Visual Storytelling Workshop Series

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Visual Storytelling Workshop Series

An online workshop series focused on developing a comics practice.

Learn about the vibrant and changing world of visual storytelling through comics, storyboards, illustrations and graphic novels. 

Explore the art of building stories through text and image during this series of online workshops. Each workshop includes creative drawing prompts, class discussions and tailored feedback. Together, we will look at the construction of graphic narratvies – from woodcuts to webcomics – developing our own projects along the way. 

Learn foundation skills visual communication, as well as special comics techniques, through:

  • live demonstrations
  • step by step exercises
  • hands on practice
  • time for individual style and expression

Visual Storytelling Workshop Series consists of different modules, each focused on a different aspect of developing your visual language. 

The teaching develops organically with each module over the course of the year, but if you start mid-year you will be guided into the overall process.

Individual tutoring and specific exercises will respond to the goals, struggles and needs of each student. Complete beginners are welcome and you are invited to join at the start of any module, or leave and come back. This workshop series is for anyone that is developing their own comics series or graphic novel or just wants to explore different aspects of visual storytelling. For those further along in their creative journey, this can also be a place to get feedback on long term projects.

When I found Ali's course, I had the feeling this is a bit different. Ali offered a nice mix of warm up exercised, theoretical input, feedback, answering questions, sharing own experiences and several drawing exercises. She encouraged the participants to create and stick with a character. Since the course happened over a long period and I got feedback and input every week, it was possible to get into a process and develop something. I created a wolf character, who is now part of several comics I've made and still make. I also liked Ali's political awarness and openess. I didn't had a favorite exercise, but I liked a lot, that we started with a short warm up, did another longer exercise and did a long exercise in the end of each class.
Maria Preußmann @mitziberlin
Participant in the Visual Storytelling Workshop Series

Online Workshop Modules for 2023

Join at the start of any workshop, no matter what level you are at. 

  • Visual Storytelling Workshop – 6 Weeks 
  • Developing Comic Characters – 6 Weeks 
  • Wednesdays 6-8pm CET
  • (Starts 6pm in Berlin, 12pm in New York, 9am in San Francisco, 5pm in London) 
4_Fitzgerald_nursery

Writing and Illustrating a Graphic Novel​

Ali Fitzgerald: artist-instructor and graphic novelist

Ali Fitzgerald is an artist and writer living in Berlin. She is a regular contributor to the New Yorker as well as the New York Times. Her work has also been published in the Guardian, New York Magazine: The Cut, Modern Painters Magazine, McSweeney’s and elsewhere. Her art has been exhibited internationally, including the Haus am Luetzowplatz in Berlin, the Center for Book Arts in New York and the Austin Museum of Art.

In 2017 she was awarded the Cornish CCS fellowship at the Center for Cartoon Studies and in 2018 the Georgia Fee Residency with Artslant in Paris. In the Spring of 2018 she collaborated with the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art on a series of drawings about Magritte. In 2020 was a fellow at the Maison des Artistes in Angoulême, France.

Her graphic nonfiction book, “Drawn to Berlin,” about teaching comics in refugee shelters and Berlin’s evolving relationship to Bohemia and immigration was named one of the top ten comics of 2018 by New York Magazine:Vulture and received the Independent Publisher’s Award for Best Drawn Book of 2018.

She has conducted visual storytelling workshops at the National Library of Germany in Frankfurt, the University of Bath, Shakespeare and Company in Paris, Davidson College, and Grafill in Norway and is skilled at directing individuals along their own comic journey. 

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I recently took a workshop with Ali Fitzgerald and it was absolutely wonderful! I am an illustrator, meaning I am used to working with single images, but I have always admired comic artists who work with multiple panels. Ali’s lessons were super insightful and she had so many simple and efficient tips that helped me actually put my single images together and tell a story with real emotional expressions and a storyline. Highly recommend it to any artists out there who are trying to take a leap into making comics or bringing their stories to life! But if you are a beginner this workshop will also be perfect for you 🙂 Ali is super patient, kind and willing to help with everything you might need.

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Heidy Wein

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Wendy M K Shaw

Starting in January, I began a course in Writing and Illustrating Graphic Novels with Ali Fitzgerald through Berlin Drawing Room.  Ali is a fantastic instructor. She helps you find ways into your work: generative exercises, critical examples, interviews with artists about methods and materials. She also encourages you to find the ways to have fun. I was really intimidated by the idea of graphic novels – the undertaking seemed too daunting- but working with Ali and alongside artists with widely different approaches has been so helpful and inspiring.

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Maria Preußmann (Visual Storytelling Workshop Series with Ali Fitzgerald, 2021)

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Catherine Lupton (Drawing Workshop, 2013)

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