“Nevada grad illustratescolorful children’s book” plus 1 more |
| Nevada grad illustratescolorful children’s book Posted: 01 May 2010 06:16 AM PDT You may not be familiar with the name Sami Mac, although you've probably seen her work—she was one of the artists who helped paint the Character mural in downtown Nevada. If you don't think the name sounds familiar, that's probably because it's just a moniker that she uses. Her real name is Becky McIntosh, and she chose the name Sami to honor her father, who taught her to draw, and the last name Mac to represent the last name McIntosh of her children. McIntosh is a graduate of Nevada High School, an artist and graphic designer with more than 20 years under her belt, and daughter of longtime Nevada resident MaryAnn Gardner. Recently Sami Mac teamed up with native Iowa author, LaVina Varnony-Barcus, to illustrate Barcus' newest children's book, "Perfect in Mother Nature's Eyes." "My roommate in college hooked me up with this gal. She's written a couple other things—she's kind of figured out the self-publishing process and wrote this children's book, and my friend got us together so I could do the illustrations for her," McIntosh said. Doing artwork is nothing new to McIntosh, who graduated from ISU with a degree in graphic design. After college, she started out working as a graphic designer for about five years. During that time she also started doing freelance work for a T-shirt company, making character maps of cities. "I worked that to where I could do it full time and then take care of my kids at home. So it was all work at home and then I would just take the illustrations in. I worked that for 11 years, and then started homeschooling my kids," she said. While homeschooling her children, she slowly started slipping out of the field of graphic design. Since McIntosh graduated from ISU, the graphic design field has seen some very large technical changes. Graphic design elements used to be produced largely by hand, but now the industry has become evermore reliant on computer programs. "I kind of got out of the technical aspect of doing graphic design—I didn't know how to use (Adobe) Illustrator or InDesign, so I couldn't just hop back into doing a graphic design job after my kids got older and I was ready to go back to work." So, for the time being, she took two part-time jobs at Mercy Hospital in Des Moines, where she lives. But despite not knowing some of the cutting-edge technology, she hasn't left artwork behind. McIntosh has been creating artwork for various purposes. She had a hand in creating the character mural, just off of main street, and has donated artwork to the Leukemia Society, to name a few. "I've been keeping my hand in it, but I've been trying to get back into something that I could do for a living at some point," she said. Recently she was given the opportunity to illustrate "Perfect in Mother Nature's Eyes," which she took. McIntosh said that doing the 20 water- color illustrations for the book took her about 70 hours of work, but not all of that was spent just on the illustrations. She said that the author wanted to her to include some specific animals and flowers, and McIntosh wasn't familiar with all of them, so she had to spend some time researching what the author wanted and fine-tuning her artwork. After McIntosh finished the artwork it, was all sent to the publisher to be scanned into computers and prepped for printing. Five Filters featured article: The Art of Looking Prime Ministerial - The 2010 UK General Election. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction. |
| On the trail in Skowhegan, Otten touts education Posted: 30 Apr 2010 11:00 PM PDT On the trail in Skowhegan, Otten touts educationBY ERIN RHODA Staff Writer SKOWHEGAN -- Tall, fit, wearing jeans, tie and a fleece jacket, Les Otten sat near a window at the Kel-Mat Cafe Thursday afternoon to talk about how education is the cornerstone of society and the job market. Otten, one of seven Republican candidates for governor, is known for founding Sunday River in western Maine and for his partial ownership of the Boston Red Sox. He touts himself as a businessman and philanthropist. He also thinks education plays a key part in the economy. He supports merit- and production-based measurement systems for teachers and administrators as well as charter schools and homeschooling. He said it is unrealistic to expect the state to fund 55 percent of education costs. The state has never reached the 55 percent target since the voter mandate in 2004, which has caused state government to lose "tremendous credibility," he said. "We can't reach 55 percent. It's an impossible goal unless we raise everyone's taxes until they all leave Maine," he said. He is against requiring school districts to consolidate -- or penalizing the ones that don't -- but he said having one superintendent per county, depending on population, is "not a bad thought." In his view, a lack of money is not the problem with schools; districts need to focus on student achievement. It's cultural, he said; it revolves around parental involvement, motivated teachers and community support. Otten understands what it is like to struggle in school. He has dyslexia, a reading disability that stems from the inability to process graphic symbols. He said it took him longer than others to learn how to read because he had trouble comprehending what he saw on the page. Sometimes he mixed up letters. "I would break out in a sweat when someone asked me to read a book in high school," he said. He now reads voraciously, he said, and credited dyslexia with helping him develop other skills. He has strong auditory and visual skills, he said, and readily understands mathematical problems and budgets. Among other campaign issues, he said he supports tax incentives for those who switch to renewable sources of energy. The creation, delivery and service related to more energy-efficient products in Maine means more jobs in Maine, he said. "Our dependence on foreign oil is one of our greatest liabilities," he said, noting that any conflict abroad can lead to higher domestic oil prices. On taxes, he said Mainers pay too much. The capital gains tax on high-income earners and the inheritance tax "make us the highest-taxed people in the United States," he said. He supports lowering those tax rates to keep people in Maine who might provide start-up capital for businesses, he said. On health care, he said he supports increased competition for health insurance agencies and eliminating community ratings in order to drive down costs. His greatest criticism of the United States National Health Care Act is that it does not do enough to support preventive care, beginning in prenatal stages. People on welfare should have to work in their communities, he said, such as maintaining a community garden or public facility, doing manual labor or picking up trash. And there should be stricter requirements to qualify for welfare services, he said. He supports a top-down review of state government, and the elimination of duplicate positions. "The reason I'm running for governor is because I don't trust government," he said. The Republican primary is June 8. Other GOP candidates are Paul LePage, Peter Mills, Bruce Poliquin, Steve Abbott, William Beardsley and Matthew Jacobson. Erin Rhoda -- 474-9534 erhoda@centralmaine.com Five Filters featured article: The Art of Looking Prime Ministerial - The 2010 UK General Election. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction. |
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