Brunetti exercise 2.1 p.30

This exercise involved writing a series of captions prior to realising that they were headed for single panel cartoons.  Brunetti suggests you write something you heard in a public place, something you said earlier in the day, a catch phrase of slogan, a question of some sort etc etc.  When these are set to one side you then draw the funniest thing you can think of, the saddest thing, something sexy, something abstract etc etc

Next job was to get the captions and the drawings together and mix them around until something... anything clicks.    The point being that unexpected, surprising and great things happen when we combine words and pictures.

Dog and baby in the car is my fave.

Dan.

'Of Mice and Men'

Here's a little exercise that was undertaken on a whim...  Whilst undertaking the Brunetti 'Cartooning' book I had to try to sum up a story in a single panel with caption.  Whilst making a start It crossed my mind that it might be a novel/interesting experiment to try to draw a panel for each page of the book, something that would sum up the more important aspects.  All panels were draw whilst reading the actual page, on the hoof and without much reference.  

The end result is a bit of a curio.  It can't be traditionally 'read' by anyone without foreknowledge of the book, but I do think that an impression of the themes, or at least a sense of place can be garnered.  I guess I'm just pleased with the overall look, always a sucker for a grid.

Of the 4 slides, no.1 is a first attempt to arrange and colour in Photoshop. No. 2 is another arrangement and a second colour added - this was in preparation for my partners' birthday. No. 3 is the cover of a small press concertina book idea that has yet to be arranged, whilst No. 4 is a quick low res trial print.

I think i might be enjoying the stark original blue one after all that.

Dan.

Brunetti exercise 1.2 and 1.3 Existing characters and Zen Grid

Here's my second Brunetti book post. The task was to draw 25 cartoon characters from memory and spend 5-10 seconds on each.  I found this such a difficult exercise as (and I've written about this before) I genuinely feel that I have a deficient memory, and that this is the by-product of an 'adventurous' period in my 20's. Saying that, it could be just getting older. Before i attempted this task I wrote a list of the 25 characters and re-rfreshed my memory on a couple, but did then draw from memory, honest.


Below that is the 'Zen grid' exercise. A grid of 100 small boxes filled with a stream of consciousness array of stuff.  This is the sort of thing I usually love to do, but on this occasion I think I'd lost my mojo. I'd also just bought a Kuretake brush pen and was trying to get to grips with it. As they say, a bad workman always blames his (classic, very expensive and utterly fit for purpose) tools. Going to try that one again when I get a mo.


Constructive feedback as always is gratefully recieved.

Case Study help-book... at last!

(A bit of a funny one this... I can't sell the damn thing but it might make my life a little easier and some students may get to produce good work from it but here goes...)

So, the day finally arrived when i managed to complete the book.  It started life as a desperate attempt to organise a part of my delivery that had always gone wanting… the case study.  This project began last summer (2010) when somebody asked for some help with their investigation and I went about my usual scrabbling around for 'question sheets'.  I was unhappy with kids producing dull word docs when they had so many other creative skills and needed to learn more, quick.  I began to produce one for that day (as is normal for me) in a rough DIY 'zine'  style, but quickly realised the potential of what i could cram in (but sadly not the work that it would entail).  The results of this hilarious first attempt are the last of the images below...

So the answer seemed to be create a short 'book' that explained what you could do when studying others' work, what fun could you have, what skills could be learnt, and how could you get away from writing reams…  This need also tied in (as it so often does) with my need to get away from doing everything using Illustrator and Photoshop and try to learn how to draw again… with a brush… in a comic/zine style.  I must admit looking back throughout the earliest pages I had constructed, that you can se a tentative hand, and that some of the experiments in the middle section (questions) either go horribly wrong or are worthy of further exploration.   

There is no narrative to the book, what I wanted to do for the students was provide a useful, entertaining and stimulating example of what could be achieved with a moderate amount of time and plenty of passion.  The reason there is no narrative is that I just drew whenever I could and didn't filter the subject matter in any way, I just let it happen.   I haven't attempted to try the book on the students as yet and they have done plenty of case studies in the mean time (with me barking what is in the book…) I will post some results when the time comes…

Anyhoo, this post shows in hideous detail most of the steps in the construction of the book, it's pretty dull but helps as a teaching aid.  The most tricky bit so far has been sortin gout collation of the pages... y'see, as usual i didn't start with a plan...

PS.  the book is 64 pages long, is split up into sections such as; intro, contacting artists/designers, context & content, excuses, glossaries, form, Andy Warhol's advice, process, personal response and self-assessment... Jesus, that sounds like a boring book.

PPS. my favourite part features a set of free excuses for Sixth Form students to use when they miss the deadline.... featuring such classics as 'I'm allergic to pencils'  and 'oh God yeah, I fell over'   (Thanx to @scottambrose10 for the brilliant 'Chinese burn' excuse and Pete for walking over.)

Jess' Comic Artist Investigation

Jess is one of my Year 12 students (lower Sixth).  They have all been busy producing a case study that reflects the artists that they have been studying.  I think that her submission is a brilliant example of a student really getting to grips with the task and the artists' methods.  Just in case you're not familiar with work, it's James Hindle's Unsettled.  James has a really good site over at worrystories.com.  Whilst there, plough through the archives for more inspirational stuff and take a good look at the sketchbook blog. (also, thanks to James for okaying the use of his material.)