I earned my Diploma in Cartooning from the London Art College. Thank you to every artist who has taught me something along the way, and who continue to teach me. That includes Lee J. Ames, Mark Kistler, John Byrne, Robert Langston, Jennifer Doherty, Christopher Hart, Dan Dougherty, Matt Groening, and of course, Basia Bhojraj.

Since I couldn’t travel to London for my graduation ceremony, I just drew it. Included in this picture are me, John Byrne from the LAC, and my cartoon family. Also, I just did an accounting lecture in which I used my cartoons to illustrate a point. Attached photo below for you all to view.

The following are testimonials for anyone who is thinking about enrolling on a course…

1) I absolutely loved the LAC Diploma in Cartooning program. The material was great, but what I appreciated more was the chance to interact with a professional cartoonist on a regular basis. John was happy to answer any of my questions about drawing fundamentals and the Cartooning business.

2) Enrolling in the LAC Diploma in Cartooning has opened my eyes to what I can accomplish through drawing. As an accounting teacher, my hope was to develop fundamental Cartooning skills to incorporate into my lectures, but now I am thinking of other ways to make money from drawing. Thank you John and LAC!

3) I think the LAC Diploma in Cartooning program will be what you make of it. I could have done the bare minimum to pass the course. However, with a resource like John Byrne, available to answer any of my questions about Cartooning and the Cartooning business, I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to put forth a strong effort. I found that the more effort I put into the course, the more I got out of it.

Nitin Bhojraj
Cartooning Courses

Have you ever wanted to try pastels however are a little hesitant as you didn’t know where to start? If so, our Pastel Panting Course might be perfect for you. If you are new to pastel painting or you would like a bit of a refresher course, we can propel you into to a wonderful explorative journey to help you gain your confidence with this beautiful medium. Student Elcin Ozcan has been working through our pastel painting course and has been looking at drawing simple objects such as garlic, fruit and glass vases. It’s all about lighting and Elcin has set up her objects with real care to the scene, working out her lighting, shadows and the background behind the objects too. We hope you are inspired to pick up a set of pastels today!

We have discussed drawing portraits in some of our previous posts and how difficult and daunting it often is to draw a full facial portrait of a person. So on a number of courses – portraiture painting, Beginners Drawing, Beginners Painting or the Drawing and Painting Diploma – all give you the chance to study facial features.

This is exactly what student Evelyn Sichrovsky has done here. She also has created studies of hands and feet which also can be pretty tricky to draw. Evelyn has such a beautiful delicate touch that her studies are completed artwork in themselves. The study of lips below is stunningly beautiful and we know that our readers will be very impressed by Evelyn’s skill and style of drawing. We hope that it has inspired you to study facial features similar to this – let us know how you get on!

Todays blog post is written by Graphic Design Art Diploma Course tutor Vanessa Weaver….

I have a student who has produced some lovely typographic work. Her name is Rosie Marnan and her response to one of the first lettering based tasks on the Art in Graphics course is definitely worth sharing. The requirement of the brief is to choose a word or phrase (or even random letters that don’t spell a real word) and explore contrast through changing different elements, such as font style, weight, width and colour. Rosie has produced a very attractive solution that not only generates interest, but also creates a lot of movement too. It is well finished, with excellent hand rendering skills. I hope that everyone enjoys viewing it!

Vanessa Weaver

This weeks Spooky Saturday Illustration is by student Jane Walker.

My name is Natalia Romankova and I am studying the follow on course to the Children Illustration Diploma.  I’ve not finished the follow-up course, but I had a few respectful reasons! Almost a year ago our family welcomed a new baby and now I’m a mom of 3 girls. Also in December 2017 a book with my illustrations was published. Within 2 weeks it became a bestseller on the most popular Russian book seller site.

The name of the book is “Asta, the hurricane. Geographic adventures”. It is about a girl named Asta who can travel with the wind. A wind takes the girl and moves her to another country where a girl or a boy is in need of help. Asta helps and then a wind returns her back. It is a set of short stories welcoming a young reader to the geography – mainlands, counties and their capitals, oceans etc.

Id like to take this opportunity to thank Maggy very much for her comments and help! It has really changed my life.

Natalia Romankova
Illustrating Children’s Books Diploma Course

My name is Valerio Morelli and I am a student of the London Art College, studying the Watercolour Diploma Course with Jem. I am at the seven assignment and I would like to share some work of mine with you. I hope you like it or can be helpful to someone who is starting with your school. I thank you for everything especially to the nice, helpful and great advice from Jem.

Valerio Morelli
Watercolour Diploma Course

Hello! My name is Julie Hollinshead and I have just completed the coloured pencil certificate course.

I picked up coloured pencils a few years ago to attempt pet portraits. I taught myself with some degree of success, but enrolled on this course to really learn how to use them properly and try some subjects totally out of my comfort zone.

Monica Cilmi has been wonderful throughout and I have felt I have improved technically. She was particularly taken with the portrait I submitted for the last set, of Mark Webber, an ex-racing driver.

I met up with Mark on Saturday, and he was impressed too! He even signed it for me.

Coloured pencils are not just for children, give them a go!

Julie Hollinshead

My name is Penny Winter and I am a student with the London Art College studying the Illustrating Children’s Books Diploma Course. My vision for the future after completing this course, is to continue developing a ‘style’ or ‘styles’ of artwork that can be sent to publishers as well as, to self publish my own story and illustrations.

The course is enabling me to experiment and try various techniques and for the first time, i am enjoying using pen and ink as well as coloured pencil crayons.Also I am loving the ‘wet on wet’ technique and combining it with collage and photographic imagery.

With a BA Hons in theatre design and having had greeting cards published, it is exciting to be on this new creative journey!
Being an early years practitioner and working with children from the ages of 2 to 5, I get to see their world of spontaneous creativity and it is lovely to see how free their expressive mark making is which I find is very inspiring.

Visit my Instagram #pawdesigns72

Penny Winter

Zansika Lachhani who is studying our Illustrating Children’s Books Diploma Course has just sent in her first set of work for tutor Maggy Roberts to review. Maggy was thrilled and sent it to us for inclusion on our blog. You cna read than maggy was excited to show both illustrations to our readers…

Zansika has just uploaded her first assignment and here are both images – brilliant – don’t you think! Please show them off!! Maggy

We have added the full scene of the assignment Row, Row Row your boat, along with some close up images to show the detail and time that went into creating the illustration. We have also featured it on our Instagram LondonArtCollege, come over and follow us there if you havent already! Zansika also created a wonderful collage piece for her assignment too, scroll down the page to see it in full. We are very much looking forward to seeing more work by Zansika in the coming weeks and months!

Zansika Lachhani
Illustrating Children’s Books Diploma Course