VISUAL LITERACY : SOPHISTICATED PICTURE BOOKS

How do illustrators evoke emotion?

What do they want us to discover about the characters/setting etc without telling us in words?

What associations surface in your mind?

The following techniques are designed to influence your responses

• Cropping – cutting off parts of the picture
• Light – is one part of the picture darker or lighter than another?
• Visual weighting – altering the proportions of the picture
• Colour – provides many signals, black and white shades, contrast
• No frames – the picture becomes visually part of the story
• Focal distance –
• White space – unused space
• Line – is it straight, thick, thin etc
• Breaking the frame – part of the picture comes out of the frame
• Size and scale – emphasizes one of these aspects
• Multiple frames – more than one frame ie picture
• Perspective – from whose perspective is this scene seen?
• Font style – relates to story/atmosphere/time/character
• Directionality – perspective
• Shape – circles (no sharp edges – family), triangle (stability), square (sharp edges)
• Composition

(see below for greater detail)

Images can be manipulated to control or persuade you to think in a certain way – think about this in terms of advertising!

Questioning The Pictures

§         Say what you notice about the pictures

§         Think why the illustrator may have done this

§         Think about what it means in the story

§         Can you link the story to another story or a prior experience?

Colour:

• Think of the dominating colours – warm or cool
• What do they make you think of? How do you feel?
• Are the colours bright, pale, same, contrasting?
• Why has the illustrator used these colours?

Light

• Does a particular object have more light on it than others?
• Is a certain mood created by use of light?

Shape

• What shapes are  mostly used?
• What effect do these shapes have?
• Why has the illustrator used them?

Composition

• Look at the foreground/background
• Think about what dominates the picture and the effect this has.
• Where is your eye drawn to? How? Why? What effect does it have?

Frame

• Is there a frame around the picture? Why/to what effect?
• Look for internal framing/external framing.

Movement

• Does it look as though the characters/objects are moving?
• Will they move?
• How does the illustrator give a still picture movement and energy?
• Notice the way the characters face.

Line

§         Look for lines drawn in bold/light, flowing/disconnected – what is the effect?

§         Take note if some objects are shaded or fully coloured.

Size and Scale

§         Do objects/characters appear larger/smaller in relation to others?

§         What effect does this have?

Close up/Long shot

§         Is the subject focused on close up or with a background?

Perspective

§         Are you looking straight at an object or down on it or up at it?

§         What is effect and how does it make you feel?

Use of White Space

§         How does the use of white space affect the picture?

§         Does it draw your eye to it or give a feeling of loneliness?

Motif

§         Look for repeating symbols that seem significant.

Did  you notice that I used different fonts???? Why?????