Here’s to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently. They’re not fond of rules. And they have no respect for the status quo. You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them. About the only thing you can’t do is ignore them. Because they change things. They push the human race forward. And while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do. – Apple Inc.

My first try at making a eLearning Cartoon for work. It’s call “You don’t look so good”

eLearning Cartoon “You don’t look so good” from Norman Grock on Vimeo.

Last week at work, they asked me to do a talk about character design and how I go about creating characters. This is the second time that they’ve asked me to do this presentation, the first time was for ‘bring your child to work’ day, and the older kids, about 12 year olds, seemed to really enjoy it. This most resent time was for a group of “at risk youths” or that’s what they told me. They too were really engaged while I was talking and had lots of questions to throw at me. For both presentations I made a packet of materials for the kids to work on and fill out while I walk them through it. The materials I handed out consisted of this 8 page packet, the first part of the packet was a 6 step process for drawing a human head, as well as a sheet of facial expressions that I drew for examples, and the final part was a character creation worksheet. Below are 2 PDF packets. One is a full color 11 x 17 set up for duplexing and the other is a 8.5 x 11 black and white version for home printers. I hope you enjoy these packets as much as the kids did.

You may follow these steps. If you are already comfortable enough with drawing you can move on, but it is always a good idea to review the basics. Once you know the basics, you’ll be able to start making your own changes and tweaks, which start to shape your style as an artist.

When sitting down to do a drawing of any character, one of the first things to think about is what emotion you want your character to express. A great way to show emotion in your drawings is through the face. Here are a handful of different emotions and reactions you can use when creating your characters.

A few weeks ago, we found out that my mom had been named Lake County School district teacher of the year . The Lake County Record-bee had a nice write up about her winning in the paper, but it wasn’t as long as I thought it should be. I thought it was going to be a full page write up. I guess will just chalk this up to another editor missing the lead story. Here are a few of my choice snippets from the article.

Lake County Office of Education has completed the selection process for the 2011-12 Teacher of the Year and has chosen Marilyn Grock, teacher to students with severe disabilities and early intervention specialist from Kelseyville Unified School District as the honoree. Grock was selected from candidates representing six of the seven Lake County school districts.

Grock, the 2011-12 Lake County Teacher of the Year, has served Kelseyville Unified School District for the past decade. Enrico Frediani, principal at Kelseyville Elementary, said, “Without exaggeration, the services and early intervention provided by Mrs. Grock and her staff at times changes the entire educational and life trajectory of her students.”

Proud of you Mom! 

Here is a scan of the full article