Cartoon Workshops & Drawing Classes from Cartoonist Chris Altham

For Bursley Academy we had the pleasure of running 5 cartoon workshops in Newcastle under Lyme, Staffordshire, to approximately 150+ children, split over two half days. The samples of work below are just a snippet of the great drawings the children created on the day.

Drawing and cartooning is firstly a relaxing activity, shown to reduce stress and increase endorphins, the feel-good chemicals in the brain. Drawing helps children and adults communicate and express feelings, emotions and ideas.

By simply using pen or pencil and paper, the activity of cartooning engages various cognitives within the brain to improve the sense of; spatial awareness, attention to detail, proportions and composition, plus use of colours, tones, mono and linework.

Cartooning also improves hand-eye coordination, motor skills, working fingers and thumb muscles which inturn helps with writing and where other precision hand and observation skills are needed.

Often with drawing cartoons, you are drawing from what you have already seen and stored in your memory, mix that with imagination and you’ve taken your first steps to becoming a cartoonist!

Drawing can be extremely beneficial to your health and well-being, raising self-esteem and by developing a creative mindset, opens your view on life and appreciation of work by others.

Our workshops focus on teaching students how to effectively use cartoons to convey a message, a skill that is highly relevant in advertising and marketing. Cartoons are often incorporated into logos, making them an important aspect of branding.

We help students to capture emotions through their cartooning, while also honing their drawing skills for people, animals, plus everyday scenes and objects.

It is well documented that drawing helps children develop pre-writing skills, fine motor skills, and hand-eye coordination, all of which are crucial for their overall growth and development.

There are so many opportunities to have a creative career. Just a snippet include; comic artist, book illustration, animator, cartooning for advertising, character design, colourist, storyboard illustrator.

I never knew that cartooning could be so much fun! Chris teaches you how to bring your ideas to life with simple shapes, exaggerated features, and bold lines. He breaks down each step of the process into manageable chunks, so even if you’ve never drawn before, you’ll feel confident in your abilities by the end of the class.

JA