Q. Does the school or teacher have to supply any special equipment?
A. All that is required are pencils and paper. Most students have an HB
grade pencil and the general paper stock seems to be news grade. Both are perfectly adequate.
Q. How long is the session?
A. One hour (minimum) but if more than an hour is available, it certainly
won’t go to waste. I find that most of
my sessions run from an hour to an hour and a half, depending upon how many
classes I am doing in one school over the course of a day.
Q. Is there a minimum or maximum amount of students required?
A. I like to have at least
twenty but I have conducted sessions with upwards of 200 at one time,
without impairing the results.
Q. How would you describe the content of your course?
A. Although the subject is “Really Easy Cartooning”, I teach in a
nutshell, the basic principles of representative drawing. I have chosen to couch the course in
cartoons because the children will achieve a greater degree of success and have
fun doing it. In the process, though, they are going to learn the relationship
between art and mathematics, as well as the necessity to proceed with a good
plan. The whole subject is presented with a high level of energy and
entertainment.
Q. What will the students learn about cartooning and what sort of cartoons
will they learn to draw?
A. I keep to the very basics, so complex cartoon styles such as
“super heroes” are avoided. They will
learn a few of the favourites, but the object is to teach them to originate,
not to copy. Therefore, the cartoons
they learn to draw will be simple cartoons of their own creation.
Q. What about students who are decidedly un-artistic?
A. They are, in fact, my favourite students. It is gratifying for me to see students who can, do.
It is even more gratifying to see those who believed they couldn’t, do!