Cartoon Workshop at The Royal Society, Edinburgh

My first cartoon workshop to grown-ups was recently delivered to an audience of professional trainers, (talk about baptism of fire!), by invitation from the South East, (Scotland), branch of The CIPD, (Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development). The aim of the evening’s session was to illustrate how a simple cartoon can add as I think I promoted it “an extra dimension to effective communication delivery”.  The session is neatly summarised here by Bill Atkinson, Group Lead T&D at South East Scotland Branch CIPD.

Cartooning Around – Late in the evening, on Wednesday 17^th February, a bunch of dubious characters were seen leaving the premises of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. Most of them hadn’t been seen before and, if truth be told, many won’t see the light of day again. For the characters were folded away, or put in briefcases, by the real people attending the session on cartooning run by Paul Clark of pctoonart.

This session was a very practical one with the aim of each person creating their own personal cartoon character. Like all good learning sessions the icebreaker of doodling provided an insight into your psychology. So this author is forceful, feeling powerful but feminine and protective. (Authors name on a postcard please…).

It was amazing to understand how to make faces from simple shapes, how to create a man and a woman with a rectangle and a pear, and simple tricks with eyes. As the event progressed so did our characters. Expressions added; arms, hands, legs and feet followed. The event demonstrated that it’s not too difficult if you understand the basic principles. You just need more knowledge and a lot more practice.

As the evening drew to a close Blyth McLucas gave the vote of thanks via cartoon pictures and that included the excellent hospitality of Christel Baudere of RSE.

So we weren’t all going to be great but some were ahead of others. Whilst we didn’t have an overall winner we can all say that Elvis did leave the building!