Often, we restrict our kids to watch cartoons saying they have more important things to do than to just stare at the screen. We too have gone through the same phase as kids although TV was available to us at a much later age. I remember, during my school days in India, various cartoon series were telecasted on the Doordarshan channel (the only channel available during those days), during the weekends. We, as kids, waited eagerly the entire week to watch those cartoons on Sunday mornings. Leaving aside everything, we stayed glued to the TV for a couple of hours at the most. I am talking about the 80s and the 90s era when we got to watch Superman and Spiderman, the Jungle Book, to name a few that was probably telecasted only for 30min duration every Sunday morning. Other than that, we borrowed VCRs from friends those days, to view Disney animations like Mickey Mouse, Tom & Jerry, Bambi and so on. I am sure all of you who belong to that era would have sweet memories of those days.
Here, are some of my favorite Disney characters rendered in pencil by me.
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| My Favorite Disney Characters in Pencil Sketch |
Nowadays, we have more than a dozen of channels dedicated to cartoons, and children today have a plethora of animations films to choose from. I don't say that viewing cartoons have any adverse effects on the kids but yes, I too restrict my kid from viewing these animations and encourage her to engage in other constructive activities.
However, there are a lot of things we can learn from cartoons. Disappointments and failures are part of our lives, and we can learn that from the superheroes who have gracefully accepted their strengths, responsibilities and failures equally. Cartoons are an effective way of teaching kids some important lessons of life and they come across as the most effective means of communication to the kids.
Apart from that, what I try to tell my students who come to take sketching lessons from me is that we learn a lot from observation. If you spend a few hours of the day watching cartoons for entertainment and recreation, you can also learn to make some observations during that time. Drawing is all about learning to draw from observation - observe how their faces are, how different expressions are changed by just changing the movement of eyeballs, eyebrows, and the mouth. I am just asking you to focus on some minute details that can help you draw better. This is just a small attempt from my side to give a message to all the kids who wish to learn drawing, especially cartoons.
I am not a professional artist but I love to draw and I have learned drawing and sketching through observation, patience, and practice: as an Architect, these are the tools I possess! When I appeared for my Architecture entrance examination, I was probably few of those students who had no formal training in drawing so you can imagine my surprise when I cleared the entrance test and got my admission to one of the prestigious institutions of Architecture in India.
Today, we have lots of resources to learn from, which is a big advantage for children today. However, some kids just lack the patience and they want to finish what they started immediately, and then they are not happy with the result. You can't expect instant results when you are learning to draw.
What you, as beginners or students, need to understand is that you may have the drawing skills, but you need to practice and learn to draw in the right manner. You can definitely learn to draw from the various resources on the internet. The sketch you see below is what I drew from another cartoon learning website. This goes on to show that with unlimited resources from the internet, you as a student or artist have a great scope for learning. So don't give up...if at first, you don't succeed, try again...you must have heard that often, but that's true. Observation, Patience, and Practice are the virtues, you need to have to learn to sketch. So keep learning and exploring!
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| Learning to Draw Cartoons - Observation is the key skill |
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