Story and photo by Jake Dowling, Icon summer intern
Isaac Schumacher of Bluffton, a sophomore graphic design major at Bluffton University, loves to sketch and draw.

"When I was a kid, I liked to do little cartoons," he said. "Even though I never believed it would become an actual career, it has always been a passion of mine."

Little did he know that his talents are helping students in classrooms all over Ohio this spring.

2011 was the 150th anniversary of the Civil War, and the Ohio Newspaper Association wanted to do something special for the occasion.

"They wanted drawings to help kids better understand the Civil War," Schumacher said.

The ONA was interested in having someone draw images of the Civil War then use those images, along with stories, in classrooms for grades kindergarten through 12 to help students with reading and comprehension.

Later, the stories and images were showcased in various Ohio newspapers as part of Newspaper in Education, which funds newspapers throughout the state to classrooms for students to read.

"It was a project that the ONA came up with and I was interested in it," Schumacher said.

Schumacher contacted Ann Coburn-Griffis, whose husband, Steven, is a freelance writer from northwestern Ohio who has written several serialized stories that have been publicized across the United States.

"They decided to give it to me because I was a college student and they thought it would be a good opportunity for me," Schumacher said.

The project turned into a series of stories written by Coburn-Giffis titled "Josh Franklin's Far Out Family Blog." The stories were accompanied by reading content questions and activities and vocabulary words used for teaching material.

Later however, Schumacher's artful work would soon show-up in Ohio newspapers.

Publications such as The Lima News and the Sentinel-Tribune in Bowling Green, published the stories with Schumacher's drawings. Other newspapers in Cleveland and Akron will soon have his work in their papers, too.

"I really enjoyed this project and I would like to do something like this again in the future," Schumacher said.

Each sketch took a couple of days to complete, but the in-depth drawings took a little longer. Schumacher's drawings were done by pencil because he was comfortable with using pencil the most.

"I am more of a sketch person; I like to draw using pencil. I like painting but I would rather use pencil," he said. "I used pencil just because I thought that using pencil kept the drawings in that kind of old Civil War look and I liked it like that."

Schumacher made one drawing for each chapter that coincided with the text. Every drawing was accepted.

"This was the first time I had to draw something while on a deadline because in the past, I was always on my own schedule," Schumacher said. "So I had to think 'how I was going to get everything done in a timely manner?'"

Schumacher had roughly a month, from December 2011 to January of this year, to turn in 10 drawings. Though he never worked under a tight deadline before; Schumacher believes it was a good learning experience.

"The main thing I learned was how to have a distinct agenda to follow, not just, whatever I wanted to do, but doing something specific, such as the Civil War, was easier for me to focus on," he said.

Before taking on this project, Schumacher's work consists of drawing covers for church events, such as Bible studies and drawings for different youth events.

"I would definitely like to do something like this again in the future," he said. "It was a great experience."

Moving forward, Schumacher plans to take graphic design classes, as well as working with the Bluffton University public relations office.

"I think taking more classes will help me do more of what I want to do in the future such as drawings to help kids and other graphic drawings to help organizations down the road," Schumacher said.

Click the link to see ll of Schumacher's drawings. http://www.ohionews.org/2012/01/06/nie-offers-newspapers-far-out-family-....