Art Inspiration: Thank You Stan Lee

RIP Stan Lee and Thank you.

  With the world getting so crazy all I see on the news channels is nothing but negative news, therefore I have been making it a point not to watch the news reports. Yet with all the news I almost missed the sad news of a legend passing early last week, Stan Lee. Most people know who he was and I will not go into details about his life or the contributions he made to the comic and entertainment world, but for me his contribution helped and inspired me in so many ways.

  Growing up I hated to read. Yes me, a teacher hating to read. I was more comfortable with math, science, shop class and the arts including music, but reading was a chore for me. I never took to reading and the only thing that I did enjoy was comic books or graphic novels today. I would reading different stories including X-Men, GI Joe, Superman to only name a few. I loved reading them because when I did, it did not feel like a chore. Eventually I did move on to novels and other reading material but these stories gave flight to my imagination and inspired me to create.  

  Today I enjoy drawing comic characters and I also created my own comic books. But most import is that I love to pass on my passion for drawing and reading comics to the students. I think that is my greatest joy and the one thing I have to say thank you to Stan Lee for. Without his inspiration I couldn’t inspire others.

  I drew a few characters inspired by Stan Lee’s stories and I hope they will in turn inspire others.

Thank you Stan Lee.

Thor

Venom

Ironman created in Illustrator

Art Inspiration: Comic Book: Page 1

 

Getting and finding inspiration is extremely difficult at the best of times. Yet I have been very fortunate to work with some people who push and inspire me every time I am with them, the students. No matter what I may think what they may have in store for me, the students throw those plans out the window and make up some new plans.

That was very clear when I did a Comic Book Club with the students. They range in age from grade 3 – 5 with a large variety of skills that they bring to the class. In the past I helped them to learn how to draw three-dimensional objects but they wanted something different, therefore I created a Comic Book Club for them.

The premise of the club was to teach the students the basics of comic book drawing but due to the amount of work involved I tried to keep the characters a bit simpler than I am use to and I standardized the characters for them. They wanted a super hero comic therefore I drew a lot of different characters they could choose from. They liked that idea but they had to choose up to 2 powers, a unique name and if they were either a hero or villain for their character.

They did a wonderful job drawing the book and they also enjoyed the story. The story line was the Legion of Doom (the villains) needed a new leader so they decided to create one. However they decided to use theirs’ and the League of Justice’s DNA to create him. Each student would be either a Hero or Villain but they were creating my character, the villain’s new leader.   Therefore the title of the Comic Book is “The Rise of Lord Ominous”.

Over the next few weeks I will be posting each finished page of the comic book and a few of the character drawing the students chose from for their character. I hope you enjoy the book and characters as much as the students did.

Girl Character 01

Girl Character 02

The Rise of Lord Ominous: Page 01