Cartoons, anyone? (click to enlarge)

I know many homeschoolers, who are unschoolers (which means they are homeschoolers that don't follow a 'boxed' curriculum). They are child-led, or they follow their children's interests and go from there. Although we are not unschoolers, we do have some unschooling tendencies.

One of these areas would be Tyler and his cartooning. A couple of years ago, he developed a deep interest in this. Each day, after his book work was complete, he'd stash himself away, in some corner of the house and cartoon. Completely on his own and of his own accord, he taught himself. No help from Mom or Dad, totally on his own (mom has trouble drawing a stick man. :\)

He had his work looked at by a couple of accomplished cartoonists and a professional commercial artist. They all commented positively on his work as each asked or commented something to the effect of "Art must be his favourite subject in school" or "He must get really good marks in Art" or "His Art Teacher must be pleased with these." They were even more shocked when they found out there was no teacher nor had there ever been. ;-)

They were able to offer encouragement to him along with a glimpse into the way the industry operates. They advised him to put together a portfolio and what steps he could take next in his pursuit.

At age 14, he approached a couple of our local newspapers. One of them ran his cartoons on their website.

A friend of ours, who ran the site for his son's bike club, also put some of Tyler's cartoons on that site (Thanks, Rick!)

He is hoping to pursue cartooning, in one form or another, as a career. He continues to read and work on improving his technique. He's been experimenting with drawing cartoons, scanning them into the computer and then using the computer to colour them. He's even tried his hand a a couple of political cartoons. He reads biographies of famous cartoonists and gains encouragement and knowledge from them.

He continues in this unschooling vein to become a cartoonist.

Who knows....one day....he may just be.

(These are just a few of his earlier ones --- he's done many different types but haven't been able to scan a lot of them in yet)