Books
The Heart of Drawing
Stories and Images from Around the World
Michael Strauss, Mags Phelan Stones, and Abrah Griggs. Copyright 2021, Published by AREA223, and imprint of Double Clutch Press. Available in December, 2021
Many different artists tell their stories and show their images in this wonderful collection. The Heart of Drawing has its origins in the Facebook group of the same name. At the time of this writing, it has forty-four hundred members from around the world. The focus in the group is expressive drawing (not painting), whether from life, imagination, or photos. “Expressive drawing” refers here to looser styles of drawing or to drawings with elements of distortion. There is no straightforward copying or photorealism. All mediums are represented. As an act of cognition, drawing can help you learn to write, develop eye-brain-hand coordination, conceptualize and analyze ideas, think creatively, and express yourself literally and metaphorically. The images here may help you find creative and imaginative ways to take your drawing practice. They could lead you to try a different style, experiment with different materials, or consider new techniques.
More Fun than Pretty
Poems by Tony Magistrale; Paintings by Mike Strauss
Letting Go
Poems and Paintings
A book of poems and paintings by Tony Magistrale and Mike Strauss.
Entanglements
Poems and Paintings
A book of poems and paintings by Tony Magistrale and Mike Strauss. More information and possible purchase
The Mind at Hand: What Drawing Reveals
Stories of Exploration, Discovery, and Design
The Mind at Hand explores how artists, scientists, writers, and others—students and professionals alike—see their world, record it, revise it and come to know it. It is about the rough-drawn sketch, diagram, chart, or other graphic representation, and the focus these provide for creative work that follows from them. Such work could involve solving a problem, composing a musical score, proposing a hypothesis, creating a painting, and many other imaginative and inventive tasks.
The book explores the cyclical process of drawing-to-learn as practiced in many fields. It elaborates how different approaches to mark making and revision can be used to enhance learning and help us understand the world we see and imagine. The book explores how we see the world, record it, revise it, and come to know it, in part through drawing and redrawing with line, shape, and symbol. It also describes and illustrates the use of drawing-to-learn as a teaching strategy across the disciplines from grade school through college.
More information and free partial download
Gallery Book I
Selected Journal Sketches and Portraits
Gallery Book II
The Magical Classroom
Exploring Science, Language, and Perception with Children
Imagine amazing your students by sticking a knitting needle through a balloon without popping it or bending a spoon completely in half with only the power of your mind. They would think their teacher is a magician! They would want to know how you did it and would start asking questions to understand the strange phenomenon. Abracadabra! You have just actively engaged them in the process of scientific reasoning-close observation, questioning, hypothesizing, experimenting, and coming to a conclusion. You have also shown them how descriptive language can color what they see and don't see. The Magical Classroom is about the science of magic. More information and possible purchase.
