How do political cartoonists get their message across? Use this quick guide from the Library of Congress so you can start experimenting with how to share your ideas!

Career

Learn the techniques political cartoonists use.

Brainstorm 3 of the issues you care about most, then draw a political cartoon that focuses on one of these issues to show to your history or social studies teacher.

Make your own political cartoon!

Watch this tutorial on how author Jeff Kinney draws one of his most famous characters. Make some sketches and start developing your own series of cartoon characters!

Education

Draw like a cartoonist. 

Fine Artists

Create original artwork using any of a wide variety of media and techniques.

Artistic occupations frequently involve working with forms, designs and patterns. They often require self-expression and the work can be done without following a clear set of rules.

Artistic

Realistic occupations frequently involve work activities that include practical, hands-on problems and solutions. They often deal with plants, animals, and real-world materials like wood, tools, and machinery. Many of the occupations require working outside, and do not involve a lot of paperwork or working closely with others.

Realistic

Enterprising occupations frequently involve starting up and carrying out projects. These occupations can involve leading people and making many decisions. Sometimes they require risk taking and often deal with business.

Enterprising

First Interest High-Point

Investigative occupations frequently involve working with ideas, and require an extensive amount of thinking. These occupations can involve searching for facts and figuring out problems mentally.

Investigative

Social occupations frequently involve working with, communicating with, and teaching people. These occupations often involve helping or providing service to others.

Social

Conventional occupations frequently involve following set procedures and routines. These occupations can include working with data and details more than with ideas. Usually there is a clear line of authority to follow.

Conventional

Second Interest High-Point

Third Interest High-Point

Job Zone Three: Medium Preparation Needed

Fine Artists, Including Painters, Sculptors, and Illustrators

Artists and Related Workers

Arts, Design, Entertainment, Sports, and Media Occupations

Art and Design Workers

Use materials such as pens and ink, watercolors, charcoal, oil, or computer software to create artwork.

Integrate and develop visual elements, such as line, space, mass, color, and perspective, to produce desired effects, such as the illustration of ideas, emotions, or moods.

Confer with clients, editors, writers, art directors, and other interested parties regarding the nature and content of artwork to be produced.

Submit preliminary or finished artwork or project plans to clients for approval, incorporating changes as necessary.

Maintain portfolios of artistic work to demonstrate styles, interests, and abilities.

Create finished art work as decoration, or to elucidate or substitute for spoken or written messages.

Cut, bend, laminate, arrange, and fasten individual or mixed raw and manufactured materials and products to form works of art.

Monitor events, trends, and other circumstances, research specific subject areas, attend art exhibitions, and read art publications to develop ideas and keep current on art world activities.

Study different techniques to learn how to apply them to artistic endeavors.

Render drawings, illustrations, and sketches of buildings, manufactured products, or models, working from sketches, blueprints, memory, models, or reference materials.

Create sketches, profiles, or likenesses of posed subjects or photographs, using any combination of freehand drawing, mechanical assembly kits, and computer imaging.

Create sculptures, statues, and other three-dimensional artwork by using abrasives and tools to shape, carve, and fabricate materials such as clay, stone, wood, or metal.

Study styles, techniques, colors, textures, and materials used in works undergoing restoration to ensure consistency during the restoration process.

Develop project budgets for approval, estimating time lines and material costs.

Shade and fill in sketch outlines and backgrounds, using a variety of media such as water colors, markers, and transparent washes, labeling designated colors when necessary.

Collaborate with engineers, mechanics, and other technical experts as necessary to build and install creations.

Create and prepare sketches and model drawings of cartoon characters, providing details from memory, live models, manufactured products, or reference materials.

Examine and test paintings in need of restoration or cleaning to determine techniques and materials to be used.

Create graphics, illustrations, and three-dimensional models to be used in research or in teaching, such as in demonstrating anatomy, pathology, or surgical procedures.

Brush or spray protective or decorative finishes on completed background panels, informational legends, exhibit accessories, or finished paintings.

Trace drawings onto clear acetate for painting or coloring, or trace them with ink to make final copies.

Apply solvents and cleaning agents to clean surfaces of paintings, and to remove accretions, discolorations, and deteriorated varnish.

Model substances such as clay or wax, using fingers and small hand tools to form objects.

Collaborate with writers who create ideas, stories, or captions that are combined with artists' work.

Provide entertainment at special events by performing activities such as drawing cartoons.

Render sequential drawings that can be turned into animated films or advertisements.

Market artwork through brochures, mailings, or Web sites.

Photograph objects, places, or scenes for reference material.

Set up exhibitions of artwork for display or sale.

Frame and mat artwork for display or sale.

Teach artistic techniques to children or adults.

Acrylic paintbrushes

Alcohol lamps

Angle grinders

Artists' fountain pens

Artists' palette knives

Artists' palettes

Ball mills

Bevel tools

Brazing tools

Bush hammers

Bust armatures

Camera lenses

Ceramic bead bars

Clay cutters

Clay mixers

Computer data input scanners

Detail carving tools

Die grinders

Digital calipers

Digital hydrometers

Digital pyrometers

Digital scales

Digital thermometers

Digital viscosometers

Dipping tongs

Drying cabinets

Dust masks

Edging tools

Electric kilns

Electric potters wheels

Electric saws

Encaustic scrapers

Encaustic spatulas

Enlarger timers

Extruder dies

Fettling knives

Figure armature systems

Gas kilns

Glass kilns

Graduated measuring cylinders

Hand chisels

Hand glaze mixers

Handheld clay extruders

Handlemaker tools

Head armatures

Heat resistant gloves

Kick wheels

Kiln carts

Kiln oxygen probes

Kiln ventilation hoods

Laptop computers

Lens filters

Linoleum cutters

Loop tools

Mat cutters

Metal inert gas MIG welders

Mold knives

Oil paintbrushes

Oxyacetylene torches

Paint spray guns

Personal computers

Photo enlargers

Photo quality computer printers

Photography tripods

Plasma cutters

Pneumatic chisels

Pot lifts

Potter's ribs

Pottery cleanup tools

Pottery duster brushes

Pottery kilns

Power sanders

Print squeegees

Printing tongs

Processing trays

Protective safety glasses

Pugmills

Raku kilns

Raku tongs

Remote firing flashes

Riffler rasps

Round hole punches

Saber saws

Sandblasting guns

Sculpting thumbs

Sgraffito tools

Shielded arc welders

Single lens reflex SLR cameras

Slab mats

Slab rollers

Square hole cutters

Stationary lighting systems

Steel rasps

Stone carving chisels

Stone carving knives

Stone saws

Strobe flashes

Sumi paintbrushes

Tablet computers

Political Cartoonist

<p>In Boston, the Northern route team interview Jim Koch, founder of Samuel Adams and take a tour of the brewery. En route to Washington, DC, the Southern route team meets with Ann Tenales, Pulitzer Prize- winning political cartoonist. In DC, the Central route team sits down with Gabriel Garcia, independent filmmaker.</p>

Ann Telnaes

Political Cartoonist

Videos

Ann Telnaes

Milestones

Education

Career

Career Roadmap

My work combines:

My work combines:

Art

Politics

Communicating / Sharing Stories

Interviewed By

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