Comic Strip Cartooning Workshop for Kids at Lyttelton Library

I ran the second of my cartooning workshops for kids at the Lyttelton library last week. This one was about comic panels and strips. One of the exercises was to fit as many characters as possible into a panel. I made the rash decision to offer a signed copy of Fab Club to whoever could fit the most in,  though this did result in some creative panels.

Some of the work the children did is below (my favourite is the plastic bag character) - thank you to Lindsey Melchers for taking the pictures (and helping out with the workshop).

(Note that the kids don't get to use rulers!)

Illustrated Epistle: Learning to Cartoon

Another month has whizzed by, we're well into Autumn and we have been busy working on the house and garden while the good weather continued. Fortunately, the veranda was replaced before the weather turned wet this week. I'm also happy to report that I no longer get seasick going off to bed as the house has been re-levelled and new piles put in to keep it level-ish. 

This week, I have been working on the illustrations for Chapter 13 of the second FAB Club book. By the next Epistle the drawing should be finished, which will ease the deadline pressure somewhat.

I've also been busy running cartoon workshops in Lyttelton. The first was in the library with kids aged 7-12. They were enthusiastic and engaged and it was very rewarding to see how much their drawing developed in a couple of hours. The second was at a youth club that catered to 11-14 year olds. We started with about a dozen kids and ended up with four! All of them were the younger ones who weren't distracted by their peers. It was a good learning experience for me.
I think that peer pressure in the early teens is a big factor in which interests we take up. Most kids give up drawing at this point, believing that their drawing isn't good enough to impress their friends. I was lucky at that age to have friends who loved to write and draw and we created comics to entertain each other. Without that encouragement, I might have given up too, as I don't find that drawing comes naturally to me and I have to work at it. It is the reason I give myself deadlines in order to develop my work. Doodle Diary on gocomics.com forces me to to draw at least three sketches of my life every week, many of which debut in the Epistle.

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This is an excerpt from my Illustrated Epistle, which goes out in the middle of the month. It is a behind-the-scenes look at the life of a cartoonist (specifically, mine). I'd love it if you signed up at the bottom of this page, or here:

http://eepurl.com/cCOOeD

Cartooning Workshop in Lyttelton Library for 7-12 Year Olds

I ran my first cartooning workshop in Lyttelton today (the last ones I did were in Spain). It was focussed on character design and the kids were super to work with. They were engaged, paid attention and developed some really great characters.

Lindsey the librarian was an enthusiastic supporter of the workshop

Working on character design using old school picture reference - books!

Some of the children already had their own styles

Hopefully, there will be more workshops to come, but for now I'm relieved to get back to work. Running workshops is a lot more demanding than cartooning!