beetlegrass

Teaching 2 Cartooning Classes in Spring

I'll be teaching 2 classes in spring for RISD's Continuing Education program. They run on Saturdays (March 2nd - April 6th), and are 3 hours per session.

'Tooning Around, for kids aged 9-12, runs from 9am-12noon

Start Cartooning, for kids aged 12-17, runs from 1pm-4pm

Classes are enrolling now, so step right up and sign right up!

Drawing Space Fantasy

I'll be teaching a 6-hour "intensive" called "Drawing Space Fantasy" on Sunday, October 7th, as part of RISD's continuing ed program. There's still room in the class for your teen! Registration link here.

The kids will be drawing/designing their own fantastic space heroes, sidekicks and villains; space vehicles and weapons (or communication devices); environments and homes for their characters; a robot/mutant/cyborg "double" for one of their main characters AND will be developing their characters' histories and storylines. It should be a really good time; I'm looking forward to it!

I See a Little Silhouette-O of a... Robot.

Another 6-hour intensive workshop I'll be teaching next month is Drawing Space Fantasy. In my prep for that class, since I'll need to talk about how SILHOUETTES are an important element in character design, I made a page of some famous ROBOTS from TV and movies and comics, to test the kids' SPACE FANTASY ACUMEN.

How about you -- can you name them all?

Cartooning Critters, A-M

So, because I am getting all the projects together for this Cartooning Critters class I'm teaching on October 8th, I figured I would make a sample page of just ANIMALS (since that IS the theme of the class) to show the kids (and YOU) what cartoon characters can be inspired by just letterforms.


Above are 3 "blank" pages of letter and number forms for you to cartoon on/around/over/under. Click on images for a larger version, print out, and get cartoonin'!

Cartooning Critters

I'm teaching "Cartooning Critters" on Monday, October 8th, 2012, as part of RISD's Continuing Education youth program. There's still time to sign up -- here's a link to registration: Cartooning Critters!

Perk!

One of the perks of teaching at RISD CE this summer is that the teachers get to have their own exhibition at Woods-Gerry Gallery in Providence. The opening last night was for teachers and students. The show runs until July 26th, so stop by if you're in the area!

Cartooning Classes: Conversations Between Characters, Teen Version

SO, as promised, here are the teens' responses to this game.
I changed the game a bit for them, in that: EVERYBODY on a team drew the first character, passed it to the right, then EVERYBODY wrote that character's talk bubble, pass to the right, everybody draw, pass, everybody right. So the results were: tons more cartoon couplings.

Also for the teens, I changed up the cartoon pairings.
1. Teenage boy and girl.
2. 2 religious leaders.
3. President Obama and Mitt Romney for some political cartoon action.
4. Batman and Spider-Man, as those have been the 2 main topics of conversation for the entire class.

First up, teenage boy and girl (click on image to see it larger in a pop-up window): 

2 religious leaders:

President Obama and Mitt Romney:

Batman and Spider-Man:

 

Cartooning Classes: Conversations Between Characters

So ONE of the exercises I did with the younger kids (ages 9-12) the other day was this:

4 teams of 4 kids (TA was in one group).
1st kid would draw the first character.
2nd kid would write what that character was saying.
3rd kid would draw the second character. 
4th kid would act as clean-up batter with the punchline for that character.
4 different pairings of characters.

My cousin Dale came up with this idea the other night as we chatted; I put it into practice the next day and the kids had a great time with it! (I changed up the "game" the next day for the teen class -- I'll show you those tomorrow!)

First up, Cat and Dog:

 

Cowboy and Indian:

 

Alligator and Mouse:

 

 

Cop and Robber:

 

 

Cursive Creatures, pt. 5

Making these things is addictive.
So here's a froggie with hair.
Amphibians with hair. I dunno. Sounds kinda fishy to me. 

 

Cursive Creatures, pt. 4

... because didn't I sorta promise I'd make a Cursive Creature from my middle name?
So here it is... can you guess what my middle name is?
I'll give you a hint: the bunny's foot starts the name.
And speakig of the bunny -- yes, those are feathers he's wearing.
I'm not sure why. You'd have to ask him.

Other Cursive Creatures here, here, and here.