With Youth In Arts Mentor Artist Cathy Bowman, students at Cascade Canyon School in Fairfax studied comic book making, printing and painting this fall.
The 6th, 7th and 8th grade students created mini-comics for their project. The process included character studies on paper, building 3-D models of characters, then bringing them to life in comic book form. Students learned storyboarding techniques, from layout to lettering. They worked in groups before starting individual projects. For their final books, a key part of the process was revising and redrawing before inking. The mini comics were printed and shared in class. Students curated their own work, adding a few sentences describing their experience.
The 2nd/3rd grade class explored composition, drawing and painting through flower studies. They began by deconstructing real flowers and re-arranging them to make imaginary flowers. We studied and discussed various kinds of flowers and what they need to survive and thrive. Students created black and white compositions using graphite, then moved on to acrylic paintings. They were encouraged to approach their compositions thoughtfully, painting only part of the flower and considering the use of negative and positive space.
The 4th and 5th grade class studied printmaking. They practiced various kinds of printing, from making collographs to using ink plates in different ways. They also experimented with printing on different materials, from postcards to special printing paper. Along the way they learned about composition as well as how to curate their own work.
