Drawing 2: The Comic Project Continues

Students are hard at work perfecting their drawings.  They use Photoshop to edit the hand-drawn comics.  Students can add color, create text, outline the panels, and clean-up all the extra marks.  The University of Iowa has a great collection of Graphic Novels and comics.  I came up with the idea for this project after attending a summer workshop at the university with Rachel Williams.  She is incredibly knowledgable and teaches various workshops and classes on the subject.  If you are in the area, I would strongly suggest taking a workshop with her!  The university also does K-12 classroom visits and one of the topics they present on is Graphic Novel and Comic Art.  It makes a great starting point for a lesson on comics.  

It's Comic Time

I can't believe it is already that time of the term!  My Drawing 2 students have been asking about this unit since we started class back in August.  They are pretty excited to get started!  We spend the first day talking about comics, the history and the elements used to create a comic (or graphic novel).  I have students examine different graphic novels looking for elements discussed in Making Comics by Scott McCloud.  It is a great book if you are looking to incorporate comics into your classes.  I then have the students work through several drawing exercises to loosen up a bit.  I find that some students are really into this unit while others can be very hesitant.  Working through the basics helps those students open up.  Eventually, we will take these to the computer lab and edited them in Photoshop.  This is a project that takes several weeks, usually around five.  Stay tuned!  I will keep posting as the students progress through the project.  

 



A student working on preliminary drawings.