Cartoon Network

Over hot cups of coffee and many more beers, Stephan Timmers, who has drawn cartoons for Delta, gave it his all during the cartoon workshop, inspiring the fifteen participating students of various engineering and scientific studies, many of whom hadn’t picked up a pencil since high school art class.



Best joke

Starting with a short introduction about his work and interests, Timmers went on to give the workshop participants tips on drawing, sketching and coloring the cartoons they were asked to draw based on the theme, ‘Life of an international student’, with the participants competing under various pre-selected categories, including ‘Best Drawing’, ‘Best Joke’ and ‘Worst drawing’. “I’m competing for the worst drawing category,” joked Rohit Kacker, who confessed that his tryst with art has been a rough road. “I’m going to make my favorite joke a cartoon”, he added, chuckling. While one could easily pick out the architecture and industrial design students among participants, owing to their quick, flamboyant sketches on paper, the other engineers seemed a thoughtful lot, sketching patiently while showing surprising levels of dexterity.



Stereotypical characteristics

With topics ranging from satires of the Dutch based on their stereotypical characteristics of being thrifty and direct, others focused on the Dutch weather and toilets or drew on the drawers’ personal experiences, such as creatively expressing their first impressions of the international experience. Laura Coman, who drew inspiration from her experiences in Delft for her cartoon, found the workshop really fun. “It’s a welcome change from the daily student life,” she exclaimed between bites of her pizza.

There were also some political cartoons from the Dutch participants, with topics ranging from budgetary spending involving the TU Delft administration to Coen Vermeeren finding aliens and then flying off. “It was awesome, to organize and participate at the same time, and it would be great to organize more such events in the coming months to get people from different backgrounds to interact,” replied Klaas Pieter, one of the organizers, when asked to evaluate the event. As the participants easily lost track of time, the event ran way past its scheduled end, and the organizers eventually had to bring the fun day to an end.



Brutal honesty

While everyone had sneaked and peeked at each other’s cartoons throughout the session, the cartoons were arranged on desks so everyone could take a look and laugh heartily at the completed ones. Anna

Wójcik’s cartoon about the Dutch ‘G’ was unanimously voted the Best Cartoon, while a satire on the Dutch and their brutal honesty, by Marie d’Oncieu, was adjudged a close second.

“I’m extremely happy to see the participants pick up a pencil and get to sketching straightaway. Many mentioned not having sketched in so long, but I admire the fact that it didn’t stop them one bit,” said Timmers, a visibly happy teacher. “There’s so much talent, and each has their own style,” he added, while nodding vigorously in affirmation to the suggestion that more such workshops should be held in future.