Creating a title panel for a comic strip

Many of my students in the cartooning class have outstanding technical skills, but consistently cut corners when it comes to lettering. To address this gap, I created a mini lesson extension where they need to focus more on lettering than the drawing or storytelling. 

We started by looking at the ways that different artists have created title blocks or title panels for their cartoons. If you save a month's worth of Sunday comics it becomes easy for them to sort them into categories. 

We noticed that some maintain a similar layout each week. Some provide a hint or sneak peek at the punchline while others are simply providing the basic information.

Students got a crash course in typography basics such as typeface, leading and kerning. While it might seem backwards to do the title last, it really helped them to have a solid grasp on their character and style first.

If you'd like to try this lesson, I have my plans here for download. If you already own the cartooning bundle, this was added to the set for free. Just go into your purchases and redownload the resource.

Comic Strip Art Lesson

My cartooning class is wrapping up a comic strip lesson. 

They were tasked with creating a comic to be printed in our freshman orientation packet. 

For some this was their first opportunity using procreate and apple pencils. They did not have to work digitally for this assignment, but most of them did.

They were also allowed to choose color or black and white. 

I'm really proud of their efforts

They realized that storytelling is not easy. We talked about panel transitions, story timing and pacing, framing and more. At the end, they should be able to understand why this:

Isn't as successful as this:

or this:

This lesson is part of my cartooning class bundle.

Character Development

Students in Cartooning recently wrapped their model sheet project. This is the culminating project from our unit of character development. We work through facial expression, gesture drawing, shape language and more as they develop an original character.

Color was optional for this assignment.

They are required to submit 4 poses. 

This course is offered as a .5 elective at my school. We meet every other day for a 78 minute block.  

Inspiring Your Students With Virtual Visits

If possible, 2020 is simultaneously the fastest and slowest year of my life. I can't believe we are already halfway through the 2nd quarter. Due to a snowstorm and covid precautions, our district went fully remote for the next month. Concerned to lose the momentum we've been gaining in my cartooning class, I scheduled a local comic book company to join our zoom this week and speak to the kids.

Students submitted questions in advance using padlet and the session was more Q&A tailored to their questions, which was awesome. Having Joe and Ralph from Echo City Capers  engage with them really lit a fire for many of my students. Some even turned on their cameras and shared work with the artists, which was huge for my camera-shy crew.

I'm hoping to see my classes transfer this excitement into their current assignment to create a comic book page layout. We're using the original character from their model sheet to save time. By breaking this larger assignment into smaller pieces I'm hoping they will stay successful even during this fully remote period. This student's rough layout looks promising:

I'd be lying if I didn't admit that our artist's visit sparked a little something in me as well. This week I've enjoyed spending some time in the evenings adding even more illustrated examples to my narrated video and presentation for the students. 

Does anyone else teach a cartooning class? What are some of your students' favorite assignments? I'm adding every assignment after it's been classroom tested to my growing cartooning class bundle. It even includes the final exam.

Have you done any "virtual visits" or field trips with your art class this year? How did it go? 

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All images in this post are (C) Echo City Capers and (c) The Speckled Sink. If you'd like to host Ralph and Joe, they are a super fun team to work with. There is a contact form on their website linked above.

Animation for all ages

There is something about an animation lesson that just hooks kids every time. Thanks to GIFS, tik-tok and boomerangs our students are already well versed on moving pictures. While it was never expressly part of my curriculum, I always tried to sneak a little bit of animation in when I could.

K-2 students absolutely can master some of the basic animation devices like roll ups and thaumatropes. For the littles, I prefer a circle or square on a stick or straw to string, but I usually show them both and let them choose. Two years ago I did an animation station at my elementary STEAM night and the kids (and parents) had so much fun making both of these items. I've also used them as part of my art center and free choice day.

3-5 students love jumping into more complex ideas and if you have access to technology, this might be a great time to work in a little stop motion. A few years back I wrote a grant to get enough white boards and modeling clay for a grade level of 3rd graders. They worked in teams to create animated shorts. They did their titles with dry erase, and their videos were claymations using the stop motion studio app. A few adventurous kids, brought the videos into iMovie and added sound. Original behind the scenes post here.

Middle schoolers will love any of the above PLUS they might have the patience to do an old school zoetrope, phenakistoscope or flip book. My fifth graders were able to do some basic animations in procreate last year. This year, I dedicated a healthy portion of my budget to purchase a procreate license for each of my cartooning students. Using the animation assist feature, they are starting to animate characters they designed. 

We started by examining anthropomorphism and they are working to bring to life an inanimate object. Their first mini assignment was a single action sequence. A wave, a hop, a blink. It's really important for them to separate a single action from a broader term (like "dancing") as many kids will be ready to go with a whole plotline. This student's "nervous" candy is really sweating it out on halloween.

From there, we did a basic squash and stretch activity in procreate with basic shapes. This is how they learned to identify their keys (extremes). We used animation assist to speed up the drawing process.

They are now sketching out a more advanced movement sequence. It's so much fun to watch their ideas come to life. How about frame 5 on this adorable origami boat. I love how he's peeking to check that the coast is clear.

With strong connections to science, writing and math I can guarantee your principal will never complain about you teaching animation in art! If you'd like some help with lesson plans for these ideas you can click the links above for the original posts or you can view my lesson plans:

Historical Animation devices

Animation with Procreate

Stop Motion Lessons

Cartooning Class

This year I am teaching a cartooning class for the first time. Due to the way school ended, I didn't get a really good chance to discuss the course with the retiring teacher,  so I've been making it up as I go. 

So far they have completed a caricature of a famous person and a model sheet of an original character. They are completely blowing me away with their talent. There is currently no prerequisite for the course so it's a mixed bag of ages and abilities.

Looking forward to the 2nd half of the course with these kids. With the current state of education I used a good chunk of my budget to purchase a procreate license for each student so we are moving on to animation next!