The Famous Artists Cartoon Course – Lesson 1: The Comic Head

I was born in 1950, and I was reared in a small, rural farm community. But that didn’t keep my dad from studying cartooning. He was one of the original students of the Famous Artists Cartoon Correspondence Course, and I grew up copying pages out of his workbooks. That’s how I learned to draw.

I’m thrilled that the invaluable material from those books has finally made it to the public domain. I plan to share the lessons from that course. I’m starting with Lesson 1: The Comic Head.

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Notice how the Guidelines for the Facial Features Wrap around the Sphere.

“In starting to draw the cartoon head, think of it as being like a child’s balloon–something that has thickness as well as height and width. The balloon has depth–a third dimension. If you let yourself think of it as a flat circle, you will end up with a lot of characters drawn without any feeling of solidity. Remember that the head is a sphere, and when the features are placed on its surface properly, they will give the effect of being drawn a curve rather than a flat pane.” Famous Artists Cartoon Course, page 3.

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“For this first lesson, all the materials you need are some soft pencils (2B or 3B), some 8.5 x 11″ Bond typing paper [copy paper now], and an Artgum or kneaded rubber eraser, and you are ready to work.” Famous Artists Cartoon Course, page 3.

Jacki Kellum Drawing Supplies

Disclaimer — I NEVER use mechanical pencils. Period. I recommend the following supplies for learning to draw cartoons.

Ticonderoga Pencils Number 2. Don’t get the colorful Ticonderogas with colorful erasers. Those erasers don’t work well. Just buy regular school pencils, but get the Ticonderoga brand–the pencils are yellow. You can buy them on Amazon, Dollar General, WalMart — EVERYWHERE.

But if you use these pencils, you will also need a pencil sharpener.