For this unit, I learned various aspects of cartooning by trying and adapting a unit by Carissa Johnson. The unit does a great job of scaffolding the student's understanding of cartooning art by teaching small facets of cartooning in each lesson.
Lesson #1: Quick Sketch
In the first lesson, students are asked to draw various objects over differing periods of time. They continuously redraw the image with less and less allotted time. The idea is for students to be forced to discover what, in their mind, creates the essence of that image.
Lesson #1: Quick Sketch
In the first lesson, students are asked to draw various objects over differing periods of time. They continuously redraw the image with less and less allotted time. The idea is for students to be forced to discover what, in their mind, creates the essence of that image.
![Picture](/uploads/5/4/2/2/54226629/1435005564.png?250)
Each image becomes less and less detailed as I have less and less time to draw. It is hard to see in the image, but my last drawings showed that image in its simplest form. It was interesting for me to realize what, to me, made something a cat or a car or a castle. It forced me to figure out the components that are necessary to make those images. Simplification is a key part of cartooning. The only thing I might've added to a drawing like this is some minimalist art. I wish that the lesson focused a little bit more on what the lesson was trying to teach, rather than just cartooning as a whole. This website is full of minimalist icons, and would be neat to show kids as an intro to basic cartooning.
http://www.visualnews.com/2012/08/07/iconic-painters-to-guess/
Lesson 2: Drawing Emotion
In the next lesson, students are asked to draw various face profiles and to use just the eyebrow to depict different emotion. Because I did not fully understand what the lesson was asking for until I saw my peers' work, I drew the faces straight-on. Looking back, I think the side profile drawing is a better way to show how a simple line can change the emotion in a picture. Here is the emotion drawings that I created:
http://www.visualnews.com/2012/08/07/iconic-painters-to-guess/
Lesson 2: Drawing Emotion
In the next lesson, students are asked to draw various face profiles and to use just the eyebrow to depict different emotion. Because I did not fully understand what the lesson was asking for until I saw my peers' work, I drew the faces straight-on. Looking back, I think the side profile drawing is a better way to show how a simple line can change the emotion in a picture. Here is the emotion drawings that I created:
One thing that would've been awesome to do as an activity with this would be to have students draw a face on a whiteboard and then pass them around in a circle and have the next students change only the eyebrows on the face and then to see how different the faces now looked. That would be a cool way to see how much a simple feature changes the look of an image.
Lesson 3: Self Portrait
The last image was a self portrait that we had to draw of ourselves. I used the last image from my "speed-drawings" in lesson one as a reference to see which things about my face were most defining. My black glasses are clearly an identifying feature, which is why I drew them very largely in the pictures. I loved doing this lesson. I added the smaller body underneath my face to image image look like a caricature. I know students would love to draw themselves like the street vendors that draw in hot vacation spots.
Lesson 3: Self Portrait
The last image was a self portrait that we had to draw of ourselves. I used the last image from my "speed-drawings" in lesson one as a reference to see which things about my face were most defining. My black glasses are clearly an identifying feature, which is why I drew them very largely in the pictures. I loved doing this lesson. I added the smaller body underneath my face to image image look like a caricature. I know students would love to draw themselves like the street vendors that draw in hot vacation spots.