is Manga.
Yesterday, I found this in the library. I showed it to Big, who was thrilled at the array of pretty girls with magical powers and long flowing hair 😉
We brought it home, and before I’d even risen this morning, she’d done two pictures from the book, both recognisably in the manga style. So this morning, we’ve had intensive drawing lessons all round! The floor is covered with bits of paper with part drawings, circles, lines, spirals on. My drawing pencils are out (we’ve learnt that ‘b’ stands for black 😉 which neither Tim or I knew), and I’m considering a run to Hobbycraft with the three pound off voucher from the local paper to get her her own drawing pencils, stacks of decentish paper, and maybe some brushtip felt tips for putting the colour on. Not sure what would be the best for the colouring to be honest, she’s already way outside my artistic experience here. Suggestions anyone? Plus does anyone have any suggestions of good manga that she might enjoy watching? Em? Nothing scary though please!
Amusingly, despite the fact that she’s working on drawing Manga (which must be a fairly specialised form of cartoon drawing), I’ve noticed that she is now covering the first lesson in that Drawing with Children book, practising all the elements of drawing at large. She’s really excited by it all, and later on I’m going to hook up the scanner and scan in some of her pictures so that we can keep a record of how it’s developing.
As for Small, he’s watching tv, playing with lego, and we had a search party to find Monkey after he spotted a picture of a relative online. About to clear a small amount of floor and find him some jigsaws.
It feels very harmonious here today, which is a vast improvement on yesterday, trust me, you are really glad that I couldn’t face sharing last night.
Downsides to the morning, I didn’t know the cat had been in overnight, and Big didn’t know that a cat scrabbling in a corner is a bad thing. Well, it wasn’t a corner. It was right under my chair. Yeuch. Thank goodness for wooden floors, so very easy to wash.
Comments
16 responses to “today's obsession”
I’d go for colouring pencils, good quality ones. but I’m hardly an authority 😉 Glad today is turnign out well, sorry yesterday wasn’t!
Dino has some 2 ended pencils (Crayola I think) that are pastel one end and strong/bright on the other. She’s used them and likes them – they might work. I’ll see if I have time to get to the library and see if Kiki is in – if it is I’ll get it out so you can take a look.
that looks like a great book – I wished I could draw in that sort of style when I did the portico painting at Christmas, I so wanted to create a japanese anime style character for each of them … thanks for the heads up, I needed something to make my latest amazon order up to the free postage mark!
And I’m with Kirsty, good quality colouring pencils at this stage – I bought a decent set when we got our Draw Write Now stuff and have looked after it carefully (right down to keeping all the pencils in the right colour order, but that probably doesn’t surprise you), and it’s great. Decent felt tips have their place as well though.
Decent pencils are a must because they make such a difference and you can get really effective shading that is just beyond cheap stuff. Having decent ones also helps wiht the whole producing decent pictures mentality.
We have lovely colouring pencils, which are not to go in with the general craft crud (though otherwise she can use them as she likes). But every time she uses them, I carefully sharpen them all after, and arrange them in shade order. Very satisfying. Even better than tupperwaring my hama 🙂
They had wonderful Lyra ones in WHSmith half price sale in Meadowhall,lyra are the best ones whih money can buy in my opinion,unless you go for adults ,then it had to be berol karisma,I did mt art exam with those never far away.
There are all the ones you get on sky (pokemon and the like) but there are vast arrays of better stuff out there!! If she likes the whole big hair girlie thing then Tenchi has a lot of that or Sailor Moon. Miyazaki stuff is always good (a great one I think is Kiki’s Delivery Service since its about a 13 year old girl whos off on her own doing her witches training) DiGi Charat is very cute! A lot of stuff you can find to download or on ebay. sorry brain not on properly at the moment….if I think of anything else I’ll let you know :o)
You could lead onto all sorts of interesting topics about Japan……
Em x
Just thought of Card Captor Sakura thats another good one! Thing about anime – LOADS of great strong females!
I’d go with the Lyra coloured pencils (which really do put the colour down nicely) or, for a bit more “effect” you could try watercolour pencils. Becca loves these as they colour nicely but then you can get a damp brush and smooth it all out and make brush effects.
Thanks for those suggestions Em. I think the magical girl style will go down well with her, so I’ll look out for some Sailor Moon 😉
And both Tim and I have an interest in Japan anyway, both martial artists in the past, so that links nicely.
Like the strong female thing 🙂
And to everyone who’s mentioned the Lyra pencils, I’ll keep an eye out for those too. Might have a look for some watercolour ones too, as I fancy a go with them!
We’ve got Spirited Away which you could borrow, but I don’t know if it’s too scary for her – will canvas opinions here.
Have never seen Card Captor Sakura, but Poppy does have a nice ring folder with her on!
We’ve been trying to get Spirited Away out from Blockbusters for months, it’s driving me loopy- I might just have to be very rash and buy it!
Lyra pencils are supposed to be very good. I’ve got the catalogue for the group so you could always tag an order on if you’d like.
ooh, that sounds good Nikki, thanks. Spent some time browsing for places which sell them last night but didn’t get very far.
Heather, it’s been watched *so* much here, it’s definitely been one that was worth buying. And it’s all cultural and educational, surely? 😉
Bit late coming in here but Spirited Away is fairly scary isn’t it!
And Card Captor Sakura the japanese version dubbed into English or Subbed if she’s a good reader is MUCH better than the hacked up americanised Cardcaptors where they butchered the story so much there isn’t much left of the relationships between the characters of the original AT ALL.