Another lesson for our city theme was comic book art. I found these very cool pads of paper that are "non photo blue" layouts. I bought a pad of comic book layout pages, a pad of comic strip boards, and a page of comic book cover pages as well as some non photo blue pencils and some professional type markers in a gray scale and your basic colors. Here's a couple of links to Canson's Fanboy papers (the second is a video that does a pretty good job explaining the products): http://www.fanboypaper.com/products.php and http://www.dickblick.com/products/canson-fanboy-comic-and-manga-papers/#videos
Okay, I realize I may have used a few vocab words that not everyone might be familiar with.
"Non photo blue" is a special blue color that does not show up when photocopied. Typically when doing an illustration you want to sketch out your ideas and be able to play around with them or change them a bit. If you draw your idea in pencil and then draw ink over it you will need to erase the pencil lines or they will show up once printed- even very soft light lines (I had a frustrating experience finding that out once). Using a "non photo blue" pencil allows you to sketch and then draw with ink right over the top without worrying it will show up once printed. Most of you reading this blog might not be planning on printing a book but the non photo blue pencil and layout outlines are still very useful because you can sketch your ideas, outline in ink, and then make a few photocopies without your sketching showing up. Once you have a few photocopies you can play with different shading and coloring options or if you mess up one you have a copy of the basic outline and don't need to start over. Another reason I love the non photo blue pencils is while there are harder lead pencils to sketch lightly with I have found that I tend to want to press harder with those in order to see the line I'm drawing which causes a dent or groove in the paper which cannot be colored over. The non photo blue pencils are a nice smooth and soft lead allowing you to see your line without pressing too hard and to add in some shading.
"gray scale" is another term I used. A gray scale is gray going from light to dark or dark to light. Gray scale markers are a set of markers all different grays from lighter to darker. They are labeled with a % -the higher the percent the darker the marker. These are great for shading. When using markers you can add the shading to your comic page before you color it in. This allows you again to be able to make a few photo copies and then be able to play with different color schemes without needing to start from scratch every time.
"Layout" is basically your plan of where everything goes and your story or ideas.
After explaining this to the kids and showing them the materials I let them create. Here is what they came up with in our hour time frame (I think a few enjoyed it and could have spent more time).
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