REVIEW: Art Projects–Cartooning by See the Light

My kids recently had the fun opportunity to try out Art Projects–Cartooning by See the Light.

 

WHAT IS IT?:

See the Light offers a variety of art instructional DVD’s for children.  Art Projects-Cartooning offers 60 minutes of instruction in cartooning basics with Master Artist Pat Knepley and is intended for kids ages 5 and up.  It covers:

• Art History:  Classical Cartooning
• Art Elements:  Line, Space, and Shape
• Art Concepts:  Exaggeration and Movement

You’ll only need basic supplies that you probably already have at home, including:

• Several sheets of plain white paper of any size
• #2 pencil
• Pencil sharpener
• Good white or gray kneaded eraser
• Fine point black marker
• Thick black permanent marker

You’ll need to allow just 70 minutes for the lesson.  It’s available to purchase for just $14.99 + shipping.  You can also watch a promo for the Art Projects series here.

 

OUR EXPERIENCE:

My husband has always been great at cartooning and used to draw for his local newspaper, so he was the perfect candidate to watch this instructional DVD with the kids and offer some constructive feedback.  My daughter, age 8, and my son, age 13, worked on this with their dad.  My son has never really enjoyed drawing and art, but my daughter is great at drawing and seems to have a natural talent for it, so she was particularly interested in trying this out and learning some new techniques.

They all sat together and worked through the lesson at once, completing it one evening after work.  They did some practice and then repeated it again another night, taking more time to try out each technique.  My husband thought the part where they made faces from numbers and the cartoon strip portion were a bit difficult for a young child to envision, but he felt the instructional material overall was very good and offered some interesting techniques. 

The real test, though, was what it did for the kids.  My son, who doesn’t have an artistic bone in his body, was able to draw some decent looking cartoon figures during the lesson.  My daughter…well, she was absolutely *inspired* by this program!  She started drawing like a madwoman!  She kept bringing me more and more creations of vegetable and fruit characters.  She drew so many that she had quite a collection of them by the time she was done!  She kept right on drawing for days afterwards!  She started drawing cartoon strips, too.  So I’d have to say that there was something about this program that really clicked with her.  It was like it planted a seed in her head that just kept growing, and she absolutely loved seeing what she could do after using this DVD!

After witnessing what this program did for her, I could definitely recommend it!  It was fun for my son, too, but for a child who already has an interest in art, this was just the inspiration my daughter needed to take her skills even further!

Check out what other Crew members had to say about Art Projects-Cartooning and other instructional DVD’s from See the Light by clicking the banner below.

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