flip books

Yes. Flip books are fun and easy to make. All young artists should give them a try. Henry made an excellent example based on his Flabacco series of characters. You guessed it. By the last page Flabacco has chopped off a demon head.


Flip books are good for teaching visual narrative. Have students think of a surprising visual scenario that conveys movement. Tell them to draw the final image. Encourage them to use a simple cartoon based drawing style. Have them draw fifty supporting images that precede their first drawing. Students will be surprised how quickly they can get through the process, especially when each image is just changed a micro bit.

Some details: Try to be as exact as you can when cutting the pages because the flipping will be better if you have all the same proportions. Use paper that you can see through (we used computer paper) and draw your image on top of the previous image so you can change each frame of your book proportionally. Draw images with a Sharpie style marker so the lines jump right off the page. Remember to leave room for the staples. The images in the flip book will be on the outside half of the page and the inside part of the page will be blank. The fatter the book the better the flip.