Key Points of our Latest Meeting

Thanks to Janice, Deanna, Jenny, Ching Chi, and Gino for taking part on Saturday. I didn't know if anyone would show up on New Year's Eve, so I appreciate you all! Especially that you dared to draw  something in a room full of people, regardless of your level of experience.

I tried to express that in the new year, I want to make my teaching style more about doing, and less about handing you maxims and rules and such. I've got to teach more interactively and slow down. Get out of brain-dump mode into a more cooperative style of teaching.

But for now, it may be helpful to review a few of the ideas that I brought up Saturday:

• Our first obligation is to clarity. That requires us to anticipate the ways our drawings can be misunderstood.
• In picking the views for your panels, variety aids in keeping the art lively and not monotonous. Especially variety of "shots": establishing shots, medium shots, closeups...
• A bit of overlap can make clear which characters/objects are closer or farther. 
• You often can show only part of object and still readers will "get it." 
• So don't be afraid of cropping closer sometimes. That allows you to show what you're showing bigger.
• Simplicity is good. Exclude the unnecessary.

See? Just like that, I veered back into spouting maxims. *Sigh*

JH

NEXT TIME: Another simple visual storytelling exercise, Drawing "from FORM" and more on drawing people.

Andrew Loomis. This drawing is from the later 1940s, but you can still see the masculinizing aspects of WWII-era fashion: the broadened upper back and somewhat mannish hips. Loomis's books are unequaled. They went back into print in the last 5 years or so, after decades of being shared as .pdfs and .jpgs and xeroxes.