In this two-hour October Write Club workshop, you’ll take a story you’ve already written and turn it into a comic.
You’ll learn how to frame an image to show what your characters are feeling, as well as how to get inspiration from graphic novels for young adults. And you’ll practice drawing skills and storytelling through the art of comix.
By the end of this fun, hands-on class, you’ll have completed–or gotten a good start on–either a one-page comic or a mini zine of a tale of your own!
Class Details DATE/ TIME: Saturday, October 14, 10:00 am – 12:00 pm LOCATION: Wordcrafters Studio, Eugene 436 Charnelton St. Ste 100, Eugene, OR 97401
By the end of the workshop, you’ll have notes and the beginnings of a thumbnailed scene for a comic or graphic novel, to continue working on later, plus tips for visualizing written content for comics, next steps, and a list of resources for further study.
In this two-hour Write Club for Grown Ups workshop, participants will learn how to turn your stories into a comic or graphic novel one scene at a time.
Practice breaking down a scene from a story you’ve written into scripted parts, and then use those notes to make a visual thumbnail of the scene. Learn how to frame an image to show what your characters are feeling, as well as how to get inspiration from graphic novels for young adults. Learn about pacing for tone, dramatic angles, and considerations specific to comix media. Practice drawing skills and storytelling through the art of comix.
Drawing experience is not necessary, and you’ll get basic drawing tips to start from whatever skill level you have.
Class Details DATE/ TIME: Thursday, January 25, 6:00 – 8:00 pm LOCATION: Wordcrafters Studio, Eugene 436 Charnelton St. Ste 100, Eugene, OR 97401
By the end of the workshop, you’ll have notes and the beginnings of a thumbnailed scene for a comic or graphic novel, to continue working on later, plus tips for visualizing written content for comics, next steps, and a list of resources for further study.
Painting Still Life and Scenery with Gouache: In this class, students will paint with gouache watercolor to create illustrative scenes and still lifes. This course is designed for beginner painters who would like to learn about painting, using color and using water-soluble media. Students will have one subject to focus on for each week including: fruits, florals, and scenery from photo references and live observation. Students will also practice some drawing skills, although this is not a drawing-focused course.
Class Details DATES/ TIME: Sundays, October 8 – 29, 10:00 – 11:50 am LOCATION: Philomath Public Library 1050 Applegate St, Philomath, OR 97370
In this 4 week class, students will practice the basics of painting with gouache to create still lifes of natural and human-made objects, as well as landscape and senery from life and imagined inspiration.
This class uses special tools and materials. There is a $20 materials fee paid directly to the instructor.
Bookbinding for beginners: In this class we’ll learn about the Coptic stitch bookbinding method, including its history and how to make a Coptic stitch book with easily accessible craft materials. Students will leave the class with a completed Coptic stitch book and take home notes for making more books with more personalization possibilities.
This one-time workshop is open to families and individual students.
Workshop Details DATE/ TIME: Sunday, October 22, 2:00 – 3:50 pm LOCATION: Philomath Public Library 1050 Applegate St, Philomath, OR 97370
In this 2-hour workshop, students will practice and learn the history about the ancient coptic method of bookbinding. At the end of the workshop, students will have completed sketchbooks/ journals to take home!
This class uses special tools and materials. There is a $15 materials fee paid directly to the instructor.
Bookbinding for beginners: In this class we’ll learn about case binding bookbinding method, including its history and how to make a casebound book with easily accessible craft materials. Students will leave the class with a completed casebound book and take home notes for making more books with more personalization possibilities.
This one-time workshop is open to families and individual students.
Workshop Details DATE/ TIME: Thursday, October 12, 6:00 – 7:50 pm LOCATION: Benton Center 757 NW Polk Ave, Corvallis, OR 97330
In this 2-hour workshop, students will create a cover for a casebound book, and learn about the history of bookbinding. At the end of the workshop, students will have completed sketchbooks/ journals to take home!
This class uses special tools and materials. There is a $15 materials fee paid directly to the instructor.
In May 2023, I partnered with Maxtivity Art & Crafts Creative Space, and Philomath Elementary School for a special mural project with students! This project was a spring residency program, in which I worked with students on arts education and practice.
Oregon State University Extension’s Food Hero Program planted a new garden in the school’s courtyard. We thought a colorful garden-themed mural would match perfectly! The goal of the project was to engage the students of the school in thinking about healthy food choices, learn about the mural painting process, and to create lasting memories for the school.
Maxtivity’s amazing art educators went into the school to talk with students. They collected ideas for what could be represented in the mural. Students created a list of colorful foods, plants, and insects, plus the school mascot (a blue falcon), and some key school symbols like golden tennis shoes.
Painting Mural Process
I had taken measurements of the walls to be painted. Then, I created digital sketches based on my measurements and the students’ ideas. We presented those sketches to the school staff and administration and got further input. When we’d finished the revision process, we had a design that included a colorful garden of flowers, veggies and fruits, plus wild foods that grow along our rivers, trees, the falcon mascot, a scarecrow sporting some golden shoes, plus an interactive tree swing!
Then the painting began!
Philomath Elementary school hosts grades 2nd through 5th. Each class got to participate in the painting in two sessions over a whole week. That way, they got to see the full development of the mural from sketch to finished design.
Students contributed their hand prints placed along the border around the mural.
For Spring Break 2023, I joined up with a troupe of young artists to explore and create our own Adventures!
Adventure Characters Camp at The Arts Center was 3 days of drawing, sculpting, exploring and playing our own original role playing games. This camp experience has been years in the making! Adventure Characters Camp included lessons designed around core learning standards, handmade workbooks, and integrated math (probability/ statistics) writing (story, game design) and visual arts (illustration, small figure sculpting) education for kids 8 -12.
Students learned about role playing games and how they’re different from other games. We also learned about probability through dice rolling for outcomes.
We created original characters. Students designed characters using a character chart that included aspects of story: what are the character’s unique characteristics, what makes them stronger, and what challenges them? With the opportunity to dive deep into a story-driven narrative, students could become their characters. They could make choices, interact with others, and explore their world, while seeing through the eyes of their characters.
Students also created special items for their characters, and practiced balance in their game crafting. We used the logic that if something is extremely powerful, it should bear a cost that balances its use to make the game play fun and challenging.
On the first day, students tried out their characters and items by exploring a haunted house map created specially for the camp. They took turns moving through the map, exploring items and spaces, and making choices by dice-rolling. They helped each other along with strategy and advice, building trust and friendship among their group.
On day 2, students upgraded their character stats by considering what they needed to be successful in different situations. They also sculpted character pieces in polymer clay and practiced clay building techniques.
Students also started working on their own game maps, choosing to collaborate with each other or work individually. Students developed their own guidelines and goals for playing their maps, and even worked to link their different maps together into one large play space. On the final day of camp, students played their maps, guiding each other through choices and experiences in the worlds they created.
This camp was an incredible opportunity to watch students work together on problem-solving, focus on goals and iterate on writing and visual art to craft entire worlds that others could also experience. This is a camp/ class that will naturally need to change and evolve with each new group – guild! – of students. As we push the boundaries of our imaginations more, we’ll have new worlds to create, share and explore!
Check out the next Adventure Character classes, camps and clubs:
Design and illustrate your own character for a role-playing game. Make a polymer clay minifig that’s ready for any adventure! Thursdays in April, Kids, ages 8+
Comics-making is a really special practice for me. When I get to visit a new school and work with students on these projects, I also get to practice and learn more about making comics.
In this residency, we focused on learning about what makes comics different from other ways of telling stories with images and words. We practiced linework for illustration including figure drawing and using line of action. We also made 4-panel comics on bristol board with liner pens.
Since this was a school-wide residency, I created lesson plans for each grade, built around the Oregon State Standards for Visual Arts. Using the state standards helped me create themes for the residency and focus on goals for specific activities and discussions. Scroll down to the end of the post for links to the residency outline for each grade.
In kindergarten and first grade, we focused on shapes, color blocking, and drawing expressions. Students also had practice in using the artist pens, making plans and sharing materials.
Second and third grade students focused on the structure of comics.We talked about how if we see Calvin 4 separate times on the same page, it’s just one Calvin doing 4 different things.
All of our classes got to look at images of comics and compare them to other artistic images that are not comics.
Grades 3 and up made their own sketchbooks, using the basic pamphlet stitch method. It’s still my favorite way to begin a class, with lots of choice and gaining a new skill. It’s also a really great opportunity for students with different skills to help each other and ask for help.
In the older grades, we also practiced figure drawing using Image Theatre from Theatre of the Oppressed. First, students created a list of ideas, based on a prompt. In some cases the prompt was “Where’s somewhere you’d like to visit?” and follow up with “What’s something you’d like to do there?” Student responses generated a list of action-oriented words that we could then use in our Image Theatre game.
In Image Theatre, we act out actions or stories silently, repeating the same action sequence over and over again, like an animatronic in a theme park. We start out standing in a circle so the whole class can see each other, and all together act out the same action like “eating pastries in Paris.” As we act out our actions, we look around and see how each of us interprets the same action the same or differently. I also ask us to freeze in mid-movement so we can see what the action looks like from a still moment.
After a couple of whole-class rounds of Image Theatre, I split the class into two groups. One group will remain actors for the next part, and the other will be the artists, who will use their sketchbooks and drawing materials to draw the actions they see their classmates acting out. I ask them to focus on drawing quickly, and suggest they try to draw their classmates as stick figures, introducing the concept of line of action in this way. The actors act out a couple more action prompts, freezing partway through so the artists can draw them. Then, the groups switch and the actors become artists and the artists become actors.
This small game is just a quick practice to introduce line of action and action-oriented poses, and I think in the future I’d like to incorporate it into a longer residency focused on observation drawing.
From an anti-oppression education motivation, this Image Theatre/ Figure Drawing game is at the heart of this residency: it begins with student responses, which become the action prompts, and allows students to approach art with their whole bodies. Students are also grouped with each other, to avoid making one student feel specifically targeted or left out.
We spent about the last day or day and a half working on final comics, which were 4-panel comics on bristol board. I gave students the option to make their comics about anything they wanted, and we had spent the week leading up to the final comic working on prompts based on observations from life, imagining scenarios and places we’d like to visit.
The older students in this residency got into a discussion about what kind of jokes or art are appropriate to make, what it means to make art that is “offensive” or what happens when art causes harm. This was a really important moment for me to learn from, and moving forward, I’ll include a discussion of being intentional about what subjects to include in art making and the consequences from making those choices.
We ended the week at Chinese Immersion School with gallery displays in the classes of the artwork made, which is always a really fun moment. I love to see students look at each other’s artwork and make joyful reactions. Check out our art from the Story Makers and Comics at Chinese Immersion School in Eugene:
Special thanks again to Lane Arts Council for organizing this residency! Lane Arts Council serves all of Lane County in Oregon, with in-school programs, community arts and First Friday Art Walk. They’re a truly amazing group of folks that are essential to what makes this a thriving creative community. Check them out here and learn about getting involved and events and programs coming up!
Links & Downloads
Here are the quick outlines for each of the grades, with Oregon State Standards for Visual Arts included:
Get Warm and Gather to Celebrate the Harvest Season
Autumn offers incredible colors and textures in the Pacific Northwest. In this gouache painting workshop, we’ll create small paintings and cards to celebrate the season of change and gathering. Perfect for beginners, small groups, teens and adults, this workshop includes everything you need to create a sweet spring scene!
Workshop Details DATE/ TIME: Sunday, November 19, 2:00 – 4:00 pm LOCATION: Common Fields in downtown Corvallis 545 SW 3rd St, Corvallis, OR
In this 2-hour workshop, we’ll practice with gouache, a water-soluble paint, to paint images of fall including leaves, vegetables, and critters. References, paint, paper and equipment are all included.
No painting or drawing experience needed for this laid back art-making afternoon!
Spend a lovely Spring afternoon with us at Common Fields as we paint birds and flowers with gouache. Perfect for beginners, small groups, teens and adults, this workshop includes everything you need to create a sweet spring scene!
Workshop Details DATE/ TIME: Sunday, May 14, 2:00 – 4:00 pm LOCATION: Common Fields in downtown Corvallis 545 SW 3rd St, Corvallis, OR
In this 2-hour workshop, we’ll practice with gouache, a water-soluble paint, to create small still lifes of birds and flowers. References, paint, paper and equipment are all included.
No painting or drawing experience needed for this laid back art-making afternoon!
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