Day 1 (University Students)

Day 1 – Thirteen students arrived and most of them had never seen graphic novels or even heard of sequential art. Two students were familiar with the genre and had been drawing for years since they were little. All from the Faculty of Arts, their disciplines were varying from paint to graphic design, to mosaic sculpting – so their drawing skills were less than first expected. This day was dedicated to introducing a variety of I had brought to Nablus and a few video clips of how to draw a character board. They were amazed to see stories about the occupation such as Joe Sacco's "Palestine" - it gave them hope. We ended the first class by playing an art game that exemplified the building of graphic novels. The students were made to sit in groups of six and seven, and given a sheet with seven boxes drawn out. They had five minutes to draw a picture then pass it to their left for the next sequential panel to be drawn. By the end of the game the last person had to title the comic strip and tell us what it was about. There were a lot of shy giggles and whispering but it was obvious they had fun and I could see their level of drawing, which was amazing. The stories were very detailed for such limited time and I felt it was a great start to the project. The Head of the Department, Dr. Kamal Zeidan brought cookies and tea, and we called it a day! Before leaving the room, I got two keen students to help move the desks into a semi circle for a more intimate setting.