Instructing the Younglings

We just finished the summer session of the Art Experience program at the Academy, and I was very honored to be able to teach Character Design! It was an amazing experience for me, to come from the student side of the spectrum right into the teaching side. I loved being able to take everything I learned from my favorite teachers and pass it on to the next generation. And I mean really, these kids were young and up and coming, most of them only Sophomores or Juniors in high school. Plus it was a great way to reinforce all those drawing skills in myself, as I repeated them over and over and over and over to the younglings! It was a huge program for these kids, some of them coming from across the country, or even another country to do this. They took four different classes and we met for about 7 weeks, thats a lot of work on your summer vacation! I had a lot of fun with my kids, they are so talented already, and I hope that they ALL keep drawing!

I think the word of the semester was "STRUCTURE" so just remember that. :P


A few examples and in class demos made for the students. Also the "Draw it Again" challenge for myself, and for the kids I offered the movie project as a bonus, and they did really well with it!

At the end we set up a big presentation so that friends and family could come and see all the hard work these kids have put into their summer! In my class they had to focus on character line ups, character expressions, action poses, and at least a 4 point turn around- which is not the easiest thing to do! Im so proud of them. :}

A look at a few other classes work.

Some of my kids were extra super special awesome and started drawing me fan art of my Fairy Tale characters! Its heartwarming, and somewhat disturbing at the same time hahaha. All of that "shipping" going on. Kids these days. 

They ever started to draw their own characters that they created in class for each other, which is, in my opinion, pretty damn cool when you can make drawing friends like that.

This last image is not so much art from one of my students, but from our very own Renee. She refused to be upstaged by high school kids and went on a fan art shipping frenzy! Behold.

Thanks everyone involved in this summer experience who made it awesome- from my old teachers who helped me figure things out, to the students who worked so hard, and friends who were t.a.'s hahaha. Hope to see you in the fall!