From the Desk of Mr Daniel

Dear Sec 2E students,

In term 1 & 2, I have went through:

1. A comic drawing introduction
   
2. Comic scripting
   
3. Elements of Comics
   (Speech balloon, letterings, sound fx & graphical reinforcements)
   
4. Paneling & Thumbnailing
   
5. Perspectives
   
6. Human figure
   
7. Human facial
   
8. Movements and positions

We are now at week 6 of term 2. You have done alot of practise on human figure drawing. This week, we will be moving on into the drawing of your comics based on your thumbnails.

Here are the instructions:

• To help you with the production at a later stage, each panels are to be drawn on one A4 paper.
  
• 2 members in a group will work on one page.
  

As you work, remember the elements of comics, paneling concepts and perspectives. In addition, take note of the human figure proportion and facial proportion. Good luck with your drawings and Be Creative!

Thursday morning's PW lesson is with Sec 2E4 and afternoon's PW lesson is with Sec 2E5.

Last week, I taught human facial drawing. The students have been introduced to human figure drawing the previous week before last. This week, the students are suppose to be undergoing drawing excercises but for Sec 2E4 and 2E5, they are still at human head drawing this week because they missed last week's lesson due to the school sports day. I can't finish the lesson for Sec 2E5 because Miss Tay wanted to conduct the literature test review for Sec 2E5 first. We will see how the students progress next week. Miss Tay wanted the students to be able to draw properly before they progress on to comic panel drawings.

Hopefully, after all the drawing practise, most students will be able to draw their comic panels decently. BTW, here is a photo of the class demonstration I did with Sec 2E4. I didn't add the mole there. The dot is due to a depression on the white board. Wonder what shall I name this character?

I attended the Comic in Education Seminar at Ngee Ann Polytechnic organised by Dhoby Studios. The seminar gives us educators an overview of how comics can be used to effectively redefine teaching and learning.

We have a chance to listen to the experience of Mr Gary Goh of Doby Studios (Producer of 小白龙 comic series) as well as Mr Otto Fong of Ottonium (Author of Sir Fong 1 & 2 & Sir Fong's Adventures in Science) We also heard Tanjong Katong Secondary School's sharing on integrating Comics into Chinese Curiculum as well as Wacom product introduction and Comic Studio product demonstration.

Mr Otto Fong's passion in using comics in education left a deep impression in my mind. I was so impressed that I purchase 2 of his books (which costed $19 in total).

The missing link in Asian education is that we often forgot that in order to teach any subject, we need to relate it to passion. We do not remember facts and figures but actions and drama. The future belongs to an age of visual. If we wish to survive, we need techniques and passion. The minds of current students are constantly stimulated and conditioned visually by the internet, videos and games. They read less and watched more and write in SMS format. To engage them, we have to change our approach and methods of teaching.

Enjoy a video presentation by Mr Fong: