Mr Donut was born
the day after my son's gerbil died. Ryan was in the second grade and
planned to take his gerbil to school for show'n'tell. After a
backyard ceremony, complete with a matchbox casket and a
popsicle-stick cross, I volunteered to go to his school the next day
and talk to the class about cartooning.
There's not much to talk
about . . . I ended up drawing at the blackboard and insisted the kids
have paper and pencil and join in. I didn't have a plan or a routine
so we just made simple drawings. I'd drawn with my three children for
years and came to the conclusion that children are born cartoonists.
The kids were excited and their drawings amazing. The next week
my phone rang: Would I come back to school and do the same thing for
the fourth grade? Then another grade school called; would I visit
their fifth grade ?
This was going to be a popular
demonstration and I needed a schtick.
Fortunately, some teachers sent the drawings and a "thank you" note
to the newspaper and I saved them. I took the drawings home, spread
them out on the living room carpet, and studied them. What hit with
the kids and what missed? Accent the positive, eliminate the
negative.
The art of cartooning is
simplicity and exaggeration. I'm a traditional "big-foot-big-nose"
cartoonist, so to simplify my main character I started with a large O
for the head and a small o for the nose. The fourth grade class I
tried the design out on started yelling, A DONUT ! It caught their
attention and Mr Donut was born. Confident of my new routine I was
anxious to try it on some third graders the next week. Big O, small o
on the board: When you look at this, what do you think of? A small
hand waved eagerly in the front row. Yes? "A fried egg." From that
day on I prefaced Mr Donut with, "When you walk into a bakery and look in the case . . ."
Mr Donut taught hundreds of
school children basic cartooning for years (everyone had success) and
has appeared in Washington, California, Louisiana, Ohio, Nevada,
Mexico, England and Ireland. I hope now he will interest people in
the rest of the World. Or the Universe. We know you are out there.