Youth: Four-Panel Comic Art Class (Ages 12-16)

Learn character design, composition, penciling and shading, and final touches with inking over the course of three weeks.

Class 1, Character Design and Composition: Learn how to draw characters by building them up shape by shape; how to show different emotions, angles, and movement with your characters; and how to brainstorm important parts of storytelling like names, ages, and a character’s backstory. You'll also learn how to create a four-panel composition, a quick way of having a story or series of drawings that go from beginning to middle to end. You'll have the choice of creating your project on a single sheet of paper with its four-panel composition, or a small “comic accordion book” where your four-panel composition can be folded out like a long art piece or folded together like a book in which each panel/page can be turned to. You'll learn how to do the tiny fold-out book structure and have the chance to make that either the format for the final project or a tiny sketchbook with the final project on a single sheet of Bristol board.

Class 2, Penciling: In comic book art, this usually means under-drawings in pencil that are later inked, but you'll also learn how to do grayscale shading in pencil and you’ll be welcome to combine ink and pencil if you choose. You’ll start to work on your final project. 

Class 3, Inking: Finish your project and add the final touches with inking. You’ll learn different techniques for drawing with ink over pencil, combining it with pencil if you wish, and different techniques specific to ink shading like stippling, crosshatching, and solid shadows. You'll have your very own four-panel comic or four-panel comic art piece to take home!

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