Artist Gareth Colliton hosted the session on Saturday at Koroit’s Blackwood Centre which included basic cartooning steps and techniques and participants were given materials to produce a comic strip. 

The Warrnambool Art Gallery curator of exhibitions and outreach shared his love of comics with the 15 young attendees.  

“They were into it,” Colliton said. 

“I said to them at one point, because they were all so quiet and busy, I said ‘are you kids always this quiet at school?’ They all looked up and went ‘No’ and went back to it. It was great.” 

Moyne Shire Council hosted the second of three FReeZa workshops to engage the shire’s young people in different art forms. 

“I’ve always thought of comics as a great medium because they’re visual and literary combined. Often in Australia we think of superheroes but the kids were talking about what they did this morning or a football game they played the day before (in their storylines).”

Colliton shared tips and ‘trade secrets’ with participants, as well as plenty of encouragement.

Billee Baxter, 12, of Panmure, said he didn’t know much about cartooning prior to the session and enjoyed learning new things and different ways to draw.

Ana Gaston, 15, of Warrnambool, said it was interesting to learn about the different elements such as drawing a rough draft, using pencil and the concept of storyboarding.

“It gives kids a real confidence boost knowing how other artists work,” Colliton said. 

“There’s a mythology that artists are amazing and we get it right all the time. We don’t. We make millions of mistakes. We make way more mistakes than what things we get right, but it’s learning how to do that and teaching the kids that is really vital, because they get disheartened.”

The workshop was a trial for Moyne Shire Council but based on its popularity and the teens’ enthusiasm, Colliton said there may be scope to run something similar in the future.