Before we start, read these two items:
“Fun Home” by Alison Bechdel
“Persepolis” by Marjane Satrapi
Why are we doing this?
This project will be another multi-page project, but this time with a minimum of 15 “pages”, which are 4″x4″ watercolor boards (you have 5 extra for mistakes or extra pages). Your graphic novel will recreate an incident from your life (see examples from “Fun Home” and “Persepolis”). We will further practice using watercolor and color theory.
How are we doing this?
- First, you will brainstorm at least 10 incidents from your life (think about stories you regularly share with people, or stories your family/friends tell about you) – this can be a written list or a series of thumbnails.
- From there, you will select one idea and do an automatic writing (no editing, just get the whole idea down on paper). Make an accompanying rough storyboard of at least 15 thumbnails explaining the narrative; you will show this to the class for feedback. Be ready to explain how you plan to use color. Here is another storyboarding tool.
- Using class feedback, you will create your drawings in watercolor (you can use other media, but it must be predominantly watercolor) for your graphic novel. You can do more than 15 drawings, but you only have 20 watercolor boards (feel free to invest in more if you’d like -there is no upper limit).
GRADING
- ability to follow directions
- correct media
- creative use of personal story
- strong compositions
- strong use of color
- depiction of figures