Sunday, July 22, 2012

Comic mugs, and a KICKSTARTER!!! ARGH!!!

I had such an awesome kids class yesterday, I don't know where to begin. I decided I wanted to do something illustrative with the kids, so I decided to have them draw a comic on a slab of clay, and then turn that slab into a cylinder or mug. I thought it was a pretty cool idea. The kids thought it was an AWESOME idea, and they flipped out.

The idea was to think of setting for the comic to take place, which would be your background. We talked a little about brainstorming, and how you can throw out a lot of ideas for something until you hit on something you really like. They drew their backgrounds onto a slab of clay with pencils. Next, they came up with a character to interact with the setting. We talked about how the characters in their comic could be anything, not just super heroes. (We also talked about how Calvin and Hobbes is an amazing comic. Warms my heart that the next generation knows about how good that comic is, sniff sniff.)

Finally, they had to give their character something to say or think, and we talked about the difference between word balloons and speech balloons, and how to draw them.

Every one of them did such awesome work. I'm so proud! I can't wait to see these finished.
A desert island, and a whale in need of sunscreen.


A robot with explosions on his mind.

What do pandas think about? Bamboo, of course!

A diamondback rattlesnake (she was very specific) in the desert. He says "Gimme your mug, or I'll bite!"

Josie's in spaaaaaaace! This one's mine, of course.


The idea of telling stories on clay has been on my mind a lot lately, and it's something I've been trying to figure out how best to do in my work. More specifically, I've been trying to figure out what kind of stories I want to tell. What is it that I have to say, and does anyone want to hear it?

You may remember that a month ago today, I said I want to launch a Kickstarter. Well, I've been working on that all month long, and I'm just about ready to launch. I'm really excited, and more than a little scared, but I'm ready to do this.

I can't launch today as planned, but I will be hitting publish on this bad girl tomorrow evening at the latest. I am so SO excited to share this project idea with you guys, and I hope you'll back it and me! I'm gonna tell some awesome stories in clay, and I just can't wait for you guys to see what I have planned.

Stay tuned! <3

2 comments:

Barbara said...

I love this idea you shared with your students and I can see why they would love it too! What a great way to hook kids on clay and love that you are teaching them that clay can function as a whimsical piece of art and be functional (as a mug) at the same time. Looking forward to hearing about more stories in clay. : )

Unknown said...

Thanks Barb:) I can't wait to see what these kids come up with next week!