Ben Franklin for Scholastic

Ben Franklin, Inventor by Greg Newbold

In the last few months I have done several jobs that I couldn't show immediately and this one for Scholastic's Science Spin was one of them. I got the chance to do one of the classic inventors and statesmen in American history, Benjamin Franklin. When I was in elementary school, I loved the Weekly Reader and other publications from Scholastic and now I get to work with them. This project involved a cover depicting Ben along with of several of the things he invented, namely, The gas street lamp seen out the window, a book grabbing tool, the famous "Franklin Stove", bifocal glasses and one that didn't catch on. In case you can't locate this lesser known invention in the picture, Ben is sitting in a chair that he engineered with a foot pedal powered flapper that would move the air above his head to shoo away flies while he was reading. Needless to say, it didn't catch on.

Ben's Lightning Rod- by Greg Newbold

The interior article illustrates a live demonstration of his lightning rod, a concept that all modern lightning rods are based on. Not only was Franklin a great inventor, he was a writer, printer, theorist, statesman and diplomat, along with being a signer of the Declaration of Independence. I had a great time working on this, and I'm currently working on another similar project for Scholastic that, of course, I will show at a later date when it is published.