Ronald McDonald House NYC 11/07/16

Today was comic book day!  We brought home-made comics and helped the kids draw their cover page and start to fill them with their own stories and favorite characters.

First the kids showed us how it’s all about this game, “Road Blocks,” now so we watched them play and learned how to draw those blocky blokes.  Then Nathan Schreiber whipped up a fierce Goku and Vegeta fusion dance for a Dragon Ball Z fan, Joyce Pedretti blazed across the paper on Starfire with a DC Comics devotee, Elizabeth Winter got to draw with one little darling who just wanted bunnies and princesses and puppies, and all the while everybody got their caricatures done by Joe Vissichelli!

All the kids received their own art kits so that they could continue their comics on their own and keep drawing whatever they dream up whenever they like.  Keep at it, kids, and thank you for sharing your day with us!

Gilda’s Club Noogiefest! 10/23/15

It’s our favorite time of year and we were thrilled to get to spend it with the children and families of Gilda’s Club! We fluttered about, making bat puppets, face painting and doing caricatures. Some of the kids drew along with us and others sat patient as mummies as they got their portraits done. The costumes were fantastic: wizards, queens, zombies and even a steam punk girl. Thank you to this wonderful center that provides support to all those going through cancer. Thank you to our Ink Well volunteers: Ray Alma, Scott Brundage, Drew Dernavich
Nina Frenkel, Barbara Garrison, Stefano Imbert, Lisa LaBracio, Marty Macaluso, Oded Naaman, Joyce Pedretti, Tim Savage, Elizabeth Winter and Franz Palomares, our Gilda’s Club events Director who organized this special night. And most of all, thank you, kids for your beautiful energy and creativity!

ChildHelp Los Angeles 10/17/15

We’ve been waiting all year for Halloween and couldn’t hold out any longer so we rounded up the kids at ChildHelp and had ourselves a haunted art party!  We beat back the unseasonal heat with our homemade bat puppets, drew spooky scenes, then had a big old face painting party.

Mattel Children’s Hospital 09/22/15

We were grateful to be able to draw with some very talented kids in Los Angeles today!  We all sat around a wood table in the sun, drawing classics like Mickey Mouse and modern icons, like SpongeBob and Sonic. We appreciate the chance to draw with you, kids, and thank the Mattel Children’s Hospital staff for introducing us.

Thanks also to our West Coast Director, Joseph Scott, for organizing this event. Joseph has worked on everything from “Rugrats” to “Penn Zero” to “Futurama” and is currently at Disney Animation. And a big welcome to new member, Javier Secaduras! Javier has worked on “Puss in Boots,” “Rugrats,” “Rio” and even teaches other artists how to do animation. Thank you for volunteering, Javier.

St. Mary’s Hospital 09/19/15

Today we got to draw with our dear friends at St. Mary’s Hospital. Together we made everything from Scooby Doo and Shaggy to bouncy race cars to Sonic the Hedgehog

Thank you to the kids and staff of St. Mary’s, Director, Ray Alma, our volunteers: Scott Brundage, Barbara Garrison, Stefano Imbert, Oded Naaman, Joyce Pedretti, Adrian Sinnott and Elizabeth Winter and a warm welcome to new member, Tom Cardone! Tom has worked on all sorts of great movies like Aladin, Beauty and the Beast, Ice Age and the Nightmare Before Christmas.

Mount Sinai Hospital 09/16/15

Today Elana Amity showed the kids, step by rumbling step, how to draw elephants large and small.  Then Elizabeth Winter joined in to demonstrate folded drawings, where first you draw the head (don’t let your friends see what you’re drawing) and then fold the paper at the bottom edge of the neck.  Then the next person continues from the neck to the waist, folds it, passes it back, and on and on all the way to the shoes.  You can even write a story as you go along: let your friend only see a few words of where your story leaves off so they can continue it.  When you’re all done, unravel the picture and see what you’ve created!  Elana and Elizabeth were cracking each other up with all their loony characters and tales.

Gilda’s Club 09/01/15

Today we bid the summer a fond farewell by helping the kids recreate their favorite summer scenes with colored sand, glue, markers and pencils.  One girl showed us how she got to swim with dolphins!  She told us all about their glossy skin and smart brains.  Another described her summer camp, where her nice, funny coach taught her to play football as a crowd cheered on from the sidelines.  One little boy went to the zoo and met a tiger, and then just got to read books under the sun.

Thank you, kids, for sharing your summer adventures, to our Director of GC Events, Franz Palomares, for organizing the evening and to Hillary Barton, Lisa LaBracio, and Elizabeth Winter for volunteering!

Ronald McDonald House 08/22/15

It was such a joy to visit with the families of Ronald McDonald House.  We got to sit around tables together on the beautiful outdoor terrace and paint and draw on hats until the stars came out.  One little boy made a secret Batman, hidden beneath black paint, another got Big Bird looking out over him, a girl got her portrait drawn atop her own head, there were Spidey hats and SpongeBob caps and even Captain America swooped in to shield our heads from the sun.

Thank you to the House and the loving people inside it and to our trusty Ink Well artists: Ray Alma, Elana Amity, Sergey Aniskov, Joan Chiverton, Sangjun Chon, Drew Dernavich, Stefano Imbert, Abby Merrill, Tim Savage, and Elizabeth Winter.

Mount Sinai 08/19/15

We are so glad to get to draw with all of the kids in the hospital at once via our KidZone TV show. The kids are given art kits to draw along with us and can call in with questions and comments.

IWF Director, Elana Amity, moderated our show today, which was all about friendship in honor of National Friendship Day. Micheline Hess drew an octopus splashing and playing with his pals in the ocean and Elizabeth Winter united a lonely boy and a lonely alien after a wish on a star was granted.

New Alternatives for Children 08/01/15

We had it in the bag on this one.  The kids used stencils, fabric markers, tempera, even glow in the dark paint to design their very own totes.  One boy focused the entire time on building the perfect Minecraft world, composed of blocks, creepers, zombies and Steve in the middle of it all.  NAC staff member, Stuart Davis, made a lush tropical tote, full of hibiscus.  A young girl explored nuance and definition by writing the word Darkness and surrounding it with brushes of light color, beautiful concept. Another honored her favorite musicians, The Fresh Beat Band, by drawing each member in brilliant neon costumes.

Thank you so much, kids, for sharing your day, and thank you to our volunteers: Sangjun Chon, Barbara Garrison, Oded Naaman, Tim Savage and Elizabeth Winter!

Mount Sinai Hospital 07/15/15

Elana Amity taught how to make a Minion on our KidZone TV show this week! Kevin, Stuart and Bobs’ single-celled bodies are easy to draw: just think of their parts as basic shapes and build them bit by bit. We were happy to have student intern, Robert, co-host the show with us too!

By drawing on Mount Sinai’s closed-circuit TV channel, we are able to reach all the kids in the hospital at once, including the many children who are confined to their rooms during treatment. The kids are given their own drawing kits so they can draw along with us and they can use their phones to call in and talk to us during our live show. The show is then replayed as a part of their regular TV schedule so it can be enjoyed again and again.

Gilda’s Club 06/04/15

Every character begins with basic shapes. Tonight we showed the Gilda’s Club kids how to begin from a simple circle, square or triangle and embellish, stretch and draw those shapes out to become characters, full of personality and pep. We had pirates, fending off leaping sharks, King Crabs on rocket-powered thrones, chic foxes and cubic t-rexes and dragons galore.

Thank you, kids and staff of Gilda’s Club and Ink Well volunteers: Elana Amity, Pedro Delgado, Stefano Imbert, Elizabeth Winter, and to IWF Director, Franz Palomares, for getting everything into such great shape!

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.

St. Mary’s Hospital 04/18/15

These beautiful kids were kind enough to let us take over their Saturday for a big drawing fest in the sun. We got to draw inside and outside and even under the tables! We drew opera singers, butterflies, superheroes, lollipops and much more.

Thank you to the incredible staff of St. Mary’s, to IWF Director, Ray Alma for being so in charge, and to our beloved volunteers: Ray Alma, Scott Brundage, Sangjun Chon, Pedro Delgado, Drew Dernavich, Marty Macaluso, Joyce Pedretti, Tim Savage, Erin Shigaki and Elizabeth Winter.

Ronald McDonald House of Los Angeles 04/16/15

We were honored to bring artists from Scooby Doo, American Dad, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Penn Zero and G.I. Joe together with the Ronald McDonald House kids this week!  We drew characters into scenes, commemorating next week’s Earth day, and talked about all the ways we can help protect our shared planet.

Thank you to our West Coast Director, Joseph Scott, and to our volunteers: Jeanette Moreno King, Christian Lignan, Monica Tomova and a big welcome to first time volunteer, Chris Harmon!

Mount Sinai Hospital 4/15/15

Bellevue 04/07/15

This week, Jane Archer and Jeanine Henderson led us in making tailor-made name plates that the kids at Bellevue Hospital could use to decorate their rooms or hang on their doors. These signs used imagery that the kids said made them feel strong and proud and lettering that they designed themselves!

Thank you volunteers: Jane Archer, Jeanine Henderson, Sergei Aniskov, Hillary Barton, Barbara Garrison, Nathan Schreiber, Elana Amity and Elizabeth Winter.

Mount Sinai Hospital 03/18/15

We feel very lucky to have IWF Director, Elana Amity, running the show at Mount Sinai Hospital! She hosted our live call-in TV program last night with Ink Wellers, Bil Donovan, showing the kids how to draw a leprechaun/frog morpho creature and Scott Brundage demonstrating how to make a happy balloon-holding leprechaun with a golden pot of chocolate candy!

Our live program reaches all children in their rooms, where they are given their own art kits and can draw along with us and call in as we go. It’s a great way to create together while allowing the kids to remain in the comfort of their beds.

Thanks, everyone, for sharing your time and see you again in a few weeks!

Gilda’s Club 02/24/15

 We spun a whole lot of fun, creating thaumatropes together at Gilda’s Club in SoHo!  Thaumatropes are disks with a drawing on each side that you spin to create one drawing.  It’s one of the most basic forms of animation and the kids loved learning about how easy it can be to make an image “move.”

One little girl drew a flower that grew, another drew a guy eating pizza, there was a flying bird, a horse eating a carrot, one of the girls drew a singing, dancing self-portrait, another a fish swimming in his bowl.  All in all we drew about 60 thaumatropes!  So much fun.

Thank you, Gilda’s Club kids, for your amazing energy and to our volunteers: Lisa LaBracio (first timer!), Oded Naaman, Franz Palomares (IWF Director- Gilda’s Club), Nathan Schreiber and Elizabeth Winter.

Mount Sinai Hospital 02/18/15

Elana Amity drew Olaf and Frosty the Snowman for the kids tonight!  Several kids, especially a few who love the movie, “Frozen,” were enthusiastically drawing in their rooms to our winter time theme.

New Alternatives for Children 01/31/15

What a beautiful day with the New Alternatives for Children kids.  We made sock puppets of all sorts including a cheeky cheerleading Cheetah Girl, a couple of adorable giraffes, several big fanged sharks with lots of food in their mouths, a Pikachu with a lightning tail, and one girl even made a beautiful portrait of her mom as a sock puppet.  We loved spending this special time with you kids.  Thank you to our volunteers: Elana Amity, Joan Chiverton, Jeanine Henderson, Abby Merrill, Joyce Pedretti, Tim Savage and Elizabeth Winter.

Mount Sinai Hospital, 01/21/15

Tonight’s KidZone TV Show was tons of fun! Peter de Séve taught how to draw his character, Sid, from the Ice Age movies and Sangjun Chon gave a lesson on how to create monsters from fruit. Elana Amity starred as the host of the show and moderated the proceedings like a pro.

We were happy to get calls from the kids, and also just loved joking around with each other in the studio as we made our characters come to life.

Childhelp, Los Angeles 01/17/15

It was our first visit to Childhelp and we were blown away by the kids there!  They hit the ground running: EVERYONE was drawing, feeding off of one another’s ideas, coming up with their own characters and sharing tips as they learned them.  Pokemon was the choice of the day for established characters, followed by Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and some Simpsons characters.  So lucky for us, our volunteers consisted of the brilliant Joseph Scott (IWF L.A. Director), Kataneh Vahdani and David Shair from Walt Disney Animation Studios, Michael Kenny and Jeanette Moreno-King from Wild Canary, and Monica Tomova from Nickelodeon!  Thank you, everyone, for a wonderful time.  We can’t wait to draw together again with these amazing kids soon.

Mount Sinai Hospital 12/16/14

We had another fun show at Mt. Sinai!  Micheline Hess gave a lesson on drawing a Christmas cat, Justin Bilicki helped the kids create their own elves, and Elana Amity moderated the show. One kid called in to ask Justin “How do you draw a straight line?” 🙂

Thank you, volunteers and kids for another wonderful time together!

Science Ninjas at Bellevue Hospital, 12/02/14

The kids absolutely burst onto the science scene tonight!

Volunteer, Nathan Schreiber (the brains behind “Science Ninjas,” a program that introduces kids to science using fun, innovative techniques) gave each table different mystery substances, along with the lab sets to test them. After each child invented his own Ninja Scientist character, they dove into experiments to identify the substances, note how they interacted with one another and finally discovering just what makes the biggest bubble bursting blow out mixture ever!

It was an extremely messy, fantastic time. Thank you, Nathan, for preparing and guiding us through such a singular experience! Thanks also to our Director, Jane Archer, for coordinating, and to our trusty lab partner volunteers: Ray Alma, Elana Amity, Sangjun Chon, Rami Efal, Barbara Garrison and Elizabeth Winter.

We are grateful to the Bellevue staff for being awesome enough to give this unusual event a go, and most of all to the wonderful children there, who listened so patiently and leapt into science with amazing energy, ingenuity and curiosity. We love you guys and can’t wait to see you again soon.

St. Mary’s Hospital 11/22/14

Volunteers: Ray Alma, Drew Dernavich, Barbara Garrison, Marty Macaluso, Oded Naaman, Patrick Merrell, Adrian Sinnott, Tim Savage and Elizabeth Winter were grateful to draw Thanksgiving-themed pictures with the beautiful St. Mary’s kids today!  We made turkeys, teepees, and a portrait of one of the boys driving a super slick Maybach, just ’cause.

Mount Sinai Hospital 11/19/14

New Alternatives for Children 11/08/14

We had a wonderful time with the New Alternatives for Children kids today! Thank you so much, Anelle Miller and Elana Amity of the Society of Illustrators for hosting. To Carin Berger for her beautiful demonstration and introduction to collage and illustration. To Louie Miranda and Materials for the Arts for giving all of the art supplies and guiding the activities so exuberantly. To our Ink Well volunteers: Ray Alma, Elana Amity, Joan Chiverton, Barbara Garrison, Tobie Giddio, Oded Naaman, Abby Merrill, Joyce Pedretti, Tim Savage and Elizabeth Winter for helping the kids make dioramas of batman in a box, cats in a cat house, an octopus emerging from the ocean, a flying wolverine and so much more. Thank you to Stuart Davis and the NAC staff for the incredible feat of encouraging and transporting 30 children to participate in this special day. And most of all to the children who patiently took our projects in and lifted them to a whole new level of creativity and imagination that left us amazed and inspired. We will be posting pics soon!

Gilda’s Club Halloween Party 10/24/14

Here we are at Gilda’s Club’s annual Halloween party! We were so happy to get to face paint and draw caricatures with the nearly 100 kids and family members who came to celebrate a spooktacular night at this support center for children and families facing cancer. Thank you volunteers: Ray Alma, Jane Archer, Michael Arnold, Dayna Gonzalez, Oded Naaman, Katherine Roy, Nathan Schreiber, Peter de Séve, and Elizabeth Winter!

Mt. Sinai Hospital 09/17/14

Bellevue Hospital 09/10/14

We love New York!  In honor of our beautiful city, we helped the kids draw their favorite things to do, people to see and places to go in the Big Apple.  We drew everything from bodega cats who eat carrots to ice cream trucks driven by gruff old men to tigers in the Central Park Zoo and wild creatures climbing the Empire State Building.  Thank you, volunteers: Ray Alma, Elana Amity, Erin Shigaki, Ed Steckley and Elizabeth Winter!

Children’s Hospital of Los Angeles 08/21/14

Our L.A. animators from shows like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Bratz, Curious George, Scooby Doo, and much more got a special chance to draw with the kids at Children’s Hospital of L.A.!  We taught the kids how to draw the characters we draw every day as well as the wonderful creatures they came up with themselves.  Thank you to our trusty volunteers, Jeremy Arambulo and Christian Lignan, and to our West Coast Director, Joseph Scott, for making this all possible!

Mount Sinai Hospital 08/20/14

We had another great show on KidZone TV tonight!  Oded Naaman gave a lesson in how you can draw anything from the shape of a circle.  Phil Scheuer drew SpongeBob characters.  And our Director, Elana Amity, moderated both lessons like a pro.  Thank you, dear kids, for watching and to you, our lovely volunteers, for taking the time to share your talents!

Ronald McDonald House Chicago 08/17/14

We are so happy to have united with the National Cartoonists Society again to draw with the kids at the Ronald McDonald House of Chicago!  These extremely talented folks wound up being taught by the kids how to draw a proper SpongeBob (who naturally loves to watch TV, as one boy pointed out). All the kids got their very own copies of Charles Boyce’s comic books and an insight into comic drawing, and then one little girl just wanted to sharpen everybody’s pencils with the fancy electric sharpener 🙂 Thank you very much to volunteers, Charles Boyce, Ann Farrell, Richard Pietrzyk, Scott Stantis, and to event leader, T. Brian Kelly!  Photos to come soon.

New Alternatives for Children 07/29/14

The kids at NAC continue to amaze us!  We brought in pre-made blank comic books and they came up with all their own characters, scenes and story lines and then gave presentations on their finished books.  There was a lone bat on a building who turned out to be a cat, a DJ-ing parrot who got an entire forest to dance, a stealthy ninja team whose firey swords cut through the night, and much more.  Additional pics will be posted soon, upon their approval by NAC.

Thank you, brilliant kids, for sharing your time with us!  And thank you Ink Well volunteers: Ray Alma, Sergei Aniskov, Elana Amity, Sangjun Chon, Peter de Séve, Pedro Delgado, Rami Efal, Barbara Garrison, Henry Hilaire and Elizabeth Winter.

Bellevue Hospital 07/16/14

The kids electrified us with storyboards for their own “Electric Avenue” music videos! We played the song and they came up with scenes, characters and actions to match the music. There was a lot happening down on Electric Avenue: cat and rabbit ninja rumbles, panda robots cutting loose and an all-night dance party with special guests, SpongeBob and Patrick. Thank you to IWF Directors, Jane Archer and Franz Palomares, for making this great idea come together, and to our volunteers: Drew Dernavich, Barbara Garrison, Nathan Schreiber, Elizabeth Winter, and a very warm welcome to new member, Tobie Giddio!