The Teachers' Animation Toolkit

Materials:
Pencils, white A4 or A3 photocopy paper or sketchpads
Resources:
Handout: Basic Shapes: 

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The Teachers’ Animation Toolkit
WORKSHEET: EXPRESSIVE LINES AND 
CHARACTERS
Teachers’ note:
These basic exercises are designed to break the ice with students 
who say ‘but I can’t draw!’ Their purpose is to introduce the 
approach of the cartoonist, who can use the simplest of lines to 
express human emotions and begin to tell stories. It also helps 
students realize that, by applying their imaginations, they can start to 
bring characters to life with the simplest of drawing techniques.
Copy the handouts or ask the students to start by fi lling a blank 
page with ovals and squares. Now ask them to add few lines to each 
shape to either express an emotion or transform the shape into a 
recognizable object or character. The second handout suggests 
specifi c emotions. The character sheets can be used as templates 
to help with basic character design.
Once the class is feeling a little more confi dent, invite them to start 
designing characters from scratch in their sketchbooks. Choose 
one emotion, such as angry, and ask the class to spend 10 minutes 
drawing a range of angry facial expressions and gestures for their 
characters. Suggest they get the 
body
to show the emotion. Repeat 
the exercise with different emotions.
The point of this is to:
learn how to draw quickly and loosely
express emotions with the whole fi gure, not just the face
Materials:
Pencils, A4 or A5 photocopy paper or sketchbooks
Resources:
Expressive Lines handout:
Creating Expressions:

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Getting Started