- Today is March 31st.
Cher's birthday.
Tell you a little bit about that,
but first let me seewhat I can do with this.
Oh.
(mumbles)
Mm-hm.
A doggie.
Gonna put my name there, so.
When I see that drawing again
I'll remember that it was me
and I'll know what day that I did it.
I did it on doggie day.
Welcome back to Mo Willems Lunch Doodles!
I hope you had a great day.
Oh, did we have a funmorning this morning.
I gave Cher her card,and she wore her crown
and her coupon, and we all sang
(speaks foreign language)
Hip Hip Hurrah!
And Cher wanted to say to you guys
thank you so much, and how happy she is
being so very, very old.
She's really enjoying it.
And it's a great, great thing.
So, today I thought
we would draw a bunny.
A very particular type of bunny.
A Knuffle Bunny.
Because I know a lot of people,
they ask about Knuffle Bunny.
The story of Trixielosing a stuffed animal
in the laundromat, andthe mom and the dad.
A lot of people wanna knowis that story a true story,
or is it not a true story?
We'll get to that in a little bit.
I thought what I'd do is I'd show you
some of the original drawings
from all of the Knuffle Bunny stories,
so we could talk and I could show you
some of the secrets about how I made it.
Come on here.
All those drawers I know are gonna be
really right here,because they're special.
Oh, here we go.
See, here it says, Knuffle Bunny.
And there's KB2.
And Knuffle Bunny 3.
All of them.
Let's start with Knuffle Bunny.
All right, here is the chart
of all the differentsurfaces, 40 surfaces,
and all the things I needed to do,
the rough drawings and the photographs,
and boy, making thephotographs was tricky.
And I'll talk aboutthat in a little while.
But I had to make surethat there were no cars
in the photographs and things like that.
Let's see.
I have not been in here in a long time.
Ooh.
That's an early test drawing
of the dad doing laundry.
Let's see what else we got here.
Ah.
Different, this is thedad and the laundry.
Early (chuckles) an idea.
There's dad...
Grabbing.
Look, I did this on animation paper.
I didn't really even think about
what the paper was gonna be.
Oh, here are some of thefavorite famous lines.
Look at this.
Before it was Aggle Flaggle Klavel,
it was Aggle Flaggle mummglop.
That doesn't make any sense.
Yeah, I had a lot ofrewrites about made up words.
So, let's see what else we've got.
Oh, man, there's so much stuff in here.
Oh, that looks like a picture of them
first going out to the laundromat in ink.
All the color was digital.
If we look in the book,
one of the things that I had to do
was change the photographs.
Now you see this looks like a picture
of a Brooklyn street.
But this is not a picture.
This is a digital collage.
Because there was anair conditioner there.
And look, I just copied thatand moved it over there,
and there was a garbage can
and I had to erase all those things.
Because, while they were true,
they were really in the picture,
they were not emotionally true.
They were not howBrooklyn felt at the time.
So I went in and I changed every picture
so it wouldn't be a distraction.
It would feel real.
So look at this laundromat here.
It says 'Laundromat DropOff Service Self-Service.'
Well, all real laundromats,
those letters have been scraped off.
It said (deliberatelymispronouncing words)
So I had to rebuild all of those letters
in the computer so thatit would feel real.
Here's another example.
Let's take, ooh, look at this.
Knuffle Bunny 3.
48 surfaces, so much work.
So many ideas to get in there.
Let's see.
Before we talk more about him.
And here is a blue.
The very end, Trix getting a letter,
after she's given away her bunny.
Oh, angry in the second book.
(growls)
These are the rough sketches.
Here's that final Trixiecharacter realizes
that the bunny is not unique.
All right?
So again, all of these thingsI had to make and alter.
Here, I'll give you an example.
Let's go to the Brooklyn.
Should I go, it's in thesecond book, the barber.
Let's see.
Think it's in here.
See, they go by this barbershop,
and it says 'Clever Barber Shop'.
And there's an old guythere and it says Clever.
There's no such thingas a Clever barbershop.
This was the Clover barbershop.
And I changed it and I changed the address
because I didn't want this poor guy
who really had the barbershop
have these kids come and take pictures.
So I thought it wouldbe clever to rename it.
Yeah.
The second Knuffle Bunnybook also has 48 surfaces.
That one went pretty quickly.
So that all these thingsthat feel real that aren't.
Kinda like this sculpture here.
This is one of my magnet doodles.
This feels like it'sstanding up but it's not.
It's just a magnet.
It's actually being pulledup rather than hanging down.
All right, so, sit back down.
So the question we get asked a lot is,
is Knuffle Bunny a true story?
Or are all the stories true stories?
Well, I often say that everythingin the stories is true,
except for the parts I made up.
But here's the real story.
I made up everything.
Because I'm a writer.
And the reason it feels real to you
is that I made it emotionally true.
I made it about love andI made it about families,
and I made it about little adventures.
But it's all made up.
Like that isn't my house in Knuffle Bunny.
I never lived in that house.
I don't have orange hairlike the daddy character.
And Trixie, the real Trixie is not a girl.
The real Trixie is a boy.
Which is something that heworked on and discovered
after many, many years.
And that's why it's asurprise to you probably,
it was a surprise to us.
But he's been livingas a guy for years now,
and everyone at schooland everyone at work
and all of our friends think it's great
that he is so authentic and himself.
And now, there's never been a kid
who's had a problem with it,
but somewhere out therethere's some grownups
who think that just becausea kid is being authentic
and knows who they are thatyou get to be mean to them
or say terrible things, or even hit them.
Those grownups are wrong.
Let's draw a bunny.
All right, we're gonnastart at the top of our page
with a big letter O.
Like most of my characters.
And then we're gonna take that number 8
and knock it sideways.
Right there, those are the eyes.
We're gonna take that 8shape but make it an O.
We're gonna step on it.
(grunts)
Darken it in for the nose.
Then a line that goes down.
And then we're gonna pretend like
we're on the top of the earth,
that this circle is the earth
and we're throwing arock as hard as we can.
Throw, throw, throw, uh-oh, gravity,
whew, and it goes back down.
And we're gonna do it again.
I'm gonna throw it really,really, really hard.
Oh, and it goes back down.
That was fun.
Let's do another one.
Throw, throw, throw, throw, throw, throw.
Whoop, glad it's back down.
Throw, throw, throw, throw.
Oh, it's almost going in his face.
No.
It lands back down.
Now I always put the Knuffle Bunny eyes
right in the middle.
Because Knuffle Bunnyis not anthropomorphic.
Knuffle Bunny is just a stuffed animal.
There's only one drawingin the Knuffle Bunny books
where Knuffle Bunny's eyes are not open.
The one time I made Knuffle Bunny not,
or make Knuffle Bunny anthropomorphic,
you have to look at all the books
to see if you can find that one.
All right, let me write my name
so that I know that I made it.
And I've got my state stamp.
And let's make sure, yesterday,
remember I moved it to 31.
So, put that there.
Ah!
March 31, Cher's birthday.
And that's my Knuffle Bunny.
All right, why don't you hold up
your Knuffle Bunnies?
Oh, let me see, yeah.
It's really fun to throwthat one thing all the way up
and then watch it land again, right?
Well, maybe you can make up a story
about a stuffed animal
that seems really, really real,
that's emotionally true,that's from your heart,
but is all made up.
We'll see.
All right, before we go, question time.
All right.
Wednesday, April 1st.
Oh, it's not Wednesday, April 1st!
Oops, well, we're gonna pretend.
31st, I got the wrong day.
I'll do the other questions.
March 31st, Tuesday.
"Why was Amanda's alligatortrying to eat her head?"
Montie, age 6, asked.
Because the alligator was bored.
"Dear Mo Willems, isit hard to be an author
and an illustrator at the same time?"
Eliot, age 7, asks.
Yes, but it's easier to bean author and illustrator
than just an author,or just an illustrator.
Because when I make a drawing,
that changes the writing.
And when I write a word itcan help change the drawing.
So being able to doboth is easier, for me.
Now I have written two or three books
that I have not illustrated,and it was really hard.
I mean it was fun to workwith another illustrator.
I liked the collaboration,but it was harder.
"Mo Willems, how was your day?
I hope you have a goodday and you draw soon,"
says Abe, age 4.
Thank you, Abe.
I've had a great day.
It's Cher's birthday today
and I got to draw KnuffleBunny with you guys.
And after this is done I'mgonna do some more drawing.
Audrey, age 6, says, "Do you like rocks?
If so, what types?"
I like friendly rocks.
"Who is your best friend?"ask both Jake and Joe.
Well, I have two bestfriends, Trix and Cher.
"What was your favoritethings you got to do
on Sesame Street?"
Oh, I loved being on Sesame Street.
It was so fun.
I learned so much.
I liked hanging out with the puppets.
I liked being able to be an animator.
I liked learning from the other writers.
And I really liked thecharacter Baby Bear,
because the character BabyBear was also an artist.
All right, Edmond is in the fourth grade.
"If you had a robot dragon,
would you go with it into battle?"
If I had a robot dragon, no, I would not
go with it into battle.
I would go with it into a picnic.
We'd go to the park and we'd have
a robot dragon picnic.
It would be so fun.
All right, guys.
Thank you so much.
We'll see you tomorrow.
We have some surprises including
today's questions, apparently.
And have a great day.
This is Mo Willems saying bye.
LUNCH DOODLES with Mo Willems! Kennedy Center Education Artist-in-Residence at Home #MoLunchDoodles Mo invites you into his studio, doodles, and teaches you how to draw Knuffle Bunny. Visit http://www.kennedy-center.org/mowillems to download a worksheet for this LUNCH DOODLE! A note from Mo with more about the project: When I became the Kennedy Center Education Artist-in-Residence, I didn’t realize the most impactful word in that title would be ‘Residence.’ With millions of learners attempting to grow and educate themselves in new circumstances, I have decided to invite everyone into my studio once a day for the next few weeks. Grab some paper and pencils, pens, or crayons. We are going to doodle together and explore ways of writing and making. If you have questions for me, send them to LUNCHDOODLES@kennedy-center.org and I might get to answer them. You might be isolated, but you’re not alone. You are an art maker. Let’s make some together. Subscribe to The Kennedy Center! http://bit.ly/2gNFrtb