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| The Complete Arts Company PO BOX 422 Boronia VIC 3155. Email cac@labyrinth.net.au Phone (03) 9762 0600 Fax (03) 9762 0611 |
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A cartoon is,in a nutshell, any drawing that is simple, spontaneous and communicates
its message immediately. Like the artwork of young children, they don't
rely on realism, just the most essential lines and shapes to tell their
story.
 Cartooning has its roots in the earliest forms of so-called `primitive' tribal art. This art documented both the external life of the culture as well as the internal life: dreams, visions, myths and legends, daydreams, revelations. Through cartoons we can `bend' our normal reality, exaggerate our fantasies and explore our imaginations without restriction. This helps us to look at ourselves differently and is vital in the healthy development of any culture or individual. Also, of course, cartoons remind us to laugh at ourselves, and often in ways we'd rather not admit to....our imperfections, our embarrassments, our downright stupidity at times, all come under the microscope. This is a continuation of the Jester's role in society, especially in the case of political caricature and satirical cartooning. Generally we humans take ourselves way too seriously! |
CAVE ART:
ANCIENT EGYPTIAN, MAYAN & AZTEC, CELTIC:
Many cartoon etchings and woodcuts of this time were used to depict religious & political events/ideas - some mainstream, some more underground. Political caricature and cartoons developed as a propoganda tool - the Western Media experience was born! Collect and compare these styles of artwork. Let each child select a favourite style and contemporise it in cartoon form e.g. an Egyptian scroll that depicted televisions, skateboards etc.. INTEGRATE with other history studies. Explore art from other cultures not mentioned here - they all have a wealth of cartoonery! ALSO: It's interesting to note that MANY WORLD-CHANGING IDEAS first emerge in cartoon form, especially in TV, movies and other media CREATED FOR CHILDREN. Remember those funny little men from Mars back in the 1950s? Look at how `mainstream' the `alien' phenomenon is in our culture now. |
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You don't have to produce a masterpiece every time you look at a piece of paper! Get comfortable, take a deep breath and think like an explorer, i.e. be open to unexpected surprises. |
Starting from the middle, slowly draw a tight spiral moving outwards, without taking your pencil off the page. This is great for practising line control and flow. Do a few around your page. Turn them into big whirly eyes or curly hair or anything else you can think of - voila! Instant drawing! |
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Study how other cartoonists/drawers get certain effects and don't be afraid to try them out for yourself. Remember there's really no right or wrong way when it comes to drawing. |
What kind of line expresses the feeling of... happy? wild? frustrated? peaceful? playful? Set the class a list - and get them to use one line per item to express each quality. Also try different materials - a soft charcoal will express a feeling differently to a biro or crayon. 
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- Collect examples of different cartoon styles from newspapers/magazines (daily strips, political, editorial illustrations, MAD magazine etc..), - STUDY DETAILS of the different styles: how do different artists draw
the same things e.g.
- NOTICE EACH ARTISTS CHOICE OF MEDIA AND THEIR STYLE OF LINE: Thick, thin, scratchy, bubbly - pencil, ink pen (thick & thin), charcoal, ink & brush etc.. Choice of media is a major influence on an artists style - encourage students to find which tool they feel most comfortable with, then extend on that. |
Cartoonists don't just work for TV or newspapers. Find examples of cartoon art in some of these areas:
If each student could be a cartoonist when they grew up, in what field would each of them wish to apply their skill? Would they combine it with other current interests such as sport, food, fashion etc..? For instance: Peter Russell-Clarke combines his cartooning with his cooking, and Ron Tandberg used his experience as a journalist to become a political cartoonist. |
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Cartoons can communicate effectively in many simple ways. Through their own drawings, encourage the students to explore communicating an idea in these different ways: 
as babies, we learn to recognise and read faces as a primary source of information. There are so many layers of expression - eyes, nose, mouth, hair...create a cartoon that tells its story only through facial expressions! 
signs, gestures, body language, objects - also visual effects like love hearts, stars, question marks, clouds of dust, lightning bolts etc...that add extra information and atmosphere to the story without words. 
using written language but still in a very symbolic form - explore onomatopoeic words and ways of spelling unusual sounds (the spellings don't have to make sense). Invent your own sounds and use lettering styles that enhance the sound - drippy letters for a gooshy sound, round bubbly letters for a bouncey sound etc.. Sound effects also activate an extra dimension in our imaginations as we read the comic. Createa comic that tells its story through its sound effects. |
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giving your characters a voice creates a whole other interaction in a cartoon - between the characters and also with the reader. You can use narrative, first person or third person, different languages, emphasise accents via spelling, include poetry, punchlines, even show a character saying one thing while thinking another. |
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Get the students, in pairs, to pull faces at each other and hold the faces long enough to study the lines and shapes. You may want to suggest certain faces. Using the FACIAL EXPRESSIONS sheet supplied, get the class to practise capturing specific facial expressions with a limited amount of lines e.g. simple eyes and mouth. Add your own ideas to the sheet. Using the IDENTIKIT activities sheet, create a head and then experiment with different facial expressions - how would the features need to change to look angry, confused, sad etc. HOW YOU POSITION FACIAL FEATURES will also create vastly different effects. Either use some of the `face-parts' from the IDENTIKIT or create your own, and experiment with different headshapes and feature positionings. This is a good way to observe PROPORTION as well. |
Characters may develop from some kind of plan, but usually they appear spontaneously from doodling and playing around. It's also pretty natural for a lot of kids to model their characters on drawings by other cartoonists - it's all part of finding your own style. Encourage them to be original without interfering with their exploration. Here are a few things to think about:
Is the character best used for single panel cartoon, small comic strip (3 - 4 panels), full-length comic strip, t-shirt design, logo? Some cartoon characters are designed simply for merchandising, and live out their whole lives in that form. |
INTEGRATE THE STUDENTS CARTOON DRAWING WITH OTHER ARTROOM PRODUCT: Look at ways of extending on previous class experiments e.g. cut out cartoon characters and paste onto patterned/textured backgrounds that the class have painted/drawn/created in other lessons. 
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