Friday Fun: "A-mazing" Ants

Here's a fun little activity for the little ones. Just click on the image and you'll be directed to a download page. Happy Friday!

In the Wild Dot-to-Dot

Here's another fun activity that I created as a volunteer for Sequoia & Kings Canyon National Parks. Located in the southern Sierra Nevada Mountain Range in California, beautiful Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks are right next to each other.

You can find this activity at the visitor's center. Not visiting there anytime soon? You download the PDF at www.MARKIX.net/fun

Raising the Costa Concordia

Above are illustrations I created for the July/August 2015 issue of ASK Magazine for a feature about how they raised the Costa Concordia. The Costa Concordia was an Italian cruise ship that capsized and sank after striking a submerged rock formation on January 13, 2012. The ocean liner was on a trip around the Mediterranean Sea with 4,252 people on board. Sadly, thirty-two lives were lost in the disaster.

By the way, the little cartoon characters on these pages are not mine. They are characters the publisher uses in each issue and were added after I did the art.

Life as an Artist

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Bricks, Buses, and Playgrounds

I just love it when my artwork is used for unusual projects. (The ones used with my permission, of course. I can just imagine there are some unauthorized* uses out there I would rather not know about.)

Anyway, a school in another state recently sold bricks that people could have inscribed with personal messages as a part of fundraising effort to build a new playground. To honor their parents, who have driven school buses for the school district for over twenty years, a former student of the school and his family purchased a brick. He said his parents have always been known as fun bus drivers so he wanted the brick to be imprinted with my "Happy Bus" image from EducatorClips.com (originally featured in the Discovery Clip Art Gallery). Naturally I granted permission and provided a higher-resolution image for free.

Above is the finished product and the new playground with the bricks installed around it. Thank you Brian for the photos and best wishes to you and your family!
 

*If you are using my images illegally I hope you feel guilty now and send me tons of cash or buy lots of my books and cards so I can properly fund my personal art supply charity project, Art Mends.

Ranger Book and Coloring Pages

Recently I did the art for an upcoming ranger activity book for Sequoia/Kings Canyon National Parks. I also did a little volunteer work and created the Pika coloring page below for rangers to use for their interpretive programs. I will be doing more coloring pages and activities on a volunteer basis for the Parks as time permits. 

If you don't plan on visiting Sequoia or Kings Canyon National Park in the near future you can still download and color the picture by going here.