Christmas Fair

2nd Years Christmas fair 

Cartoon and Comic Arts team up with Illustration students 

For the second year running, Cartoon and Comic arts Students team up with Illustration students as part of their Visual Storytelling module to produce a Christmas fair. The students were given an audio book that had gone out of copyright as a starting point for this project. So from Wuthering Heights to Dorian Gray the students had a lot to go at. 

The point of the project was to prepare the students to working in a consumer lead environment. It made them think about their intended audience as actual people rather than trying to produce something to get marks and graded. It pushed them into areas of learning about advertising and marketing their work. Students had to get used to talking to their customers about their work and had to learn how to engage with the general public. 

 

The students arrived early to set up the area. People had different ideas about how they wanted their tables to look and some had gone the extra mile to demonstrate their eagerness to produce and sell work at the event.

Table set up still on going 

illustration student Joe and Cartoonist Carl team up to run thier stand. Joe had "Lord of the Flies" as his book and Cart and "Matilda" 

Two mature comic artist Shaun "The Hobbit" and Conan "Matilda" on their stand. Shaun was also drawing sketches and Conan had an additional surprise for his stall 

A 3rd year student Drew Hird, popped across to give advice on how to sell their work to Emily and Rebecca. 

 International Man of mystery Josh "Jeckyl and Hyde" helps to run his and Sarah's stand at the event.

Mike is joined by his mate to help run his and Joe Assi, while Joe is on patrol around the event.  

Millie and Diana work on louring people to their stand. 

The illustration students were really up for the challenge of running a table at the event. they produced some really novel stuff, like the screen printed tote bags.  

Danielle and Seren work on their pitch to get customers over to the table. Danielle used her cosplay to great effect at the event. 

Another 2 illustration students who did really well at the event and produced some really good work. 

Danielle hold fort for herself and Lawrence 

Jasmin and Scarlett made the perfect team 

Max the Pirate made his mark with a couple of illustration students 

Acouple of third year students were keen to make their mark at the event, and try to relive their first attempt at running a stall at a Christmas event  

Hidden away, Millie and Vicky working behind the scenes

Tom manning his table 

Elliot and Laura working their table 

One of the most unusual stalls, Katie and Gee running their stands where Gee made Dracula Capes for Cats to wear.! 

Strike a pose with Meg and Alex 

Finally Ellie on her stall doing the business

At the door greeting people were AckwardBex and myself. 

  

Cartoon and Comic Arts Motto DRAW DRAW DRAW!

Cartoon and Comic Arts Motto

DRAW!DRAW! DRAW!

Well its been a world wind couple of weeks and sometimes it is hard to believe how fast it has gone. Once again the 1st Year have been indoctrinated into the course motto DRAW!DRAW!DRAW!
We try to emphasis on the award that, in the same way as being a professional footballer, you have to have the same mentality. SO you don just go out one day a week to play a game of football, but you also have to do exercises to build your skills and sometimes it might not be what you expected. Even Footballers have to go the gym, where they don't get to kick a ball all the time!! 
It is this way that we try and explain what we are trying to do when we take them into the life drawing room or around the museum. What are we actually expecting the student to produce and why?
A lot of the students don't understand why, they do the things they do and in doing so have trouble correcting their mistakes. 
So we try and get them observe what they are drawing. We use the example of getting them to draw their bedrooms, a place where a lot say they spend a lot of time. But it's fascinating to notice that they can draw every DVD Blu Ray, but fail to notice the light switch or the skirting board.

 Above, cartoon and comic arts students head into town to draw around the Stoke Minster. With the help of the local ground staff they found quite a comfortable place to sit down and draw the surrounding area and the Gothic Minster itself.  

 Drawing parts of the Minster itself helps the student to observe what is going on and understand how buildings are made. 



 

 THE TOP OF FLAXMAN 

 From the top of the Flaxman building along College Road you can see the back of the Stafford Hotel and the train station. This is one of the 1st years piece of drawing of the architecture and also looking at the perspective. 

DRAWING THE TOWN HALL 

 Drawing around Stoke Town hall, produced some interesting results. Here the students are drawing the main building... until students from Leicester turn up and park their coaches in-front of the building.  It must be Stoke as a cultural city that brings everyone to it!!

THE TRAIN STATION 

The train station is always a popular destination when learning about perspective. Here is a particular good example of the drawings that can be produced 

And we're off!

Year 7 of Cartoon and Comic Arts 

Well what can I say... A bit later than planned I'm back writing my blog for the new incumbent students on Cartoon and Comic Arts. This year we recruited 30 students onto the award and in turn we became on of the biggest art and design courses at Staffordshire University.

Its been a bit of a mad summer, as we changed from faculty to schools and a lot of the management team and admin staff were redeployed, and basically we were left to drift.

Anyway, for some good news, we received 100%  in the NSS  (National Student Survey) for the course. I think over the years with us moving from new room/building/site to site 2 years of building work and having to use the back entrance etc It wasn't hard to see the light at the end of the tunnel coming once, we had settled in one location and the building works had stopped. 

So it's up to us to keep the momentum going, easier said then done, but here goes ....

Pub Quiz.  

Once again big Thanks to the Team at the Glebe who made us feel welcome. and we had a brilliant pub quiz. 

It was nice to see some 2nd years turn up and make the 1st years feel welcome, though we do feel that there was a bit of cheating going on somewhere doing the pub quiz. 

  We really must apologies to the 1st Year for the standard of the prizes they won. But well done for making it through the first week of Cartoon and Comic Arts