CARTOONING BASICS and Owen Beale

There is so much cartooning talent. It's too bad that I can't travel to every school and library in the world to teach cartooning.

But I do have this book about drawing cartoons.

Here is one drawing exercise from my how to cartoon book CARTOONING BASICS and then, some sample cartoons from one talented 4th grader:



When we draw in cartoon class, we draw together. I draw 2 circles, and the class draws 2 circles. Then we put dots in the circles.


Put a cucumber shape over on the left and an inverted letter C on the right.



And we begin to build a face.


The bigger the mouth, the funnier it is.



This fellow is really upset.



Now that we add some hands and feet, we can see that he is in motion.

Some zoom lines complete the feeling of motion.



And above is the finished picture, showing where he is and what he is running from.

But some people, like Owen Beale, live far away and cannot get to one of my cartooning classes.

Fortunately, he had a copy of CARTOONING BASICS which shows you, step by step, how to draw!

Here's his version, drawn and colored by Owen:


Owen is nine years old. He's been drawing since he was three, his Mom tells me.

He received a copy of my how to cartoon book CARTOONING BASICS this past spring. (HYPE: There are a few copies remaining. Order here. It's $3.99 in the US and includes an original drawing!)

EDIT: THIS BOOK IS NOW SOLD OUT.


Above: The Other Nature by Owen Beale. This great cartoon made me laugh out loud.


While Owen loves cartooning, he isn't sure is he's going to be a professional cartoonist like his grandpa (the one and only Don Orehek), or a pro soccer player.

Owen is very active. He's on the swim team and holds a a black belt in Taekwondo.

His mother adds:

"His favorite comic strip is Pearls Before Swine. He made up one using Stephan Pastis' characters and my folks showed it to Stephan at the Reuben Awards and Stephan signed it saying 'To Owen, you're better than me!' Owen has it framed on his wall. They said Stephan is a really nice guy."

Above: Owen's PBS strip.

Tool talk: Owen's favorite drawing tools are pencil, a thin sharpie and colored pencils.