Steve Barr, From Cartoonist to My Hero (plus a giveaway!)

If you read this blog earlier this week, you know I recently embarked upon a happiness project. What you maybe didn’t know is that making other people happy is something that delights me as well. My good friend, illustrator Steve Barr, feels the same. A few months ago he launched a project to teach hospitalized children how to draw cartoons, and it’s already been a phenomenal success, putting smiles on the faces of hundreds of kids. 

Steve at Duke Children’s Hospital

Steve plans to expand the program to include other authors and illustrators nation-wide. Plus he wants to continue giving free art supplies to the children he visits. I am wholeheartedly behind him!

I’ll let Steve take the mic now.

Teachers cringe when I tell their students about my first artistic endeavor. In fourth grade, I basically “carved” a crude drawing of Mickey Mouse onto the the top of my wooden desk. I used a pencil, but back then the desks were actually made of wood!

My classmates loved it! My teacher, not so much.

Apparently, she was not a big fan of art. She made me stay after school to scrub and scrub that desk until it was almost new again. But she did give me a pencil and a stack of blank paper when I was done, and suggested that from now on I try drawing with that, instead of decorating furniture.

I took her advice. In the fifth and sixth grades, I started writing and drawing my own comic books and selling them to my classmates for their lunch money. Which could explain why I am a bit chubby these days and most of my former classmates remain rather thin.

In seventh grade, I sold my first cartoons to newspapers and magazines. I figured at that point, I could just kick back…draw funny pictures…let the money roll in, then retire in a few years.

Well, that didn’t exactly happen! But it did launch me on a pursuit that I have loved for the rest of my life. By the time I was in high school, my work was being featured on a monthly basis in a few magazines and I had done illustrations for books.

In my sophomore year, one of the magazines I worked for called and asked me if I would like to move to Chicago and become their Art Director. I guess they were a bit startled when I told them I’d have to ask my mother first.

Needless to say, she insisted that I had to stay in school. At the time I wasn’t really thrilled about that, but at this point in my life it does seem like it was a pretty good idea.

Years later, with some wonderful successes and a file cabinet full of rejection slips, I finally landed my dream job. As a child, I dreamed of two things. One was becoming a syndicated cartoonist and the other was writing and illustrating my own books. I ended up getting to do both!

Several years ago, after searching the world for a publisher, I stumbled across Peel Productions. Imagine my surprise when I discovered that they were located in the same tiny town I live in, here in the mountains of Western North Carolina. Within days of contacting them, we were sitting in my kitchen signing a contract for the first three books in my “1-2-3 Draw” series. Eventually, we did eleven titles.

That eventually led Impact Books to ask me to create “Draw Crazy Creatures” and “Draw Awesome Animals”. Which led to invitations to do library and school presentations. That helped me hone my public speaking skills, and also became a great way to find out what the kids really wanted to draw.

I was able to break my lessons down into really easy to follow step-by-step instructions that anyone could follow. And that came in really handy for what was about to happen…

Several months ago, after losing family members and friends that I adored to cancer, I realized the tremendous healing impact creating art could have on patients in hospitals. I decided to concentrate my efforts on teaching pediatric patients how to draw cartoons of their very own. Each child also gets a free package of art supplies that they can keep. Pencils, crayons, colored pencils, and a pad of drawing paper!

Everything in my life has come full cycle. Now I’m teaching kids how to draw on paper instead of furniture! And when I walk into a young child’s hospital room, plop down next to their bed and share the story of how I got started, they instantly bond with me and grin.

(Plus, the fact that I bear a striking resemblance to Santa Claus probably doesn’t hurt!)

If you’d like to learn more about my hospital cartooning programs, click on this link to my “Cartoon Fun for Kids In Hospitals” Indie Go Go campaign. Learn how you can become a part of this incredible endeavor, and if nothing else.watch the video at the top to learn how to draw a cartoon fish. You never know when a skill like that might come in handy!

Thanks, Steve. As I said in the blog title, you are a hero! 

Just for visiting and commenting on this post today, Steve will be graciously giving away 3 signed copies of one of his drawing books. I also hope you’ll take the time to visit his campaign and donate if you can. Thank you!