Archive for the ‘education’ Category

Thursday, September 7th, 2023

Education: W L Evans Cartooning Course

W L Evans Cartooning Course Brochure

In the teens and twenties, cartooning was a burgeoning field. Every newspaper and magazine employed a crew of artists to fill their pages with topical one panel cartoons and comic strips. Schools were not yet teaching the trade, so several artists took it upon themselves to create mail order cartooning courses.

Here a promotional brochure advertising the W. L. Evans Course in Caricature and Cartooning. Shaped like a miniature artist’s portfolio, and packed with great vintage cartoons and sales information, this brochure outlines why students should take up the noble art of cartooning.

THE W. L. EVANS COURSE (1913)
Promotional Brochure

W L Evans Cartooning Course Brochure
W L Evans Cartooning Course Brochure
W L Evans Cartooning Course Brochure
W L Evans Cartooning Course Brochure
W L Evans Cartooning Course Brochure
W L Evans Cartooning Course Brochure

A cartoonist is a power. His audience is the boundless public. He is talked about. His work is admired in society. He meets the most prominent people, and becomes personally acquainted with them. He is a critic of the world’s happenings.

And he receives a large salary for his work.

W L Evans Cartooning Course Brochure
W L Evans Cartooning Course Brochure
W L Evans Cartooning Course Brochure
W L Evans Cartooning Course Brochure
W L Evans Cartooning Course Brochure
W L Evans Cartooning Course Brochure
W L Evans Cartooning Course Brochure
W L Evans Cartooning Course Brochure
W L Evans Cartooning Course Brochure
W L Evans Cartooning Course Brochure

W L Evans Cartooning Course

In 1913, Elzie Segar, aged 18 began a correspondence course headed up by the Cleveland Leader cartoonist, W. L. Evans. The course cost a dollar per lesson and it took Segar a year and a half to complete the 20 lessons. By 1917, he had landed a job penning the "Charlie Chaplin Comic Capers" and "Looping the Loop" strips. In the ad above, Segar is quoted as saying, "I’m getting along fine, and it’s all your fault."

W L Evans Cartooning CourseW L Evans Cartooning CourseDecades later, Segar made mention of his early education in his strip, Thimble Theater. In 1934, his character, Sappo took the W. L. Evans Cartooning Course and delighted readers with cartoon drawings made from letters of the alphabet. Segar wasn’t the only cartoonist who got his start with this course. Chester Gould of Dick Tracy fame was a graduate of the W. L. Evans course, as was Dennis the Menace creator, Hank Ketcham.

Here are the first two lessons that got these great cartoonists started on their career path. If there is interest, I will post more of this landmark course.

W L Evans Cartooning Course
W L Evans Cartooning CourseW L Evans Cartooning Course
W L Evans Cartooning CourseW L Evans Cartooning Course
W L Evans Cartooning CourseW L Evans Cartooning Course
W L Evans Cartooning CourseW L Evans Cartooning Course
W L Evans Cartooning CourseW L Evans Cartooning Course

THE PLATES
W L Evans Cartooning Course
W L Evans Cartooning Course
W L Evans Cartooning Course

THE W. L. EVANS COURSE (1916)
Lesson Two

W L Evans Cartooning Course Lesson Two
W L Evans Cartooning Course Lesson TwoW L Evans Cartooning Course Lesson Two
W L Evans Cartooning Course Lesson TwoW L Evans Cartooning Course Lesson Two
W L Evans Cartooning Course Lesson TwoW L Evans Cartooning Course Lesson Two
W L Evans Cartooning Course Lesson TwoW L Evans Cartooning Course Lesson Two
W L Evans Cartooning Course Lesson Two
W L Evans Cartooning Course Lesson Two

STUDENTS: Print this stuff out and USE IT!

Stephen Worth
Director
Animation Resources

INSTRUCTIONINSTRUCTION

This posting is part of an online series of articles dealing with Instruction.


Fall is time to save when you join Animation Resources as a student member! For the month of October our Student Membership will be discounted to only $50/year! Best of all, you will continue to get that savings every year you renew as a student for up to three years! Yes, this applies to full time educators too! Why should you join? Each week we’ll be highlighting more reasons why you should be a member of Animation Resources!

$60Reference PacksSTUDENT MEMBERSHIP

DURING THE MONTH OF OCTOBER ONLY!
$60/year $50/year (recurring)

Animation Resources membership is offered at a discounted rate for full time students and educators. After sign-up you will be required to email a photo of your current student ID card or proof of educational employment to verify your status. Renewals at the student rate is limited to three years. Invest in yourself by becoming a member of Animation Resources.


JOIN NOW Before This Offer Ends!
https://animationresources.org/membership/levels/


FREE SAMPLES!

Not Convinced Yet? Check out this SAMPLE REFERENCE PACK! It will give you a taste of what Animation Resources members get to download every other month!
Sample RefPack

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Friday, April 7th, 2023

Education: How To Be A Cartoonist In 16 Easy Pages

Armed Forces Cartooning Brochure

Yesterday, one of Animation Resources’ most faithful friends Sherm Cohen stopped by with a contribution for our collection of vintage cartooning courses. It’s hard to imagine packing a whole course in cartooning into sixteen 4×6 inch pages, but this pamphlet from WWII attempts to do just that. There’s plenty of GI type humor in here… I’m sure the suggestion to sketch the anatomy of the men in the shower was made with tongue firmly planted in cheek! There’s a lot of fun drawings in here. Enjoy!

Armed Forces Cartooning Brochure
Armed Forces Cartooning Brochure
Armed Forces Cartooning Brochure
Armed Forces Cartooning Brochure
Armed Forces Cartooning Brochure
Armed Forces Cartooning Brochure
Armed Forces Cartooning Brochure
Armed Forces Cartooning Brochure
Armed Forces Cartooning Brochure
Armed Forces Cartooning Brochure
Armed Forces Cartooning Brochure
Armed Forces Cartooning Brochure
Armed Forces Cartooning Brochure
Armed Forces Cartooning Brochure
Armed Forces Cartooning Brochure
Armed Forces Cartooning Brochure

Thanks, Sherm for sharing this with us!

Stephen Worth
Director
Animation Resources

INSTRUCTIONINSTRUCTION

This posting is part of an online series of articles dealing with Instruction.

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Friday, November 4th, 2022

STUDENTS: Learning To Animate- Simplicity vs Complexity

simplicity vs complexity

We had a question from a Facebook follower… It was in reference to the motion studies Nicholas John Pozega has been posting every day… “What kind of relevance do the the motion and principles of cartoons like Popeye and Mickey Mouse hold to contemporary cartoons or cartoons with more realistic designs with anatomy and different styles of motion?”

That is an excellent question, and it goes to the heart of how we as human beings learn.

When you start out to master any difficult skill, you should learn it in a progression from simple to more complex. If you try to juggle too many complexities when you are just starting out, you end up making a high splat on the wall and you end up learning nothing.

The great jazz pianist Bill Evans discusses this idea in relation to musical improvisation in this video. Please watch this video before reading further. Don’t just skip by this video. It’s very important to what I am trying to explain here, and it gives an astoundingly clear demonstration of this particular principle in practice…


Bill Evans: The Creative Process and Self Teaching
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5MSCReTIeH8

When you begin to play a musical instrument, you start with scales. You don’t start out playing Bach or Liszt. Animation is no different. Drawing volumetrically and solidly is difficult. Drawing a complex realistic human form volumetrically and solidly is extremely difficult. Animating a realistic human form volumetrically and solidly is completely impossible for someone just beginning to develop their animation skills.

The animators who created Snow White and Pinocchio all started animating in the rubber hose style. Using simple forms allowed them to focus on learning how to convey the spirit of a walk cycle or express personality through rhythms, gestures and expressions. The simplicity of the model allowed them to refine and perfect their basic principles… line of action, clear silhouettes, control of volumes in space, appealing proportions… without having to add the compounding difficulty of complex planes, anatomy, musculature and turning highly organic shapes in three dimensions.

When you have learned the principles one by one through experimentation and practice using simple forms, you can begin to add complexity a little at a time, and over a period of years, perhaps you will have the experience and understanding to attempt to animate a realistic human form. Milt Kahl and Mark Davis weren’t born with the experience and draftsmanship to be able to animate realistic human characters the way they animated them in Sleeping Beauty… They worked their way up to it by animating characters with more basic shapes and built their chops. They animated rubber hose characters. And the rubber hose animation in the early 30s Mickey Mouse and Popeye cartoons is drop dead brilliant. If you can’t see the genius in the Popeye walk cycles Nicholas has been posting, go back and look at them again and analyze them for the principles of motion, posing and staging they embody. I bet you’ll find that you were looking at the surface level- the model of the character- and not even considering the way it’s posed and animated.

Students are always impatient and they want everything now. That’s only natural But if you allow your impatience to prevent you from learning in a logical, orderly progression, your impatience can cripple you. Keep your eye on the ultimate goal, but keep putting just one foot in front of the other until you get there.


Fall is time to save when you join Animation Resources as a student member. For the next two weeks our Student Membership will be discounted to only $60/year! Best of all, you will continue to get that savings every year you renew as a student for up to three years. Yes, this applies to full time educators too. Why should you join? Each day we’ll be highlighting more reasons why you should be a member of Animation Resources.

$60Reference PacksSTUDENT MEMBERSHIP

For the next 2 weeks ONLY!
$70/year $60/year (recurring)

Animation Resources membership is offered at a discounted rate for full time students and educators. After sign-up you will be required to email a photo of your current student ID card or proof of educational employment to verify your status. Renewals at the student rate is limited to three years. Invest in yourself by becoming a member of Animation Resources.


JOIN NOW Before This Offer Ends!
https://animationresources.org/membership/levels/


FREE SAMPLES!

Not Convinced Yet? Check out this SAMPLE REFERENCE PACK! It will give you a taste of what Animation Resources members get to download every other month!
Sample RefPack

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