“What’s one thing you tried today that you’ve never done before?”

This is my go-to question at the end of a session. After all the pens have been put away and before the final deep breaths, I ask them: what’s an adventure you’ve been on lately?

“Drawing!”
After each response, I repeat what I hear: “Ah, you tried drawing today! What else?”
“Using the artist pens!”
“I’m so glad you got to try the pens! What else?”
“Doing the action poses!”

This is what I hope to hear; it’s the core of the project. They tried out action poses, they embodied experiences and feelings, they drew those poses, and now in reflection we’re carefully covering those seeds of curiosity with sun-warmed soil so they can grow into stronger connections. That’s embodiment, and we got here through comics.

Comics residency for 3rd – 5th grade, 2 days

Comics are my special art interest; they have long transfixed me as a most engrossing form of stories. A medium of time, comics are a device of storytelling through experience or self, others and place. Somewhere in the cross section of words and pictures is embodied experience using multiple levels of being to convey meaning. It’s remarkable, and I love to teach it.

Third through fifth grades are my special interest ages for teaching comics (although recently I’ve dabbled in adult classes and had a pretty good time with it). At this age, I see students reaching for non-photo blue pencils and inking pens mainly with anticipation. I’m reminded of the magic system in Witch Hat Atelier in which spells are cast and sealed with special ink used to draw special symbols on paper. Sounds like comics to me.

In a two-day residency, I see students twice for about 50 minutes each time. This is really half the time I would want, but believe me no amount of time would be enough. My goals for any residency, despite the time scheduled or the artform I’m teaching, are always these three:

• Students will know that they can create art, perhaps with tools or skills they haven’t tried before
• Students will share what they make with each other
• Students will be able to continue to create long after I’m gone

For this two-day comics residency, I work toward those goals from two different angles: 

• Trust yourself, trust me, trust the tools
• Be willing to try something new and probably totally unexpected

Day One: Trust

On the first day, I bring out my special pens and pencils. I give the students sketchbooks and I remind them to write their names on the outside so we can come back to them later. I’m telling them they can expect continuity.

Then I tell them I trust them with these special art tools that I brought to share with them. “These are the kinds of pens I use in my professional artwork. Try them out and see what you notice!”

“Why is there only blue?”
“Ah, that’s a really good observation. Try drawing with it and make a guess: why only blue?”

I’m a firm believer that kids should be able to use the good stuff. In their hands I’ve placed black Faber-Castell Pitt Artist pens in nib sizes 0.5 (F), 0.7 (M), and Brush. I’ve also given them Staedler non-photo blue pencils.

Special Tools for Special Work

Next, I ask them to make observations and guesses: “What do you notice is different about each of the pens? What do you think the letters [F, M, B] stand for?” It’s not long before we make our way to the differences in nibs and the different lines we can draw with them.

“What about that blue pencil, what do you notice about it?”
“It has an eraser!”
“I can’t see it!”
“It draws really light!”

It’s a special sketching pencil. Using this pencil means we can try things out, figure out what we want our drawings to look like and it’s ok if we make mistakes or it gets a little messy. This tool is a hard, waxy, erasable colored pencil that helps us trust ourselves enough to try.

I show the students how I draw simple shapes with the blue pencil. I round my corners, give my straight lines a wiggle and add details. When I’m satisfied, I use the black pens to outline the sketch and make my lines solid. Now I have an anthropomorphized nose with little legs sticking out from under tufts of nose hair. I did not expect this; I had no plan for this character to appear, but voila, may I present Nose Person, to the utter delight and bewilderment of the 5th graders in the room. We can trust ourselves to be silly. We can do things we’re not expecting.

A highlight moment happens next: a student looks up at me and says, “I’m not doing anything you’re doing, I’m wasting the sketchbook.” The student seems pretty disappointed. It’s a fantastic opportunity to say what I’m always trying to hint at in my classes, but rarely ever actually say: “I don’t see a waste! I see you drawing with the pens, trying out the pencil, and that’s exactly what we’re supposed to be doing. You’re doing it exactly right.”

Before the end of the session, I go around to each student and ask to see something they like in their sketchbook. I comment on at least one aspect of each of their drawings, very often genuinely delighted by the weirdness eleven-year-olds can come up with.

The entirety of this first day is all about encouraging students to explore, practice, set their own goals and pursue their own interests with these tools. In the short time I have with these students, the concept of play is the most important. It sets the tone of playfulness for the rest of the residency.

Day Two: Embodiment

Embodiment can mean the same thing in different ways. It can mean a representation that is expressed through a combination of traits and behaviors observed by others: she embodies bravery. It can also mean the actual experience of the concept within the body. When we embody an experience like anxiety, we can find it in our own bodies by how our muscles tense or our backs bend or our faces scrunch into worry.

On the second day of the comics residency, we focus on action and movement. We start by thinking of activities and actions: sports, hobbies, things we do during the day and the specific actions linked to them.

“What are your favorite things to do?”
“Play video games!” is often the first one shouted out. I write it down on a list all the students can see.
“Soccer!”
“Great! What’s an action you do in soccer?”
“Kicking!” I write down soccer, kicking.

Then we’re in sports mode and I write down all the sports shouted at me. Basketball, football, volleyball, swimming, running, baseball… and their various associated skills such as dribbling, passing, catching, setting, serving, pitching, hitting. 

Non-sport activities come up as well:
“Baking!”
“What do you like to bake?”
“Eating!”
“What’s your favorite snack?”
“Drawing!”
“I love to draw, too!”
“Sleeping!” I excitedly announce that my all-time favorite activity is sleeping.

Figure Drawing for Kids

With this list in hand, we’re ready to start. Students circle up and I tell them we’re going to move. We do some twists from the hips, neck and shoulder rolls and shake out our limbs to get started. I tell them the rules: movement is silent so we can focus on what we see, move only in your space, don’t hit or touch anyone or anything around you. These rules will require some revisiting throughout the session. 

I give them the first action on the list, something with small movement: playing video games. “Show me what it looks like when you’re playing video games.” Twenty-five faces look down into fifty hands with thumbs flying over invisible phones or controllers. I shout “Pause!” and everyone stops mid-movement. 

“I see people with their heads down, looking at a phone or a controller, I see thumbs pressing buttons. I see some people looking up at their TV or computer.”

As I describe what I see, I start drawing so everyone can see: stick figures, necks bowed over hands holding imagined controllers and phones, backs curved in quick sketchy lines.

This is Image Theatre Figure Drawing, a way for students to practice movement that tells a story while also practicing drawing lines of action and sketching figures in motion. It’s based on a Theatre of the Oppressed theater game described in Games for Actors and Non Actors by Augusto Boal (1975). This practice puts us into the mind and posture of different activities from our lives, and allows us to see how other people might experience those same activities differently. We talk about my drawings, deciding whether they are finished drawings: they’re made with the blue pencil so they’re sketches, not finished work.

In the next rounds, I give students the opportunity to practice drawing. I divide the room in half and designate one half to be Actors, who will stay standing and continue demonstrating actions. The other half become Artists who will draw what they see of the actors’ movements quickly in sketches. After a couple of rounds, Actors and Artists switch so everyone gets a chance to do both. The freedom in this exercise is to demonstrate how to perform an action in whatever way feels right. There’s no correction for not doing a movement the way others expect it. As actors act and artists draw, I continue to narrate what I’m noticing and I draw along with them. 

Sketches Into Comics

When everyone has had a chance to be both Artist and Actor, we pause and review. I tell them this is my actual art process: when I want to draw something or someone in action, I try to create the movement with my own body to understand how I want to draw it. We take some of our sketches and add details to them: double up lines to make bodies with more shape, add details like hair and clothing. We use the inking pens to outline. Sometimes this project is “find your favorite activity and draw yourself doing that in your sketchbook.”

Often with the activity there’s a story, a place and other things appear in drawings. A movement becomes a moment, and part of a larger sequence that adds up to the unique points of view of each student. I have the privilege to go around and take a peek into each of these worlds, being surprised and getting inspired to look at my own life with a bit more wonder.

At the end of this session, we put away all the pens and pencils and we take a moment to reflect: “What’s something new you tried during this project?” Sometimes the question is “What memory are you taking home with you from our time together?”

I don’t get a lot of time with my students, and so when I do get to work with them, it’s important I take every opportunity to see them and celebrate them and find commonality or ways to marvel at our diversity. I really am super lucky.

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Special thanks to Salem Art Association for the chance to work with these fantastic 3rd – 5th graders!