Did you have one of those “Learn to Draw Cartoons” books growing up?  I remember my brother had one and loved it.  (Incidentally, he works as an artist for video games now!)

Earlier this month Kaye pre-made these wonderful Silly Faces books for our participants to draw in and on.  It was just a simple front cover of posterboard, three internal pages cut horizontally into thirds, and a back cover of posterboard.  She said they would really work best if you have a binding machine; we used binder rings, which worked well enough, but the pages dangled a bit.

Kaye put examples of different cartoon eyes, noses, and mouths out on the tables for participants to reference.  Then she instructed them to open their books, and draw what ever eyes, nose, and mouth they wanted on their first page.  Then they all turned those strips to the next page and drew another set of eyes, nose, and mouth.  Finally they drew more features on the last page of their books.

Of course the point of cutting the pages horizontally is to mix and match the faces around in fun ways!  Our participants loved changing up the faces, as well as learning simple cartooning techniques.

This is one of those nice activities, too, that participants can really add to after our initial art period.  They could decorate the covers, or add more face pages!

Have you ever tried drawing cartoon faces?  A book like this would be a fun way to start, or even to practice your skills!