In a cartoon-bright room with walls covered in children’s drawings and populated by chairs shaped like hands and high-heeled shoes, 10 children sit with heads bowed over papers in fierce concentration.
With a look people usually reserve for writing Dear John letters or taking tests, these kids are on a mission. The tall man standing at the front of the room holding a running man pose is the reason the kids are here. His name is Karl Gude, an instructor in MSU’s School of Journalism, and he’s bent on teaching a lost art form: cartooning.
“I’m going to take advantage of my skills and try to get a bunch of 9-year-olds to follow as my legacy,” he said.
Gude and his 10 students met in the creative incubator in the basement of Communication Arts and Sciences Building from 10 a.m. until 1 p.m. Tuesday to learn the tips and tricks of creating cartoons. The camp originally was supposed to last one week, running from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., said Sue Goodrich, administrative officer for the College of Communication Arts and Sciences. Goodrich brought her two children, Brendan, 13, and Lindsay, 11, to learn about cartooning and express their creativity, she said.
“It’s a great way to use their time and get introduced to the college,” she said.
Gude is the former graphics director for Newsweek and has seen his cartoons published on the opinion page of The New York Times, he said. His drawing tutorials on YouTube have currently received more than 150,000 views. By starting with simple shapes and learning tricks to turn them into an expressive face, Gude taught his students in an active and fast-paced setting, focusing on the basics and building up to more complex drawings. Drawing always has been his outlet for expressing his creativity, he said.
“I love drawing because you can make it all up as you go,” he said. “There’s no right way to do anything.”
The workshop offered the budding cartoonists a way to learn by doing, he said. Jason Davenport-Greene, a 12-year-old seventh-grader from Okemos, chose to celebrate his birthday by attending Gude’s cartooning workshop. Jason said drawing always has been fun for him and he attended the workshop in hopes of learning how to draw more realistic cartoons. Jason passed the time in the class by drawing an unusual subject for most middle schoolers in his cartoons: President Barack Obama and Sen. John McCain.
“I was just doodling,” he said with a grin. “They’re fun to draw.”
Goodrich said she hoped Gude would be able to offer the camp next summer in a more official capacity to benefit the college. Gude said he looked at the workshop as an opportunity to share his passion and hobby with a new generation of aspiring cartoonists. There are few simpler ways to get kids involved in the arts than by showing them how to create something they see and love every day, he said. And Gude should know, he said he grew up doodling.
“When encouraging kids to draw, cartoons are the best way,” he said. “You’re not going to find too many kids that want to draw or diagram a Michelangelo painting.”
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