Overwhelmed? Here's Why Your Art Matters.

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit club.drawtogether.studioHey everyone. On Sunday we launched our three-part series on Creative Action — how creativity and making art helps us be more resilient, connected, and hopeful in challenging, overwhelming times like these. We started with a focus on “Making Art During Fascism” featuring the work of author, counselor, and advocate/activist Beth Pickens. The response has…

Hellllooo Friends. This week we revisit one of our earliest DT Podcast episodes: Gratitude. Drawing is a great way for kids (and all of us) to begin a gratitude practice. Kids can do this at home in their art studio (aka the kitchen table) or as a group in a class or after school program, or as a family. And if you/your kids listen to the DrawTogether podcast as a group, this is a great chance to draw and share out loud what you are grateful for. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit club.drawtogether.studio/subscribe

Why are people so hard to draw? Is it our wonky shoulders? She shape of our eyes? The funky curves of our ear? Or our weirdly formed hands and feet?! Answer: YES. Today on the pod, we try cartoonist's Lynda Barry and Ivan Brunetti's exercises from Lynda's book Making Comics and create some simple, squiggly wiggly human bodies, then transform them into characters. Grab some paper, pens, colors and young people, and let's DrawTogether. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit club.drawtogether.studio/subscribe

This week on the DT Podcast we learn about the fiber artist Bisa Butler and use collage and drawing to create Bisa-inspired paper portraits of people we admire. Check out the DT newsletter to see Bisa's quilts and watch a video of her talking about her artwork. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit club.drawtogether.studio/subscribe

Yuyi Morales is on the DT podcast!!Hellloooo! This week on the DT pod we celebrate Día de los Muertos with special guest children’s book author and illustrator Yuyi Morales! Her might recognize her Caldecott-nominated Viva Frida, or her other award-winning books, including Niño Wrestles the World, Harvesting Hope: The Story of Cesar Chavez, and Dreamers. We spent some time talking about one of my favorite of Yuyi’s characters, Señor Calavera. He’s the trickster skeleton star of two of Yuyi’s books: Just a Minute and Just in Case. He even made an appearance during our interview!On this special DrawTogether Podcast, Yuyi joins us from her art studio in Veracruz, Mexico for some Day of the Dead drawing, including a fun sugar skull warm-up and alter-drawing to celebrate someone we love who has passed. Yuyi also plays us some original drawing music on her jarana. Grab some paper, pens, colors and press play above. Enjoying the DT Pod? Can you think of someone else who would love it, too? Please share with a friend!AND! Does your kid want to be featured on the DrawTogether podcast? Call the DT Hotline and ask your kid to tell us about their FAVORITE FAMILY FOOD. Call 1-866-4-DRAWTOGETHER with your young person, leave a message after the beep and they just might end up on a future episode. The GUT’s First Visiting Artist: Maira Kalman!Ask and ye shall receive! This Sunday, Maira Kalman joins us at the Grown-Ups Table where she answers some of my most pressing drawing/life questions, shares a little about her new book “Women Holding Things”, and gives us an inspiring drawing assignment. We’ll be taking questions from the table, so start thinking what you’d like to ask her, too! If you haven’t joined the Grown-Ups table, subscribe for weekly creative wanderings, explorations and lessons, visiting artists, and drawing assignments - and most of all, a joyful, creative, supportive community of fellow drawers. Thank you Yuyi for joining us on the pod this week, and producers Liz Scheltens and Arjuna Saeed, and editor Amy Standen for all your hard work to make this podcast so great. And thank YOU, DrawTogether Supporters and GUT members, for making this all possible. See you next week! xoxow This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit club.drawtogether.studio/subscribe

We interrupt our regularly scheduled DrawTogether Podcast to bring you an awesome episode from the new podcast from Radiolab and WNYC, Terrestrials! Every episode of Terrestrials explores the strangeness that exists right here on Earth (and maybe a little beyond.) What DrawTogether does with drawing, Terrestrials does with stories.We’re featuring their episode Gravitational Waves. You can listen to more episodes on their website. We love you sister-podcast, Terrestrials! This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit club.drawtogether.studio/subscribe

It's Halloween at DrawTogether! In this extra spooky episode we start with a calming circle-drawing warm-up while we listen to a poem, then learn to draw drop shadows and turn our flat circles into 3D spheres. After a quick lesson on light and shadow, we turn our 3D spheres into spooky shadow monster heads! Then we go get some candy.Warning: this episode is spooky. It contains spooky sounds and spooky voices and spooky drawings and… JUST KIDDING. It’s just silly. Appropriate for kids of ALL ages. Bwahahahaha! This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit club.drawtogether.studio/subscribe

Episode 3 is all about the USPS & STAMPS. After a relaxing drawing warm up, the DT Pod takes a field trip to the post office where DrawTogether Kids get their most pressing questions answered by Mekkah, an Oakland postal worker, and Bill Gicker, Director of Stamp Services for the USPS. Then we draw our own stamps featuring our favorite places, things, and people, including Mary Fields, the first African-American star mail carrier. Subscribe to the DrawTogether Newsletter for more on the USPS and Art, including what goes into making a stamp, and a look at some inspiring mail art. Everything is better when we DrawTogether! This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit club.drawtogether.studio/subscribe

Wendy introduces us to one of her art she-roes: Sister Corita. Yes, she was a radical nun. Yes, she was a teacher and an artist. Yes, she was an absolute icon. Join Wendy for a Corita-inspired project that will help you look closely and see the world in a whole new way. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit club.drawtogether.studio/subscribe

Drawing is a superpower that can help us make sense of our feelings. Join Wendy as we explore what it’s like to draw the storms and the sunshine we feel inside. Plus, we meet a weather-obsessed kid who grew up to name the clouds. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit club.drawtogether.studio/subscribe