Dove McHargue of SCAD's class in Arlington

On Friday night, my daughter and I got over to the Arlington Art Center about an hour after Dove McHargue started his class, Black and White Sequential Art -- The placement of compositional blacks. I had just planned to introduce myself and leave, but the class was well underway with about 10 students, including one dad who was there with his son. Dove was under the weather with a cold, but struggling through it as he showed several powerpoints on using inking to accent art. A lot of examples came from DC's Batman: Black and White books so I picked up volume 2 at a con yesterday. I think I had v.1 already. Dove gave the kids, who were all in high school, (and two dads) four pages from a Disney coloring book and suggested highlighting an element of each of the artwork. This was a very simple exercise to give out, but one that really made the kids (and me) think. There were a bunch of different solutions and Dove pointed out what worked and what didn't, talked about lighting, and was really very instructive. I personally found this absolutely fascinating and I have no desire at all to be a cartoonist. His explanation of how things work on the page was just really interesting. As the kids were working on their pages, he showed one of his black and white comic strips projected, and then how to color it with Photoshop - light dawned for me. If you have a chance, sit in on one of his sessions.