• Drawing with Sticks

    Before we begin using a traditional dip pen, I like to have students use an ancient sort of pen. This pen is a stick with the end cut at an angle to make a point. We play around with this for awhile and then we move to a smaller stick and play with that, and then we move to the dip pen. By then we’re used to the way the ink moves on paper and also used to nothing bad happening when we find we can’t quite control our line.

  • Drawing from Pictures

    These are three minute line drawings from magazine photographs given to students in an envelope. I find them so compelling just as they are. The instructions are to think of line drawing as making a map of the photograph. We start with three minutes to get the big shapes in and then another minute or so to add details. Afterward we write an eight minute story from one of the character’s points of view, describing what is going on in the scene, first person present tense. These were drawn in 2023.

  • Drawing with Sticks

    Learning to use a dip pen by first starting with long sticks dipped in ink.

  • Student Copy Cat Drawings

    One of the best ways to learn to make comics is to copy other cartoonists. I think of it like a musician covering a song. In the Comics Room, one of the things we do is color layered drawings, beginning with a version in yellow, followed by orange or red and then blue, all one on top of the other. Then we use black, either color pencil as in these drawings or in ink. There is something about drawing in quick color layers that helps us really find the image. When we’re drawing it four times on the same page we become familiar with the picture in a way that is physical, like driving through a new neighborhood four times, just repeating the route in order to learn the lay of the land quickly.

    Drawings from Making Comics 1, Spring 2022

  • Character Jam Scrapbook 2022

    Round-robin exercise, each character was drawn by a different student in 2.5 minutes.

  • Attendance Cards: Cupid Strikes

    Student attendance card instructions: Draw Cupid taking aim at you. Draw yourself getting struck by Cupid’s arrow. 3 minutes per drawing

  • Word Bag Comics

    This comic was made by a student who pulled the word “Stairs” from their Word Bag. In our class, the word bag is an envelope filled with little pieces of paper that have nouns written on them. This exercise asks you to start by drawing eight quick frames in your composition notebook, and then pull a random word from your word bag, and then you have about 40 minutes to make a comic about your relationship to that word. You must make the entire comic in one sitting. You’ll have about three minutes to write and draw each panel, and about fifteen minutes to add some quick color.

  • Struck by Cupid’s Arrow

    Two Three minute student attendance card drawings during Valentines week. Assignment: Draw yourself being struck by Cupid’s Arrow. Draw Cupid.

  • Exercise: Minnie the Moocher’s drawing lesson.

    Materials: black Flair pen, copier paper folded into quarters, a timer, about 45 minutes of uninterrupted time.

    Watch the beautiful black and white cartoon Betty Boop in Minnie the Moocher.

    Set a timer for one minute, close your eyes, draw one of the characters from memory. Repeat this three more times. Make sure to draw whole bodies.

    Set a timer for two minutes, keep your eyes open, and draw one of the characters from memory. Repeat three more times

    Set a timer for four minutes and draw yourself dancing with one of the characters.

    Repeat but draw yourself having coffee with a different character.

    Repeat, draw yourself with a third character and you’re both fishing.

    Last frame is the fourth character surprising you with flowers while you are at the stove cooking.

    Make sure you draw entire bodies and don’t include any words. These should be silent drawings.

    If you’re doing this in a classroom or with a group of people, it’s good to stand up and walk around and look at everyone’s drawing.

    The value of this exercise is there are so many different kinds of drawing going on. You’re using the same pen, paper, and characters drawn from memory, but the characters show up in a completely different way when you are drawing them with your eyes closed. When you draw with your eyes open, the line really changes and the type of concentration you experience also changes. When you come to the third part of the exercise and draw yourself with a character dancing, your drawing has to include interaction, you have to imagine the place where the scene is happening and what might be in that place. What kinds of things do you need draw to show that you and a character are having coffee together or you’re out fishing? The thing that’s surprising is that if you just start drawing yourself with a character, the scene seems to unfold by itself. This is a very good thing to experience. This is very good for you.

    Drawings made during class by a student in Making Comics 1, UW-Madison

  • Round Robin Juxtaposition: Giving a Body to Worries, Wishes and Needs

    This is an exercise that begins with writing for five minutes in your composition notebook about the things that concern you: things you have to do, things you’re worried about, things you wish were different. The next step is to fold a piece of copier paper into quarters and divide the spaces by running your flair pen down the fold lines. Set a timer and draw any animal in 90 seconds. If you are doing this exercise with others, pass your paper and then draw another animal in the next box. Repeat this until all four spaces contain a drawing of an animal.

    Pass the paper again and look at the piece you wrote in your compbook. Find a worry, wish or need and write it in a speech balloon as if the animal is saying it. Pass the paper and repeat. In my classroom this results in a page that eight different people have contributed to.

    What happens when we give a body to a concern? This is one of the things comics can do.

  • Exercise: Solid Black, Patterns,Moody Characters

    Your assignment: Divide a piece of copier paper into 16 chambers but folding it twice long ways and twice short ways and then draw your Flair pen down the creases. Choose a character from the Face Jam exercise and copy it into the first panel on the left. Change the characters mood into its opposite in four frames. Repeat this with three other characters, getting all your simple line work done first, then go back and add patterns and solid black. This will take time and it is very good for your hand to practice making good solid blacks with a Flair. Don’t be tempted to get your solid blacks done faster by using Sharpie or a fatter black marker. The idea is to give your hand the practice it needs to do this with just a Flair pen. This is a good time to listen to some music or a podcast or playing a show in the background while you draw.

  • Exercise: Round Robin Monster Funeral 2023

    Each of these images contain drawings by at least eight different people. We began this exercise by making a scribble and trading with a classmate and then we turned the scribbles into monsters. We did this several times and then chose a scribble monster to work with. We drew six scenes from the monster’s life, ending with the monster’s funeral.

    We drew the body and some of the setting and then we exchanged drawings and added mourners and furniture and lighting and kept passing the pages until original drawing returned to us. Our homework was to color the drawings.

  • Exercise: Close Your Eyes and See Me

    One of the fastest ways for me to get a feeling for a student’s drawing style and natural line is to have them draw with their eyes closed. This exercise requires three markers in primary colors and a timer. Students are asked to close their eyes for one minute and draw a full human skeleton with a yellow marker. I count down the minute outloud every ten seconds. I have them hold up their drawings so their neighbors can see them, and then close their eyes again and repeat this with an orange or red marker right on top of the yellow drawing, show their neighbors, and then do it again with a blue marker. These drawings took three minutes and somehow they always look good. Most people cWhen I look at them I get a strong feeling for someone’s natural line and drawing style. If you try this exercise with a group of people, it’s very important that you count down the minutes every ten seconds and that people show each other their drawings after each layer.

  • Exercise: Draw What You Hear

    In the Comics Room one our exercises is to write a short scene based on a random magazine photo . We have to pretend we are someone in the photo and write for seven minutes about what’s going on. After we finish, I ask if someone will read their story to the class. Afterward everyone has three and a half minutes to draw what they pictured. When we hold them up to show each other everyone gasps. I’m always amazed by this exercise. Here are the response drawings to a story read by classmate Red Burgundy.

  • Classroom Character Jam

    These characters were drawn in 60 seconds. We started with a grid of 16 chambers on an 8.5 x 11 piece of copier paper that had a caption area at the bottom of each rectangle. We all used black Flair pens. First we passed around the pages, each of us writing something in the caption area like a personality type, or a proper name, or an occupation. We had just 15 seconds. When all the captions were filled, we passed the pages again, drawing a character based on the caption in 90 seconds and then passed the paper again. Each page features 16 characters drawn by 16 different classmates. It was an intense exercise that gave everyone 16 original characters to work with for later assignments.

  • Po-TAY-toes

  • Kelpie’s Comic 2022

  • Final Project Covers

    Some of the 32 page ‘zines made by my students at UW-Madison

  • Caught by Rabbits

    Copying a photo in four minutes or less is a good way to introduce a new drawing tool. On the day I introduced brush and ink, I had my students all copy the same photo at the same time. I counted down the minutes as they passed so students could find a working pace.The photo was of a little boy with two people in rabbit costumes on either side. What I love the most about his exercise is the signature line of each of the students. Same photo, same materials, same time frame and something wonderful always shows up.

  • Drawing Toys

    In my classroom at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, our drawing tables have toys on them. In the Comics Room are toys everywhere, on all of the shelves and in all directions. Casually drawing toys is something I have my students do when I introduce a new element, like drawing with ink and a brush, or trying a different sort of pen.

    There is something about translating a three dimensional toy into simple line work that allows us to use the new tool in a steady way. I always have students work within a time limit: four minutes or less, and I announce the minutes remaining as they pass. This helps people keep their hand motion in a way that naturally invites the kind of personal line comics are made from.

    Without a time limit, people either concentrate on trying to perfect one little part of the drawing or they give up. Most of my students can’t recognize the original character of their own line at first. Classmates usually recognize someones line work before the person making it does.

    What I want to do is to find ways to keep my students drawing so they accumulate enough line work to recognize and accept their natural style. Even people who are certain they can’t draw have a specific line that will easily bend itself into comics. My goal is to keep them drawing long enough for this to happen.

  • I was working with some preschoolers and a student drew an ill person, they threw up and they pooped!

  • Fairy Tale Drawing

  • Scribble Monsters Pt. 2

    Student work, Fall 2025