So, today I taught a really fun workshop to a bunch of really creative kids at the Bainbridge Island branch of the Kitsap Regional Library. It was a full house, with twelve bums in chairs doing the hard work of CHARACTER DESIGN!
I brought a stack of favorite books with wonderfully designed characters.
I loaded up a couple of tables with a lot of collage materials and markers and glue and scissors and hole punchers and string and stuff.
I talked for a minute or two about character design (clothes, hair, eyes, accessories, setting, backstory, size, shape, species, etc etc).
I asked them to think of themselves as characters--human, animal, whatever they thought was right. What could they express about themselves with a drawing or a collage or both?
I taught them how to use tracing paper to make patterns for cutting out collage materials to give their characters (or their settings) some, well, character!
And then I let the kids get making.
And make they did.
Their infectious creativity inspired me.
And two hours was not nearly enough for all the fun we had.