Art students take part in comic masterclass with Beano illustrator

Art students take part in comic masterclass with Beano illustrator

17th March 2015

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STUDENTS came face to face with their comic selves when an illustrator created their caricatures during a workshop.

Students at Ripon Grammar School posed for portraits by Kev F Sutherland, famous for his comic strips Bananaman and others in The Beano, Dr Who Adventures and Match.

The comic masterclass for Year 8 also saw students creating their own characters, voting on a title for their comic and drawing their own comic strips.

The stories in pictures were collated in a whole-class comic with the winning title, Jeroldine's Jumping Jelly, suggested by Finlay Bean, 12, of Ripon.

Sutherland, who studied fine art at university and has been a professional illustrator for 25 years, told the students: "If you want to draw anything, find your reference from your inner library. Copying isn't cheating, it's learning. You can't come up with something in your head until you've put it in there."

On a mission to get every student drawing, he added: "Have faith, have confidence in yourself. Just try scribbling. Take simple shapes and join them together or show me your impressive drawing techniques."

He showed the students some of his original comic artwork alongside the published final version and explained how drawing big allowed the artist to add more detail and how greater impact could be achieved by separating the action in a comic.

Student Edward Hutchinson, 13, of Markington, said: "It's been really interesting. I've learned a lot including how you can use your letters to draw features on a character."

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