Students in WMCAT Teen Arts + Tech Program’s three fall 2023 Digital Illustration studios made their creativity stick with a unique character illustration project.
Teen artists drew a cartoon character of their choosing and remixed their image using a variety of artistic styles like cross hatching, stipple dot ink techniques, and manga-style anime — flexing their drawing and inking skills. Students learned how to contrast their drawings with dark shapes and used shadow and highlights to make their work appear three-dimensional. After uploading their images to Photoshop, students implemented color theory to illustrate them digitally.
Teen artists took their completed digital work on a field trip to Crop Marks Printing, printing their characters as stickers for themselves. Through the project, students gained fundamental illustration skills and practiced thinking outside of the box when making cartoon art their own.
“I like making my own characters in class. [My teaching artist] George helps me with my art a lot and I get to pass out my stickers to everyone at the exhibition.”
– Tyies Kemp, 11th grade WMCAT Teen Artist
