Cartooning Studio Workshop: Days 3 and 4

This entry was penned by Cartooning Studio intern Audrey Grieve!

Day 3

Wednesday started out with more than just apples and granola for this intern—there was also visiting comic creator, Ariel Bordeaux! Her first lecture of the day went in-depth on “Trusting your voice.” Not just your speaking voice (although she did address that) but your voice as an artist, and what makes for better, more relatable writing. Things like forgiveness and complete honesty speak to people on a general level, because it’s something everyone can relate to. It’s human. She relayed how important it is to not question whether or not it’s “good”—and that if you pour yourself into your work, the outcome is bound to be great. By the end of the lecture there seemed to be a general feeling of upliftedness—Ariel s voice had given us all a great pep talk!

Everyone split into their usual studio groups afterwards and the workshops started up. First at the Telegraph there was a how-to on inking with Jon Chad showing how to use nibs, and Pat Barrett showing everyone how to use a brush. Everyone got a chance to try out all the tools, which included inking blue lines of artists who are well known for their quality lines and technique.

Lunchtime included a lecture from Jon Chad on the all the tools and techniques of lettering, and after lunch Ariel Bordeaux was back in the studio with an extension of her earlier lecture. She followed this up with an exercise to get our own voices warmed up. Everyone paired off and alternated interviewing each other (5 minutes at a time) about any and all supernatural experiences they had ever had. After all the information was gathered, everyone was challenged to draw a monologue-style comic—other than that, no limitations. Lots of great work was made in a very short amount of time.

When that was all over, it was time for open studio and the work shoppers were left to their own devices, and the option to attend a bookbinding workshop with Melanie Gillman and Beth Hetland.

Day 4

Thursday brought a whole new level of intensity—only one day left to produce as much as possible with all the hard work that was being put in. It also brought a whole new topic to light: self-publishing!

This was first addressed in the morning by Steve Bissette, with a lecture called “Been there, done that, So DO THIS: DIY.” He shared with us all of his experiences in self-publishing, as well as examples of some of his own works, and all of the different ways to go about it. He even covered a bit on how to self promote and get your name out there.

In keeping with getting everyone ready to get a finished product, the next two lectures were about old-school and new-school production. Alec Longstreth went over all things tangible—making zines, cutting and paste ups and the best ways to get all of that printed and ready to share with people. Jon Chad took a ~~journey into the fuuttuuureee!!~~ with new-school production and how to put your book together starting in Photoshop and ending up with InDesign. As usual, studio time wrapped up the day…’til it was all hands on deck for the nighttime lab workshop (with the added bonus of a screen printing workshop!).

Next, read the Day 5 report by fellow intern Stephanie Mannheim.