    http://artresourcesforteachers.com/

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