Workshops

The other things I did for SSG in conjunction with the show were 2 workshops, both on making minicomics and zines. The first one was at the gallery and only had 2 paying participants, though the SSG folks made some books too - Andrew's was pretty funny. The other workshop was just last week at Western Albemarle High School with 2 different art classes. There were a lot of kids and they seemed to really like making little books. Prom (a big formal dance, like a ball) was the next day so some of the kids drew books about that. It was good and I had fun (Thanks Nancy).

For both classes I started them with drawing a little fold up book about a guy sleeping - I told them what to draw where, we xeroxed the pages and then folded and stapled them. Even though they knew the little, very simple story I had the draw there was still that great moment when they first read throguh the book they had made.

Then I talked all about minis and zines and showed a bunch of examples, then had them do another fold up book - a one-sided folded thing that made a 4-page book. Finally I gave them all a bunch of links to minicomics and zine resources.

One thing I really emphasized was how zines were like blogs, but better in some ways. I stessed how people LOVE getting little books even if they don't usually look at art and I really pushed the idea that this is a great way to get one's work out into the world. Hopefully there will be a flurry of weird little books out at the high school...