A variety of artistic classes and excursions were offered at Ridgewood High School during the school’s third annual arts week.
During the week, which started Nov. 13, faculty members in support of arts in academics gave students the opportunity to explore art they wouldn’t usually see in class. The school hosted a range of events including an art show competition, painting, drawing and music workshops, and a visit to the Art Institute and Chicago Symphony Orchestra.
Students were also given the option to choose which events they attended, allowing them free rein when it came to structuring their week of art.
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Sarah Machaj, Ridgewood’s art teacher, organized three drawing workshops on Nov. 14. One of the classes included a demonstration and instruction from Charles Moisant, a professional comic book artist. Machaj said this particular workshop, featuring comic book drawing, was relevant to her student’s current interests.
“I’ve got lots of kids who like anime, comics and gaming,” she said. “[Moisant] is also the father of one of our students, so we got pretty lucky.”
Since the workshop would provide an in-depth discussion of comic book creation, Machaj was pleased her students would also get to learn about the career field and what it takes to be a successful comic book artist.
“There are so many kids here who would never get the chance to see a professional cartoonist at that level,” she said. “So we don’t take them to a student performance, we always take them to a regular [art or music] performance and that’s just better.”
Moisant, an artist who has been publishing comic books since 1991, discussed the process of creating, producing and publishing a comic book, and the profession itself. He also assisted students in making their own mini comics.
“Art can sometimes be the hardest to learn, but at the same time the easiest,” he said. “My art may not always be anatomically correct, but it looks good because the staging is correct. [One artist] pulled in $1.2 million drawing stick figures.”
After discussing more profession specifics, students were then urged to explore the kind of universe their own comic would exist within. This included what characters would be present, their motives and the story’s overall message.
To warm them up to the creativity, Moisant called on individuals, asking each to contribute ideas to a group-made comic before they began creating their own. He encouraged the students to come up with plot points that played into the feelings of their readers.
“Whether the emotion is true or made up, it’s powerful, and you can affect people’s opinions, ways of thinking and personalities, just from a simple story,” he said.
From stories about large pink cats to aliens in New York City, original comics ideas soon began emanating from the minds of the young artists.
“One of the greatest moments [is seeing] their ‘aha moment’ when they got it. They understood. I’ve just changed their life,” Moisant said. “They might do something with it, they might do it as a career, or they it might translate to something else. Perhaps they can get physics, math, English. Something else by understanding that there’s far more to the thinking.”
After coming up with a title, cover and first few panels of their own story, the students were able to take their handcrafted mini comic book with them. Overall, Moisant hopes to inspire students to keep working toward their goals in art.
“My minimum hope is that someone is inspired and they don’t give up on art,” he said. I think if I can help them feel comfortable with taking a risk, then I’ve succeeded.”
Gianna Annunzio is a freelance reporter for Pioneer Press.