Seaside Holidays activity 12: design a comic seaside postcard

Comic postcards were popular in Edwardian times. One of the most original artists was Tom Browne, who produced some hilarious postcards based on the British seaside holiday.

Find out more about this incredible artist, who also created illustrations for early children’s comics, and inspired Charlie Chaplain to create one of his most famous movie characters.

Then create a new postcard inspired by his designs.

Learning objectives

Knowledge and understanding of seaside comic postcards and the work of graphic artist Tom Browne. Skills and confidence in creating a comic postcard inspired by his designs.

Curriculum links

KS1-2 Art and design (cartoon and caricature, design a postcard)

KS1-2 History (Local Area Study, seaside holidays).
KS1-2 English (writing postcards and reading them).

Show the children some of Tom Browne’s comic seaside postcards at Learn with Objects Seaside holidays 11: entertainments.

• What’s happening in the postcards?
  
• What do they tell us about Edwardian seaside holidays?
  
• Do you like the postcards? If so, why?
  
• What funny things have happened to you at the seaside that you could include in your own comic postcard?

Set the children the challenge to find some more Tom Browne comic postcards of Edwardian seaside holidays, and about his life as an illustrator. What else did he illustrate? Which famous comic actor did he influence? This excellent blogspot has all the answers…

https://lewstringer.blogspot.com/2010/03/tribute-to-tom-browne.html

Design a comic postcard

Give each child a piece of thick white A5 card. This is going to be their comic postcard.

Ask them to think of a comic scene (inspired by the ones they have researched, or incidents that have happened to them at the seaside).

They sketch out a rough design of it on scrap paper first, to make sure they are happy with both the content and layout. They might try two or three designs before they are happy. But should work quickly, spending no more than a few minutes on each. Go around and discuss the draft designs with the artists.

When they are happy, the junior illustrators lightly pencil their favourite design onto the card. Then block it out in bold colours, using gouache, poster paint (with small good quality art brushes), pencil crayons or wax crayons.

A black roller-ball pen can be used to create the outlines.

A short descriptive title might be written at the bottom, with the artist’s signature.

The back is reserved for a message from a Folkestone holiday-maker, telling family or friends about the exciting time they are having!

The class could even design and make an Edwardian postcard rack to display the postcards for sale.