Another successful Elementary School Cartoooning Course completed

For our final class contest at an Immokalee Elementary School, we loaded this table with unfinished pop-up card projects, blank mini-comic booklets, coloring templates, and a selection of drawing and coloring tools. The students were given the options of finishing their works in progress, creating their own original mini comics, or coloring one of my templates in order to be considered for a prize.
While the students worked on their projects during the two class periods, I managed to draw a cartoon portrait for pretty much everybody attending this class.
I would estimate that about half of the drawing requests were fantasy-style cartoons and comicbook hero-style illustrations.
And the other half were more like conventional portraits that depicted regular school activities.
This student drawing inspired by his cartoon portrait was inked with a 0.3 mm Sakura Pigma Sensei pen.
Some students chose to draw their own creations from scratch while others picked a pre-drawn coloring template to color with markers or watercolor pencils.
In the last 30 minutes of class, we gathered all the finished contest entries, and our two judges(the adults that assisted in class this day) selected the students that earned one of the fun prizes available: 3 sets of Sushi puzzle erasers, a set of 10 Crayola fine tip markers, and a couple of Bakugan Deka Metal Gate cards packs.
Several students really embraced the Crayola watercolor pencils as their preferred coloring tools in the later part of the course, so they really proved to be a good choice for expanding our selection of class art materials.

So High School students like to have their cartoon portraits drawn too

After conducting a docent tour of the Princess Diana: Dresses of Inspiration for a particularly attentive and well-behaved group of students (now I know what to expect from High School JROTC students), we toured the second floor of The von Liebig Art Center and stopped at the library to draw a few souvenir cartoon portraits for the kids to take home.Since the library was not being used by any other patrons at the time, the group members had plenty of room to spread out and the freedom to chat and make helpful design suggestions for their peers' drawings while patiently waiting for their turn to get drawn. When my preferred 0.6 mm Sakura Pigma Sensei pen started going dry halfway, I switched to the 1.0 mm nib pen which provides greater coverage at a faster speed but does not allow for very small detailing on the fly. If Sakura does not start offering these two pen nib sizes in open stock soon, I am going to end up swamped with spare of 0.7 mm mechanical pencils and the other manga drawing kit components that do not get used up as fast. I really should look for an alternative cartooning event pen among my other pigmented pen sets, but the comfortable feel on most papers of the Pigma Sensei plastic nibs coupled with their smooth ink flow while speed sketching can be almost addictive (well it is to me).The students were quite imaginative with their ideas for their sketches, so we had a wide variety of fun interesting themes to draw in addition to the usual princess, mermaid, and ninja cartoon portrait requests. Quite a few wanted to be drawn as a favorite animal, for I recall sketching a couple of students as an octopus and panda bear respectively. Hope some of the students will be inspired to take up some pencils and start drawing themselves after seeing how easily and quickly their ideas could take form on paper with just some regular sketching practice. I really enjoyed the experience hosting this group, and their positive reaction to the cartooning process tells me that we are on the right tract to plan an after-school manga cartooning course for high school students for the next year.
I probably speed sketched about 35 cartoon portraits and special request drawings during 75 minutes. Thus each drawing took about 2-2.5 minutes to complete on average. By the time we were done everybody seemed pretty happy with their souvenir drawings of their visit to The von Liebig Art Center. Heartfelt thanks to Lieutenant Colonel (Ret) Paul Garrah for sending me these picture files that I used to illustrate this post(for it can be a quite challenge draw and photograph myself at the same time).

Students' Mini Comic Covers Gallery

The students' first attempts at creating their own mini comics.

Mini Comics Fever

While I relied on this quick paper model from Glen to start making some mini comics for my cartooning class, you could check this video if you need further guidance on how to make the actual folds and single cut to create a 6-pages + front and back cover mini comic booklet out of a single sheet of paper. The neat thing about this simple Kirigami activity is that all you need is paper, scissors, and something to draw and color your story. No staples nor glue are needed to hold it together.
The mini comics are fairly close in size to the Artist Trading Cards (ATC) format.
Used the Sakura Pigma Sensei 0.4 and 0.6 mm pens to illustrate these mini comics.The goal here was to reinforce the concepts discussed during class, and to serve as a reminder to continue practicing.Quick rundown of popular manga genres appropriate for the students' age group.Kaiju (Strange Beast) pocket guide.The purpose of this mini comic was to illustrate how sketching and drawing can help students in learning scientific material.
Once an original was drawn, it was scanned and printed to try different coloring approaches for the cover. For this batch, I used some Faber Castell Pitt Artist Pens.
A few mini comics with colored covers to serve as samples for my cartooning class later today.

City Fest done ... well sort of!

Yesterday afternoon we set up a handful of demo tables behind The von Liebig Art Center to host arts and craft activities for the families attending the Naples City Fest. Yet we ended up being so far from all the booths and attractions clustered on the opposite end of Cambier Park that nobody realized we were also part of the same event. Thus after drawing cartoon portraits of my fellow instructors and the ARTScool interns present, we all packed up our supplies and called it a day. Yet I decided to check out the festival before leaving, and was quite intrigued by the Super Science presentation on the flying paper ring. I am normally so swamped with drawing requests, that I usually never get a chance to check out the other activity booths of the events that I participate in. It was nice to chat a bit with Glen who happens to be a real expert on cool paper activities (I plan to use his timely tip on how to make a neat mini comic out of a single letter-size sheet paper in my cartooning classes, thanks Glen!). Since their face painter got sick and had to leave early, I ended up filling in the table next to them for the last hour of the event. Thus a few boys and girls and a couple of adults got their cartoon portraits drawn. Popular requests remain ninjas, mermaids, and fairies. The special portrait requests that stuck in my mind were the ninja shark, Transformer robot, and the Radiology nurse. It was great to see so many families enjoying the drawing process, and to meet a couple of people that had already attended Family Art Night at the Boys & Girls Club and my presentation at Lake Park Elementary. Sadly I got no pictures from today cause my cell battery died and forgot my camera battery in its charger.

Pop-Up Cards Elementary School Session Photo Journal

For a creative change of pace decided to introduce a pop-up card making lesson to my cartooning classes.

Two sample pop-up cards featuring the ever popular mermaids.

These two sample pop-up cards were done by drawing a background on a blank sheet of card stock and pasting some toy packaging inserts from the collage supplies bin.

The first batch of pop-up cards finished by the students relied heavily on pre-cut templates and some Bakugan toy packaging inserts.



Student drawn background pop-up cards to be completed on the next session.

Family Art Night at Boys & Girls Club notes

At the last minute decided to add a few more pop-up card samples for the Family Art Night at the Boys & Girls Club that took place yesterday. We had a wide selection of coloring pages, standing cut-out cards, and card-making supplies (plenty of blank card stock, child-safe scissors, and glue sticks). Once the kids started with their coloring projects, I spent much of the evening speed sketching special requests (lots of ninjas and dragons and a few popular cartoon characters) and personalized cartoon portraits. As usual, I relied upon a fresh set of Sakura Pigma Sensei pens to draw constantly at top speed with smooth bold lines. I really wish I could get their 0.6 and 1.0 mm pens in bulk, for they are great cartooning pens that sadly are yet not available in open-stock.
Among the assorted art supplies that I brought to the event, we had a set of Elmer's Squeeze 'n Brush Washable Paint-Cool Classics brush pens. While a few kids seemed to enjoy using them, they were also the messiest choice from our range of coloring options (mainly washable Crayola markers in regular and Pip-squeak format, watercolor pencils, and a portable Sketch, Color & Paint art set). I do not think I will continue using them in venues where a wash sink is not so readily available. At least the paint washed off easily enough from my hands. Note to self: Gotta remember the tub of baby wipes for outside venues.A couple of kids actually tackled the pop-up card idea and required just a bit of help at the end to attach their colored pieces to the blank pop-up cards that were prepared in advance.
This budding artist in particular spent a good part of the evening doing a great coloring job on the ninja elf coloring template. Keep on practicing and speed will develop naturally as I told most of you when you commented on how fast I could speed sketch throughout the event.