Each year Glen Eira Council runs SCHOOL’S OUT, a fantastic youth-oriented school holiday program with a focus on creative skills, thanks to the efforts of Arts & Culture officer Tori Hayat. Tori invited me to run a day of 2 x 3hr cartoon workshops for the program, as well as create the image for the program (above).
The day was a great success – held in the vast, hallowed halls of the Glen Eira Town Hall, with its imposing sense of tradition & history, the huge room was quite a contrast to the intimacy of the previous day’s workshop.
But the stern architecture did nothing to dwarf the wild imaginings of the kids who came along for their 3hr cartooning intensive, as you can see in the following slideshows. Opening proceedings was the perennial Evil Bunny combined with Evil Robot:
What I love about doing these workshops is seeing kids’ brains in action, lighting up as they realise they can suggest any idea that comes to mind, watching connections form as they hear each other’s suggestions and find even more bizarre inspirations – which of course in turn inspires me. This next one was a combo of Crazy Toaster (which somehow led to Frankentoast!), a Sunflower Crossed With A Fruit Tree (Shooting Seeds), Garbage Can and Strange Car…….
I also love it when someone bucks the stereotype – in this case, one of the boys was particularly adamant that he wanted a fairy – how could I refuse him? A few of the other boys (and girls) created some interesting variations…..
We finished the morning session with some freedraw time and some flipbooks, then after lunch the first request from the afternoon’s group was a Flaming Lemon…….not having ever drawn one of these, I couldn’t resist…..
This was a combo of Evil Bear (what is it with the “Evil” thing anyway?), Slime Monster, Trash Monster, French Fries…..well, you get the idea…..
And again we wound down with some flipbooks and finished with one more combo: an Aspidoceleon (mythological Whale With The Earth On Its Back, apparently), Penguin, Dragon & Fairy Floss (couldnt resist the afro connection). All in all, a very satisfying day! Thanks again to Tori for organising such a fantastic program!
