The bell has just rung at Fernand-Seguin school in Montreal. As the hallways teem with students heading to class, Tristan Demers welcomes La Presse to the teachers’ room.
The cartoonist has just returned from Sept-Îles where he participated in the book fair. His time on the North Shore will have left him with a memory: tendonitis in the wrist, courtesy of some 500 signatures of the weekend.
Despite his brace, the kids’ favorite author and illustrator will spend the morning drawing with two groups of 4th graders.
It must be said that Tristan Demers is not used to stopping. In addition to creating comic strips for young people, he writes documentary books for adults (like Québec 90, which will be published this year) and albums for children (including his most recent, La Chasse aux Biscuits). The one who hosted different DIY shows also designs sketchbooks.
Obviously, Tristan Demers does not hold in place. The fast-paced talkative artist loves when there’s action. It is perhaps for this reason that he succeeds in capturing the attention of young people, a generation accustomed to immediacy, he analyzes.
This morning, as soon as he enters the classroom, the eyes of about twenty children turn to him and will not leave him for the next hour and a half. (The students, who have good manners, greeted the representatives of La Presse, have no fear.)
On the large white sheets hung on the board, the drawings appear at a steady pace, despite the illustrator’s wrist tendonitis. Two babies, a unicorn and, of course, Gargoyle follow one another.
“I take a little 5-10 minutes to introduce you to my universe. After that, we’ll talk about yours, “says the cartoonist.
When he started giving workshops in schools 35 years ago, young Tristan Demers offered advice on how to draw well. At 50, the message he wants to convey has changed. He wants to give young people the desire to imagine.
“If I draw a fish, do I draw it in water or in space? I make a bunny. Is he eating carrots or cheesecake? he asks the students. These, fascinated, quickly understand that when you draw, you can let go of your madness.
Looking for a long-necked animal to illustrate, Tristan Demers asks the children for help. “A giraffe,” they reply in chorus. “I won’t make a giraffe, you see everyone said the same thing. Originality is the rarest idea. There are other long-necked animals whose names don’t come to mind in less than a second,” he explains.
Ostrich, llama, emu, dromedary, flamingo… the choices are indeed multiple, realize the young people.
“You have to accept that your idea which is going to be better and which is going to stand out is going to come after everyone else’s. »
For the past fifteen years, the cartoonist has noticed that young people no longer allow themselves the space necessary to let their imagination run wild. “I think basically the kid has lots of ideas, but before, he was bored,” he explained in an interview. He was playing in the park, in the alley. He grabbed a branch, it became a sword or a telescope. There, not only does he spend a lot of time in front of the screen, but his father buys him a sword that lights up at Dollarama. He no longer sees that the branch can become one. »
According to him, the judgment of others is also too important in the minds of this generation.
Far be it from him to throw stones at anyone, however. “It’s really a social problem, and I include myself in it,” says the author who reflected on the subject in the essay L’imaginaire en déroute.
However, he is convinced that the workshops offered by artists in schools help to awaken the creativity of children.
What would he like young people to take away from his presence today? “Creative freedom and the power of art,” he replies. By being more free, you are less restrained. You put less tags on yourself. You find out where it takes you. The power of art, it does not go down the throat in a theoretical way, it is seen by living it. But to live it, you have to let go. »
After inventing funny characters from numbers and letters, Tristan Demers invited the students to do the same. The only limit? Formal ban on erasing, since beautiful ideas can arise from a “line that we had not foreseen”. This is where their creativity took them.
