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The Art of Comics - 4 Year Old Class

Our four year old class recently learnt about the Art of Comics during an engaging and informative visit to the Richmond Art Gallery. The Field Trip was led by Melanie, the gallery's School Program Coordinator.

Melanie displayed snapshots of an age appropriate comic strip, and asked the children thought provoking questions... How do you think the character in the comic strip is feeling? How do you know the character is feeling this way?

Armed with a dry erase pen and eraser, the children were shown how easy it was to put emotion into a character by adding a few choice lines and curves around the eyes and mouth. The children were very intrigued by Melanie's interactive presentation.

Melanie also showed the children how to draw a character by using basic shapes. After this lesson, she showed the children a few tricks. If you put a bend in a straight line, suddenly your character has a bent elbow. Add some squiggly lines to a circle... voila, curly hair:


 
Melanie showed the children a drawing of a box, with a character looking fearful as he stood over the box. She then asked the children what they thought was in the box... “a ghost”, “a present”, “a scary present”, “a scary doll I think”, “a cat”, “a dog”, “a train”, “a jack-in-the-box”..... You guessed it Oliver, it was indeed a jack-in-the-box!

After the presentation, each child was given a large piece of white paper, pencil and eraser and asked to draw their own family:















 The children were then given crayons, to add colour to their drawings:







 
Melanie ended the Field Trip, by taking the children into the gallery to show them selected panels from the graphic novel, George Sprott, by Canadian Cartoonist, Seth.

A life-size CKCK television studio has been recreated so that it feels like you are inside the pages of Seth's book:

 
The children had fun looking at the extra large panel from a comic strip. Each were eager to share what they had found in the detailed drawing:

 




Thank you again Melanie, our imaginations were awakened during this Field Trip, and our drawing skills enhanced. All while we had fun!

Barbi

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