Telling stories with pictures

This course is an invitation to free the hand and the imagination, making room for experimentation, imperfection, and surprise.
We will work with curiosity, using play as an antidote to the fear of the blank page. Through trial and error, images will take shape spontaneously.
We will explore tools, materials, and pigments, observing how they react on paper and the possibilities that arise from combining different techniques. We’ll get our hands dirty building small characters, details, and shapes, working on line, volume, and synthesis.
Each participant will be guided in the search for their own expressive synthesis, working toward the essential through different techniques such as collage and silhouette.
We will do storytelling exercises applied to drawing, planning a short story through a storyboard. Those who wish may pair drawing with words, or let the images do the storytelling on their own.
For those who already have an idea in progress, the workshop also offers the chance to develop a personal project, agreed upon in advance with the instructor. In this case, the exercises and techniques will be adapted to support the construction of the characters and settings of their own story.

Illustration by Eva Montanari, Inseguendo Degas, Kite Edizioni, 2010.