Clipart & Drawings for Classroom Projects

Earlier this week I shared ClipArt ETC and Clippix ETC as good resources for locating free clipart and pictures to use in classroom projects. That was the third post this fall that I've published to feature a good place for teachers and students to find free drawings. To summarize all three of those posts I recorded a short video about all three of them. 

In this new video I demonstrate how to use the following places to find free clipart and drawings for classroom projects:

• CocoMaterial
• Openverse
• ClipArt ETC

Applications for Education
ClipArt ETC and CocoMaterial only host clipart and drawings. Openverse also hosts images so it's important to teach students how to use the filters on Openverse if they want to find drawings. It's also best to limit Openverse to high school age or older.

Check the license terms before using any of the images from ClipArt ETC or Openverse. ClipArt ETC is strictly for classroom use. Openverse has a mix of license terms ranging from public domain to strict citation requirements.

An Encyclopedia of Comic Artists

Peanuts drawn by Charles Schulz, Calvin and Hobbes drawn by Bill Watterson, and The Family Circus drawn by Bil Keane were the comics that I was drawn to as a kid. By the time I became a high school teacher my students didn't recognize any of those comics and I didn't know the ones that they were reading. In short, my knowledge of comics and their artists was limited to what appeared in the Sunday newspaper when I was a kid. Does that sound like you? If so, you may also be interested in looking at Lambiek's Comiclopedia. 

Lambiek's Comiclopedia is an online cyclopedia of more than 14,000 comic artists. You can search the Comiclopedia by name, you can browse through it in alphabetical order, or simply click through the random artists featured on the homepage on the day that you visit it. Every listing includes a biography of the artist, some background on their comics, and some examples of their work. 

Applications for Education
Comiclopedia could be a good resource for people who want to get to know a little bit about the comics that their students are reading. And it just might inspire you try making comics in your classroom. If that turns out to be the case, you'll want to check out MOMA's four part series about creating comics.

H/T to Open Culture.