Art Gym: Live Drawing Workshops & Illustration Tutorials

Art Gym: Live Drawing Workshops & Illustration Tutorials

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Art Gym: Live Drawing Workshops & Illustration Tutorials
Art Gym: Live Drawing Workshops & Illustration Tutorials
How to actually draw creative thumbnails that tell a story

How to actually draw creative thumbnails that tell a story

+ Get your downloadable pdf for the next workshop!

Katie Stack's avatar
Adam Ming's avatar
Katie Stack
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Adam Ming
Jun 03, 2025
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Art Gym: Live Drawing Workshops & Illustration Tutorials
Art Gym: Live Drawing Workshops & Illustration Tutorials
How to actually draw creative thumbnails that tell a story
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Some thumbnails by Adam Ming for a nonfiction book about bugs and other creatures.

By now you might have heard of the upcoming Art Gym Workshop.

In this workshop, Adam and Katie will lead you through a series of 3 drills that are designed to push your creativity and get you drawing fresh ideas.

Through these exercises, you will walk away with:

  1. A way to create variety and interest in your kid book compositions.

  2. Experience putting together a series of thumbnails for effective storytelling and pacing.

A major feature of kids books are the page turns — how the characters, composition, and colors change with each page turn can really impact the story. In this workshop, you will have the opportunity to experiment with pacing based on the thumbnails you have drawn.

By the end of the workshop, you’ll have designed 3 spreads from Little Red Riding Hood. (This topic connects to the Environment Workshop. Paid subscribers: you could review that session as optional preparation for the Thumbnails Workshop, or complete it as an extension after this workshop.)

A vintage copy of Little Red Riding Hood. Folktales are marketable stories and are good to have in your portfolio.

So what will we do during the Thumbnails Workshop?

Here are some of the steps Katie and Adam will guide you through:

  • Read the text and select three pages.

  • Fill many thumbnails with creative ideas by using a fast-paced strategy that supports idea generation. See the pdf below for a sneak peek at the activity.

    • You’ll be asked questions such as: Can you zoom in or zoom out? Can the composition be shifted? What could make it more interesting or unique? Where is the horizon line?

  • Select the most successful thumbnails.

  • Arrange the thumbnails to create compelling page turns and pacing.

The strategies from this workshop will be applicable to your future work on thumbnails, and you will learn how to continue drawing fresh and creative compositions for your portfolio, book projects, and other work.

This workshop is intended for all levels. Seasoned artists will benefit from idea generation techniques, and beginners will learn about an important step in the book illustration process.

RSVP to join us here!

Paid subscribers, be sure to grab your downloadable sheet for the workshop:

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