Traditional Techniques in Graphic Storytelling

Explore Visual Storytelling with Emmy Award Winner Dario Bolivar
Join a vibrant community of creatives for this in-person course at CCNY’s Cunard Building on Wall Street, led by Emmy Award-winning artist Dario Bolivar. Designed for both beginners and experienced creators—no drawing experience required—this course invites students to rethink communication strategies and express ideas through compelling visual narratives.

Whether your tools of choice are pencils and sketchbooks or digital devices like iPads and smartphones, this course empowers you to work with what inspires you most. Rooted in traditional drawing techniques, the curriculum also embraces modern tools and software to help you bring your stories to life.

Through hands-on sessions and collaborative exploration, students will:

• Master traditional drawing techniques for comics and graphic novels.
• Empower old-school methodologies and the use of traditional media such as pencils and paper.
• Utilize sketchbooks or iPads effectively for brainstorming and storyboarding.
• Explore free and professional design software for enhancing illustrations.
• Draw inspiration from and relate the content of comics and cinema for enriched storytelling.
• Create a short, 6-page graphic novel combining traditional and digital techniques.
• Understand and apply emerging artificial intelligence tools relevant to graphic storytelling, with an emphasis on evaluating and adapting to the technologies available at the time of the course.

By the end of the course, each student will complete a fully realized six-page graphic novel that demonstrates their mastery of storytelling through images, reflecting their unique voice and artistic growth.

Examples of graphic storytelling you will learn to develop:

Spring Registration is Now Open

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 Meet the Instructor:

Dario Fernando Bolívar Gómez 

Dario Bolivar is a digital artist with experience in animation and illustration, educator and researcher in the areas of transmedia and motion graphics, has an extensive portfolio in illustrated books, multimedia and 2d and 3d animation projects in Colombia and the United States, winner of Emmy NY 2021 award.  Dario has a Masters in Multimedia from Universidad Oberta de Catalunya, July 2015, and a Bachelors in Graphic Design from Bellas Artes, Cali, Colombia, December 1999.   His areas of expertise are Multimedia Design Animation, Transmedia, and Digital 2d & 3d Illustration.    Visit his page to see his work.