Artist Talk and Cartooning

Join OCAD Sessional Instructor and alternative cartoonist and illustrator Sami Alwani for a cartooning workshop and an artist's talk describing his career over the last ten years of publishing, including a discussion of the themes he examines in his work.  

Comics have the power to express an artist's most complex and intimate thoughts and experiences into a medium that combines the advantages of both drawing and writing. Best of all, the creator has complete creative control over every step of the process, ensuring that their project is truly their own unique vision.  

In our drawing exercise students will study how cartoonists and illustrators often think about designing characters and environments by using and combining basic shapes and forms like spheres, cylinders, cubes and cones. We will draw these forms in perspective and break down how we can use them to draw everything from an ice cream cone to a complicated piece of architecture. 

 The ideas described in this workshop are an excellent jumping off point for anyone interested in drawing and can be used in a sketchbook, or as a launchpad for larger projects like comic books, editorial illustrations, fine art paintings and much more! 

Sami Alwani is a cartoonist and illustrator based in Toronto. His work has appeared in Best American Comics, Vice, The Globe and Mail, CBC Arts and Broken Pencil. Sami received a Doug Wright Award for his story “The Dead Father” in 2018, a second Doug Wright Award in 2022 for his book “The Pleasure of the Text,” and an Ignatz Award for his comic "The Happy Art" in 2024. He also works as a Sessional Instructor teaching Illustration and Nanopublishing at OCAD University.