#comiics

It’s something, Peter understands that much, something that shouldn’t be talked about. He pulls his hand back, giving it a little wiggle in hopes of having Oliver let go of his wrist. Blankets are pulled up once again, covering them once again. 

He leans over, giving Oliver a kiss to his forehead. “Doesn’t matter, you’re so pale I can’t see anything. I swear you match the white of the bed sheets.” He teased softly, wrapping both his arms around the other boy and pulling him in for a hug. 

Dear Students,

You rowed hard today and it was a great class. I asked you to draw Batman vomiting and you did it.  I often ask my students to draw someone vomiting because there is no way to do it without having some feelings about it.  When i was in France, I had the chance to draw and make comics with kids. There was a language barrier until we got to the idea of drawing someone vomiting.

The translation of the comic above is “The monster vomited but the kids didn’t leave. “

Below is your homework for the week, based on the book of comics I left for you on your desk top at the start of class.

Sincerely,

Prof. Skeletor

Timing Space, Spacing Time

COPY CAT BOOK REVIEW

Materials:

Black Flair Pens

18 4x6 index cards

Book of comics

Time:

4 to 4.5 hours

Practice:

Timing

Spacing

Printing in all caps

Copying

Find out: How long drawing really takes.

  Book Review from Memory

After you read your book, lay out 6 lined index cards in a way that allows you to see them all at once. (Landscape orientation) You are about to re-tell the story you just read in a way that fits exactly on six index cards, first draft, from memory. Printing in all caps with your black Flair pen skip a line as you go so that your handwriting is double spaced. Describe the setting of the story, the main characters, and what happened, as if you were asked to repeat a story someone you know told you. Don’t go back and look through the book, don’t mention the author’s intent, or the style of drawing or how you feel about this story. Your assignment is to do your best to describe what happened from memory in a way that fits on six index cards exactly.

You should do this part of the assignment all in one sitting from start to finish. If you are not satisfied with your first try, you can do it a second time no more than that. See what happens.

  12 Ten Minute Drawings

On the unlined side of 12 4X6 index cards, using your black flair pen, copy 12 different frames from the book. Do not include the dialog balloons or any of the writing--just pretend they are not there. Orient your paper in a way that approximates the image you are drawing, be it landscape or portrait, and make sure you draw your frame first.

Use your drawing to help you see all the parts of the picture you are copying.

Don’t worry too hard about accuracy or how it looks to you in the end. I’d like you to think of these drawings as something like a hand-drawn map of the image you are looking at. –

There’s an eyebrow here, and a blouse and an elbow there, a light switch and now a phone cord hanging by her arm---

 Each drawing must take exactly ten minutes.  If one of the panels you’ve chosen is very simple and you finish the drawing before ten minutes are up, get another index card and draw the image again. Repeat this until the ten minutes are up, it’s ok if the last drawing in that series is unfinished. If your drawing is complex, do your best to copy all you can, in ten minutes but stop when your timer goes off.

 DON’T FORGET TO DRAW YOUR FRAME! Put your name on back of each card.

Try to copy everything in the picture, foreground, mid-ground, background.

 WHAT YOU MUST COPY:

1. an extreme close up

2. close-up

3. medium close up

4. full body

5. two or more full bodies        

6. wide shot showing your characters in a setting.

7. scene that shows conflict

8. scene that shows people in the distance

9. a crowded or complex panel

10. a simple panel

11. Your choice

12. Your choice

If these specific ‘shots’ don’t exist in the book you read, you may need to create them.

 ON COPYING:

Copying is not the same as reproducing. When I copy a drawing, I try to make it about locations of things. The chair location and the wall location, and the face location.  I try to let my eye move with my pen to touch the ‘edges’ of everything in the frame. When I do this, I always discover something. The shape of an upper lip, a flying eyebrow, a way of drawing fingers I’ve never considered. I’m not as interested in you making a perfect reproduction as I am in evidence that you really looked at this picture and ‘touched’ all the parts of it with your pen.

I try to learn the line I’m copying like it’s a language rather than a picture. (because it is!) drawing parts of it as best I can, accepting my ‘accent’, the part of my line that is always mine no matter who I’m copying, making hilarious errors along the way.  I end up with a version of the image I copied, a version I can’t really see at first. 

At first all I can see is where I got it wrong, what it was I didn’t get, what’s not right.

If I put the pictures aside for a bit, -- a few hours or better yet, a day ---they begin to change somehow.

I forget what is wrong with them and instead see how they hold together in a different way and that way has something to do with my own STYLE.

Our‘style’ is there no matter whose drawing we copy. It’s like covering a song. We sing their words, but it’s still our voice. We sing their words to their melody but we stay ourselves.  We use our line to repeat their line, but it’s better to let go of trying to reproduce it perfectly.  It’s good to try for this! But it’s also good to remember it will never really match up, unless you are a forger.

Your own line, like your own voice, is part of your body, and it will work for making comics.

You already have everything you need! All except, perhaps, a certain courage to accept what’s coming out of the end of your pen, to accept chaos as a temporary state, and to notice what you notice – including the noise and timbre of the arguments you are having in your head as you draw.

Sometimes, when the voice in my head gets loud, and it’s saying things like “That’s not right. That’s terrible. That looks nothing like the picture. You’re messing up! Start over” I try a little trick. I speak directly to that voice and I say, “OK, you draw it. Go ahead. Knock yourself out” and …… SILENCE.

The voice shuts up because it has no hands. It has a lot of opinions, but no hands to draw anything.  You are the one with the living hands.

Put on something you like to listen to and copy as best you can.  I wlll be very happy to see what you bring in on Monday.