Anna Clucas is an artist and teacher. She runs the Art Tank, an arts and crafts group that was based at the Youth Arts Centre in Kensington Road.

She has shared an artist exercise that she has created for some of her art students.

’This particular workshop is one that I first delivered with my friend and colleague Juan Moore, a painter and graphic designer, who instigated the plan.

’I have used this for Art Tank sessions on many of occasions and it always seems to go down well with the kids.’

This is a project that is designed for all the family to roll with your imagination. The examples featured here were created by Art Tank regular Aaron O’Dell, aged 13.

The aim of this art exercise is to create comic characters out of randomly-selected words, which you can then turn into a comic book or poster.

Materials needed:

Pencil , two cups, scissors and

A4 paper. You may also need a little coffee to copy Aaron’s work.

If you have a fine liner pen, coloured pencils, felt-tip pens, watercolour paints, or any other ideas about eye-catching decorations, this will just add more awesomeness to your characters.

Method

We want you to think up some emotions.

For example: happy, grumpy, angry, sad and so on

Now think up some random, everyday objects like, such as: apple, banana, carrot, pepper, fridge, toilet. You get the idea

Write all your objects and emotions down on a piece of paper and cut them into small strips.

Fold them up and place the objects in one cup and the emotions in another.

Pick randomly one folded-up piece of paper from the emotions cup and one from the objects cup.

For example, as in the images, Aaron picked out an angry tap, a surprised box and a depressed bottle.

He sketched out the characters first on a blank piece of paper.

Prior to this he made some coffee stained paper, by dissolving a small amount of instant coffee dissolved in warm water and cover the paper with a paint brush or sponge.

The paper needs to be completely dry before you start.

You can create as many characters as there is objects and emotions.

Keep sketching your characters out and turn them into a comic strip. Give them a name, a purpose and a personality.