Story telling, illustration and digital books, language and creativity in the art room

For several years I have been working on refining an art project that involves a number of distinct phases.

• Research an artwork from art history
• Presenting the research about the artwork and artist involved in the form of an infographic
• Writing a story aimed at primary school aged children where the researched artwork plays a central role
• Illustrating the story using a variety of drawing and/or painting techniques, traditional or digital
• Designing the layout of the pages of the book where images and text have to be combined
• ….and finally, the presenting a completed book

I will write about the use of infographics as an alternative to report writing on another occasion, but here I want to focus most of all on the story telling, the illustration and the designing of an online book.  Due to the uncertainties of the way the school year was going to develop I decided early in this lengthy project that I was going to encourage the pupils to aim for a more digital based working process.  In the end virtually the whole class chose to go virtually completely digital.

The story, once the research was completed, was hammered out on the iPads the pupils work with.  Incidentally, I should mention that we are talking here of pupils aged 14 or 15 mostly, and as part of a bilingual education stream, the pupils are working in English, their second language rather than their native Dutch.

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Digital illustrations were produced using a variety of drawing apps, before these were then uploaded into the Canva app (also a pc application) to work on the page layout and overall design.  Even working on the relatively small iPad screen the pupils were able to produce some interesting and varied work. 

When all the pages are complete a .pdf can be exported of the complete book.

The pièce de résistance comes in the form of the Yumpu.com website that allowed the pupils to upload the raw pages to the site to generate an online digital version with three dimensional pages that can be turned. 

Click below to take a look at some of the possibilities the project offers from this year’s results:

Book One

Book Two

Book Three

Once we reach this point it is over to their teacher to grade the work on four criteria:

1. The interest, complexity, and engagement of their story writing
2. The use of English and grammar
3. The quality of the illustrations
4. The quality of the layout of the book

It is a lengthy project.  But in a world where we are all (and in the art department) are having to lean heavily on digital means, it is a project that offers interesting online possibilities for classes that have a little digital know how.

An Artistic Odyssey….

I don’t often post a complete article written by someone else, but Edith Pritchett’s prize winning short story did make me laugh. The link below takes you to the Guardian article about the competition.

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/nov/04/edith-pritchett-an-artistic-odyssey-jonathan-cape-observer-comica-graphic-short-story-prize-2018

An image and language project completed (CLIL activity)

I posted a while back about an extended content and language integrated learning project that I have been working on.

Book project and digitalization

The project in short has involved groups of pupils (aged 14-15) who have completed the following:

• Researched and analyzed, a group of artworks from the history of art that in some way have a relationship with one another
• Singled out one artwork and wrote a story (in English, their second language) for younger children in which the afore mentioned artwork played a significant role, and in this way is introduced to the younger readers
• Produced illustrations to accompany the story
• Photographed the images and combined them with the text to produce layouts for each page on their iPad
• Printed and bound the book for a finished project

That was the working process, and as my previous post illustrated there has been seen some good work made, the digital layout work being particularly pleasing to see.

The whole project though has today taken its final turn. I went with a group of nine of the pupils and a selection of the books to visit a primary school, De Fonkeling, where they are also working hard to get more English into the curriculum.

Here, my pupils then read the story books to the oldest children at the primary school (aged 11), explained the project and showed the illustrations.

I entered the school with a group of perhaps slightly nervous fourteen and fifteen year olds, but I left with a group who were clearly surprised by the attention that they were given and the rounds of applause that they received at the end of each story. The younger children played their part fully, filling feedback questionnaires about what they had heard and reacting so enthusiastically.  All in all, a very rewarding and authentic experience at the end of a long project.

Digitalization – finding the right fit

Forcing digitalization into education can be a painful affair. Some people might say ‘yes, that’s what they’re trying to do to the education situation that I work in!’  But that would be to misunderstand what I mean by forcing digitalization. I am absolutely for the use of digital technologies in education. What I mean though is that the use of computers, laptops, tablets and indeed phones have a place, of that I’m sure, but exactly what that place is may take time to find.

The school I teach at took a decision a few years ago to move to a form of computer aided education where every pupil works with their own iPad. I’ve been teaching art lessons with the possible digital dimensions that this offers for two and a half years now. Despite being one of the most progressive minded in the school when it comes to the iPad, I would also say that I am still finding my way with the device and uncovering the possibilities. It’s a fascinating process for me, and I think for my pupils.  Searching out for the opportunities where it offers extensions to a project, or perhaps simply something new and previously unconsidered.

A few of these curriculum enrichment situations have been exactly what I have been experiencing in the classroom this week and observing in the pupils results.

Last year I worked for the first time on a children’s book design project with the fourteen to fifteen year olds that I teach. In short, the pupils write and make an illustrated story book in which an artwork that they have previously researched plays a starring role.

Last year, each group of three produced and entirely handmade book. Illustrations were made, text was added either by writing it out by hand or printing it out on the computer and collaging it on to the illustrated pages. The results were satisfactory and in some cases good, but the problem we encountered in integrating the text was a bit of a puzzle. The classes worked well, but without the luxury of having the iPad to combine the language element with the illustrations.

This year though the situation is different and it is fascinating to watch. Groups are sharing tasks, stories are being written, handmade illustrations are being produced using the traditional materials, the artworks are being photographed, digitally enhanced where necessary before being inserted into page layouts and finally the text from the story is then laid on top.

I’m not quite finished with the assignment yet, but I’ve seen enough already to know that this is an example of digitalization extending a project into new areas. Groups are working genuinely as groups, sharing tasks and discussing what they are doing and working with a high level of engagement to produce and end product.  What was a good project has become an excellent one through a well-fitting digital extra element.

For those who are interested, the app we are using for the layout is the excellent Design Pad By Quark.

A rebus as a CLIL (content and language integrated learning) activity

rebus
ˈriːbəs/
noun
1. a puzzle in which words are represented by combinations of pictures and individual letters; for instance, apex might be represented by a picture of an ape followed by a letter X.

I’ve been experimenting with a short language and design assignment recently with my two classes of third years (14-15 years old) that I teach. As is often the case with a new idea or assignment, after the first use of the idea a little refining is necessary, but I think there is enough of a finished idea to share it here.
As the definition above a rebus is a mixture of images and text (often in the form of loose letters) that combine to represent a new word or phrase. The most surprising and satisfying rebuses are often those that make unexpected use of the phonetic sounds of particular sections of words.
The assignment was simple; create and illustrate your own rebus. This could be done as either a straight forward black and white, ink on paper illustration or made digitally on the pupils’ iPad or computer. I made a couple of clear requirements for the finished piece of work:
• The rebus itself must contain a minimum of at least two pictorial elements
• The rebus should be placed in front of an appropriate background
I offered an example of the word acrobat to illustrate the sort of possibilities I saw.

The language part of this assignment comes first in the working process. It is very much about opening your mind up to the way words are constructed and thinking about what visual possibilities may be on offer. You want your pupils to think hard and experiment for themselves. My suggestion is to do this part of the the work in class and under almost exam-like conditions. Do not allow your pupils to use their phones or other online devices. Typing ‘rebus’ into a search engine will throw up countless examples that the pupil most likely won’t be able to resist….and the language challenge in the assignment will as a result be largely lost. Instead you could perhaps give them all a dictionary to help them along!
Try also to encourage pupils away from the most simple, unsurprising and illustrative combinations. The word football illustrated by a foot and a ball is unimaginative and obvious. Elements that play into the phonetic sounds of parts of words or phrases are much more fun to play with an deliver a final artwork that becomes a sort of visual and language puzzle.
I chose to set the design work/illustration of the rebus as a homework assignment and gave the pupils a choice of what sort of materials or approaches to use. As I said at the beginning it is still a bit of a work in progress, but below are a few examples of my pupils’ work.

If you are not sure, the three above, in no particular order are ‘electricity’, ‘fireflies’ and ‘beliefs’.

If you are interested in more CLIL related activities click here.