Completing Stage 1 - Graphic Novel Intro and Character Boards Done

Began with the introduction of the project, a 5-page graphic story and brainstorming main characters. At first this concept was difficult because they had never been made to build an imaginatory figure but after some suggestions and a few worksheets that asked questions about the character, they began to draw using manga and standard comic art styles. Ensaf, a very talented young woman, used her style of mixing human figures with animal faces and drew a little lion boy character to star in a story about a Palestinian orphanage. It was impressive to see the students adapt with such ease to the task at hand even when they had never seen the type of art. By the third day we had a rhythm with beginning the class with announcement about the coming week, the stage of the project they should be at and the activities for the day. The week was short and ended with character boards finished and their stories formulates. The first stage was completed successfully and most of their stories are about the occupation and recent experiences of incursion and checkpoint experiences. One student, a very calm young male is drawing about an experience where he was shot at the checkpoint and still doesn’t understand why. He is most excited to create his own style of illustrating, continuously picking my brain on software and techniques. The students were gracious they had the chance to experience the workshop and were even more grateful when I told them they could take the graphic novels brought from Canada for the weekend. The next stage began, learning the process of story-boarding and to complete this by Sunday’s class. Story boards are basically like character boards where there is some rough images and notes about each panel necessary to coherently illustrate their stories.