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Here I am modeling my new favorite t-shirt:

Designed by Kyle Fletcher of Mutual Midwest and screen printed by our friends at the one and only Wire&Twine, this 5-color design features every illustration in Ed Emberley’s classic drawing book, “Make a World”. From dump truck to schooner, from forklift to dinosaur, every image is on the shirt.

Go here and buy one to support the production of the upcoming documentary, Ed Emberley’s Make A World: The Film.

I only came to Ed Emberley’s Ed Emberley’s Drawing Book: Make A World last year, but it’s quickly become the #1 book I recommend to people I meet who say, “I can’t draw.” In it, Ed Emberley shows you how to “make a world” with just a few simple shapes, step-by-step. I love the emphasis on simplicity: if you can draw a triangle, a square, a circle, and a line, you’re good to go.

(Here’s a great little video review of the book by Chris Glass.)

And yeah, I have sat down with the book and copied all the exercises!

See more of my posts about Ed Emberley.

All taken with my iPhone camera, altered with iRetouch, filtered w/ Tilt-shift generator.

See more of my de-signs.

See them on a map

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The folks at PBS asked me to be a guest blogger for their “Remotely Connected” blog. I blogged about the upcoming NOVA episode, “What Are Dreams?”

Read my post at the Remotely Connected blog

Texas Performing Arts was kind enough to give me some tickets to the conversation between Robert Crumb, Francoise Mouly, and Art Spiegelman last night at Bass Concert Hall.

Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to take notes: the lecture hall was dark, and I wasn’t close enough to the stage to get light from the slideshow to see my sketchbook. So I dashed these doodles off during the Q&A when the lights came up.

(Folks interested in Spiegelman should see my notes from when he visited Bookpeople last year.)

For notes, my Twitter friend John Jones (@johnmjones | his blog) live-tweeted the event.

His tweets (in reverse chronological order):

The cartoonist Sam Hurt (Eyebeam) gave a lecture on “Telling Stories in Pictures and Words” before the Crumb/Mouly/Spiegelman event last night.

On November 24th at 11a.m. EST, I’ll be teaching a 1 hour online class called “Visual Thinking for Writers.”

Here’s the description:

Struggling with Writer’s Block? Taunted and daunted by that blinking Microsoft Word cursor? Do you feel like you have a lot to say, but can’t figure out how to get what’s in your head into words?

Writing is linear. Your brain is not. Visual thinking is the tool to wrangle your non-linear thoughts into clear writing.

In this hour-long webinar, Austin Kleon will help you step away from the computer and make writing with your head and hands. Using simple school supplies that can be found in any corner drugstore, we’ll follow in the footsteps of writers like Vladimir Nabokov, William Faulkner, and William Burroughs. We’ll sort index cards. We’ll write on the walls. We’ll cut writing into pieces and tape them back together again.

Writing should be intuitive and fun — join us for this session and learn how visual thinking can make it so!

It will 45 minutes of tips and tricks that have worked for me and other writers, and then the rest of the time we’ll spend on Q&A and helping the individual participants come up with visual thinking strategies for their writing projects.

The cost is $50, which helps staff Vizthink, and helps me pay my mortgage.

Check the VizthinkU website for more details and to register!

If you want to tweet this or follow along on Twitter, the hashtag is #vizwriters

Register now!

Let’s get something straight: I hate music festivals. I don’t dig on big crowds, standing around for extended periods of time, port-o-johns, and overpriced beer. All that said, Fun Fun Fun Fest is a pretty awesome time. I made it a record 6 hours yesterday, and even got inspired to doodle a few index cards here and there. Once it got dark, and I couldn’t see anymore, I headed home.

I won’t be going back today, because I have a ton to do, and I like my health and my sanity. (If next year, FFF Fest wants to provide me with a lawn chair and a good view, I’d be happy to doodle away all day.) Yes, I know I’m giving up the chance of a lifetime to draw Danzig. So it goes.

Death came out onstage in monk costumes:

Crazy-loud metal band, The Sword:

Friday night the Austinist folks had me out to draw their Local Music Is Sexy pre-party for Fun Fun Fun Fest. Music + cupcakes + booze = a magic formula. My favorite moment was TV Torso covering The Wipers’ “Over The Edge.” You can hear an MP3 of them doing it in the studio if you head over to Paige Maguire’s blog. (Thanks, Paige, for inviting me!)

Note: click any of the drawings to see them bigger.