Learn the Magic of Drawing Manga with Chalk
How My Love of Manga Led to Teaching Kids How to Draw Manga with Chalk
I loved anime before I knew what it was, back in preschool and elementary school. They were special cartoons on TV, and their art style was a little different from a lot of other cartoons, but I was gripped by their stories.
But when I got older, I realized what anime was and began actively seeking out new anime to watch. I loved their art and their stories. And getting into a new series led me to reading my first manga.
Since then, I’ve been a devourer of manga. I love to read in general, and manga books are often in my face. I read all kinds of manga — shonen, seinen, shojo, josei, but more often the stuff aimed for female readers.
This led to a writing career partly in the manga world. I’ve reviewed manga, adapted manga into English, broken manga news.
And now I’m an author of books about manga.
This started with Manga Art for Beginners, a bestseller. I worked on that with Melanie Westin, an American artist and manga fan.
This past summer its sequel, Manga Art for Everyone, has come out. I worked on Manga Art for Everyone with Rena Saiya, a professional manga creator in Japan.
These are manga how-to-draw books, and they stand out from the competition for a few reasons. One, they show more steps than most art books do.
Two, Manga Art for Everyone was co-created with a mangaka, and shares information on how manga is made in Japan. That’s something you don’t find in American how-to-draw books.
But that’s not all we’ve published that stands out. This summer we also published Chalk Art Manga, the very first book in the world on how to draw in the manga style using chalk.
I’m talking sidewalk chalk, like so many American kids use. This is another early childhood love, and they’re coming together at last. When an editor at my publisher suggested I might create a manga book with chalk art, I jumped right on it.
I have seen people doing chalk art inspired by anime and manga. But that’s just been at anime conventions. With Chalk Art Manga, you can make chalk artwork wherever you have available sidewalk.
So how did this book come together? I began drafting what characters the book would have. One of the great things about chalk is the variety of colors.
Most manga are black and white, but with chalk art, you can make these characters pop with all sorts of vibrant colors.
And when it comes to chalk art, there’s more than just drawing an outline of the body and then filling it in with colors. If you want the look that really impressive chalk art has, there are a few techniques to keep in mind.
The first is smudging. After you color in the chalk, it can look blocky, with some chalk heavier in areas than others. This gives chalk art a lopsided look.
But if you smudge, you can smooth it all out.
And smudging is very simple — you take your finger — or a cloth, or wear a glove — and move it through the chalk until you get it all smoothed out.
This leads us to another technique that’s useful: blending. When you blend colors in chalk, you can have great effect on making the colors come together and to create new colors.
Blending has you coloring one color here and another there, and then smudging it all together. Chalk Art Manga shows exactly how to do this.
It also gives tips on supplies you can use (don’t worry, there aren’t many supplies needed.)
I also decided it was important that Chalk Art Manga be fun for people of all ages and artistic skill levels. So the book starts with easier drawings (kawaii foods, like candy and sushi).
These are done in only a few steps, so this is meant for kids and beginner artists (or anyone more skilled who thinks these drawings are cute).
After that, the book goes into animals (cat, hamster, T-Rex, unicorn, a cute monster). These are more challenging, but every step is shown to take away as much mystery as possible.
Next we show how to draw chibi characters in chalk art. This is followed by the more complex characters, the ninja, the magical girl, and the Harajuku girl.
These characters were inspired by manga I’ve read and I think would be popular with readers and artists.
Let’s talk about the Harajuku Girl, our last drawing. I’ve been fascinated by the bright, colorful styles of Harajuku fashion since I first saw them. The style is named after the area of Tokyo with the same name. It’s all enormously bright colors and over-the-top fashion.
Again, since the chalk book is in color, I realized this was a great medium for some Harajuku fashion artwork. Not everyone who reads manga might be aware of the Harajuku style, so this could even teach people more about a form of fashion in Japan.
The world of manga has come a long way as it grows increasingly popular around the globe. I’m honored to have written about it, and also thrilled to have worked as an author in the medium.
I hope my books on manga not only lead to lots of drawing, but they get people to read more manga as well and see why these graphic novels are so popular the world over.
Please see all my books on my author website at:
