We’ll cover the basics on how to draw cartoon figures doing almost anything and get practice using a brush, ink and felt-tip pens to create finished cartoon art. We’ll also learn the art of drawing caricatures: exaggerated drawings of  people to show likeness.

Learn to develop and draw one-panel cartoons that share a funny thought. These type of cartoons are popular in magazines, such as The New Yorker, and newspaper comics pages, books and calendars. In addition to drawing the cartoons in ink, we’ll learn how to use ink washes to make shades of gray in black and white cartoons.

We’ll learn to think up and draw three- and four panel comic-strips, similar to Garfield, Peanuts, and Calvin and Hobbes! We’ll practice short strip as well as longer, Sunday Funnies-style strips with main characters who can star in different situations.

Graphic memoirs are huge among middle-grade and tween readers. Jonathan shares his approach to creating autobiographical comics, and patrons will be guided to reflect upon personally meaningful moments in their lives and develop precise ways to express these memories—and their significance—in comics form. We’ll also cover turning skills and information that’s in your head or in text form (from fun recipes to Australian animals) into an engaging comic.

Jonathan will explain the elements of a story, panel planning/creating thumbnail sketches, penciling and inking a comic-book or graphic novel, and he will coach campers through creating one or two comic-book pages of a story they create.