Art Tutorials Sometimes as Learner and Other Times Teaching Artist via #Learnuary

Learnuary is a creative challenge hosted/instigated by the Etherington Brothers. I looked into it today by checking the hashtag #learnuary on Twitter and Instagram.

After seeing a few tutorials I got curious about the rules and setup of this event and read the "What is Learnuary" post. This seems like a well thought out challenge combining being reasonable in scope, encouraging, and celebrating of teaching artists who share bite-sized tutorials.

OK, a well composed creative challenge that celebrates making art tutorials... I'M SOLD.

Why care about helping more people practice art and at the same time encourage artists to teach?

I feel that the more people find their creative voice and ways to express it in art, what a better way to channel feelings and ideas to understand oneself and one another. Then as more artists build skills to share things they learned, the more people understand that art is real valuable work.

Also, the right tutorial at the right time is an empowering stepping stone.

Tutorials are to people making things as power pellets are to Pac-Man. When you find a tutorial that clears the fog hiding how to proceed or gives you that ah-ha sense of eureka for what art tool to use and how to use it: that's a power-up. A portion of the work ahead is lighter and easier to face because you're more ready than before.

One of the things mentioned in the What is Learnuary post is that you don't have to make a tutorial for every day in January and you don't have to create a new tutorial. You can share one you already made or one you found useful created by another artist.

Then I remembered a tutorial series I helped create a while back.

The Lean Into Art Quests

Jerzy Drozd and I created a series of art practice tutorials called the Lean Into Art Quests. Each of the quests is a worksheet-style mini challenge to jump into practice and problem solving with one or more parts of visual storytelling. One example is Quest 10, a three-part writing and drawing challenge called "This Character is Lying".

First you start by improving some pre-written dialog along with a prompt.

Next you explore ways to show the dialog in comic word balloons:

In the last part you create face expressions to give an extra layer showing the conflict in what the character is feeling compared to what they're saying:

Finally here's my example of working through each of the worksheets. I drew on top of them digitally using a note taking app called Squid.

10 More Quests, All Free

If Quest 10 This Character is Lying is looking like a fun exercise, remember there are 10 more quests to explore. The series starts with one all about visualizing sound on the page. Using sound to convey story information is one of Jerzy's specialties so you know it's full of goodness: Mecha Sound!.

What Next for Learnuary for Me?

Watching and learning as the event rolls along, I see two big categories to gather observations and ideas.

First I think there's more to learn from how the Etherington Brothers are facilitating the event. Creative Challenges are about a topic, community of artists, and also the hosting organization. How do all these parts work together, what kinds of outcomes do I see from participants and the hosts - that will be worth noting.

Then I'm curious to see what sorts of things the teaching artists put into their lessons to make them special and fun for the participants.