Cartoon Portrait Sketching Class at Cary Arts Center Photo Journal

During the last class in this week's track out camp at the Cary Arts Center, our creative students (6-10 years old) got to try a variety of sketching and coloring tools (like Chartpak Ad markers, Prismacolor colored pencils, Pentel Outline Markers, and Pentel Color Brushes). They worked on mini-comics, pop-up cards, and Artist Trading Cards (ATC) according to their preferences.

As part of my typical drawing demonstrations, every student got at least two cartoon portraits drawn to their specific requests (karate girl, butterfly girl, movie star, cheerleader, and ballerina). Each portrait was an opportunity to explain pen size selection and the typical steps taken to draw a cartoon likeness in a variety of settings.

Then the students had plenty of time to further customize and color them with the colored pencils, markers, and brush pens loaded with color dyes. Some students also took the opportunity to sharpen their drawing skills with the art materials at their disposal and created pop-up cards.

We finished the Art Camp with an exercise in visual storytelling by creating a classic 3-panel comic page assignment of two characters being taken by a Martian in an UFO to planet Mars that I learned at the last Durham Library Comics Fest. Nice work girls. Keep practicing your sketching and drawing skills!