W5
Visual Literacy is the ability to
 interpret,
 use,
 appreciate, and
 create images and video using
both conventional and 21st
century media
In ways that advance
o
o
o
o
thinking,
decision making,
communication, and
learning.
The eyes are the most powerful conduit to the brain. They send information to the brain through 2 optic nerves, each
with 1,000,000 nerve fibers. The auditory nerve has only 30,000 fibers. The nerve cells devoted to visual processing
equal to 30 percent of the nerve cells in the brain, compared to 8 percent for touch and only 3 percent for hearing.
How might YOUR students use Technology and Visual Literacy as strategies to enhance their learning?
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Note making around two websites
Website elements
Types of images
What are the people doing?
What other images are
included?
Dominant colours?
Size & shape of writing?
Words you might use to
describe these schools?
Ideas communicated about organisation
Page One
Page Two
What Is a Picture Book?
A picture book is one in which text and illustration work in concert to create meaning
(Serafini & Giorgis, 2003). Often, picture books are viewed as literature for young children.
However, it is important to consider the picture book as a format that is not always indicative
of reader ability or interest level. The interplay of narrative and illustration is fundamental to the
book as a whole. In the best picture books the illustrations extend and enhance the written text,
providing readers with an aesthetic experience that is more than the sum of the book’s parts.
Picture Books-
suggestions for suitable books include
Cry Me a River – Rodney McRae
The Lorax – Dr Seus
Remember Me – Margaret Wild and Dee Huxley
Lukes Way of Looking – Nadia Wheatley and Matt Ottley
Old Pig – Margaret Wild
One Less Fish – Kim Michelle Toft and Allan Sheather
The Rabbits – John Marsden
Deliverance of the Dancing Bears – Elizabeth Stanley
Rose Blanche – Roberto Innocenti
One Child – Christopher Cheng and Steven Woolman
Jenny Angel – Margaret Wild and Anne Spudvilas
Line is the most commonly found element of design in picture books (Kiefer, 1995).
Horizontal lines suggest peace or relaxation while vertical lines indicate stability. Diagonal lines imply motion and
movement such as when a plunging diagonal line signifies falling, a loss of control, or speed. Circular lines convey
serenity, contentment, or safety, but disorganized lines signal disorder, chaos, or frenetic feelings. The use of thin
lines creates an elegant quality or indicates fragility, while thick or bold lines show strength or provide emphasis.
Uri Shulevitz’s (1969) Rain, Rain Rivers
windowpane to rushing rivers. Shulevitz
the rain coming down and thicker,
formed.
is a lyrical portrait of rain from the drips on the
uses thin, diagonal blue and green lines to show
circular lines to illustrate the puddles being
In contrast, Wolf! Wolf! by John Rocco (2007) uses bold, black brush strokes
cover to set the stage for the story. In this variation of the Aesop fable, thin
for the interior illustrations to provide detail to each character and to suggest
movement across the page.
In another example, Laura Vaccaro Seeger’s
Dog and Bear: Two Friends, Three Stories
unusual but profound friendship. These
coloured with bright, variegated hues and
on the book
lines are used
eye
thick, black lines outline the characters of
(Seeger, 2007) in this book about an
lines also highlight objects that are
are set against white backdrops.
Colour is one of the most expressive elements of visual design, as it conveys the mood or tone of a story. Colour
can range from a full spectrum, to various shades of gray, to black and white. Illustrators make a conscious choice
in the hue, tone, and saturation of a colour. Red is an attention- getting colour that can signify excitement and
happiness or danger and courage.
Yellow denotes happiness, as in the colour of sunshine, but it can also urge caution like a street sign. Blue is a
restful colour expressing calmness and tranquillity, coldness, and sometimes sadness. Green is often related to
nature, whereas warm and cheerful orange hints at the changing leaves and the coming of the fall season. Purple
is associated with royalty and can be a colour that suggests power and importance.
Author and illustrator Molly Bang is known for her successful use of art elements, especially colour. In When
Sophie Gets Angry— Really, Really Angry... (Bang, 1999) Sophie’s changing
moods are
depicted through the use of intense orange and red hues to show her
anger and
soothing blues and greens to envelop her as she “cools” down.
Illustrator Don Wood uses a
Napping House to illustrate
The blues and purples
restless flea.
monochromatic colour scheme in Audrey Wood’s (1984) The
this cumulative tale of people and animals engaged in slumber.
increase in brightness as the slew of sleepers is awakened by a
Patricia Polacco celebrates make-believe friends in Emma Kate (Polacco, 2005)
the use of expertly rendered black-and-white graphite drawings depicting
scenes and an enormous elephant alongside an imaginative girl in a brightly
dress.
Red is also the colour choice
and Falconer’s protagonists
them before moving across
through
backgrounds
coloured red
for Ian Falconer’s precocious pig Olivia (Falconer, 2000). Polacco’s
are the focal points of the story, and the eye goes directly to
the page to discover other unique aspects of the illustrations.
Space and shape, two of the elements of design, work together to form a finished work of art. There are two
kinds of space that artists use: positive and negative. Positive spaces are those occupied by the main subjects of
the illustration.
Negative space is the area around and behind the positive spaces and is often referred to as the background. The
shapes of positive spaces are generally determined by the shapes of the main subjects of the work.
However, negative spaces have shapes as well. If the subjects are removed from a piece of art, the negative
spaces are left with a blank space in the shapes of the parts removed. Therefore, the shapes of the negative
spaces are determined by the shapes of the positive spaces.
Ann Jonas’s classic book
illusions where the space
space while the space on
Round Trip (Jonas, 1983) presents a wonderful example of optical
that appears to be under the figure is considered the negative
top of the figure becomes the positive space.
The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle (1986) provides endpapers
book’s colour scheme and an apparently random display of white dots.
three-dimensional illusion starts with overlapping dots of colour using
positive space.
that highlight the
However, the
negative and
Texture is another design element that is found in illustrations and provides the illusion that something feels hard
or soft, smooth or rough. Often texture is created through collage and invites readers to “feel” the pages.
Lois Ehlert uses everyday objects and materials to create a layered effect in her books Top Cat (Ehlert, 1998) and
Pie in the Sky (Ehlert, 2004).
Denise Fleming creates her own vivid paper with unique colouring for her picture book illustrations in Mama Cat
Has Three Kittens (Fleming, 1998) and The First Day of Winter (Fleming, 2005).
Readers will want to touch the pages of these books in an attempt to feel the
illustrations and the texture they exhibit.
One of the most interesting elements that an artist uses is perspective or point of view. Perspective is the place or
angle for viewing the picture. Readers might be given a bird’s-eye view, which provides a sense of looking down
on a scene, such as in Jane Yolen’s Owl Moon (Yolen, 1987) as child and parent go “owling” on a crisp winter’s
night. Chris Van Allsburg’s Two Bad Ants (Van Allsburg, 1988) allows readers to experience a worm’s-eye view as
small insects invade what they believe is a bizarre world, but which is actually a kitchen. The middle third of an
illustration is considered the middle ground. Readers’ eyes are often drawn to the middle of the page in an
illustration and move either up or down.
Artists use the foreground or the bottom third of an illustration to place items or characters that appear closer,
hence drawing more attention. In the background, aspects of the illustration are smaller in size because they are
further away.
Discuss with the class picture books and what the students already know about them. Use the
following to structure discussion:
• Cover What does the cover tell us? What predictions can we make about the story?
o Teach: The purpose of a book cover extends beyond predicting to setting the story’s
mood or tone, visually introducing one or more characters, or highlighting a dramatic
or climactic scene in the book. A cover also provides the title and the names of the
author and illustrator.
o Examples: David Wiesner’s Flotsam(2006) intrigues readers with a
close-up of a large, red carp’s eye. Once the story has begun, readers
will discover that this eye is similar in appearance to the eye of the
Melville Underwater Camera that a boy discovers on the beach. When
the wrap-around book cover of Flotsam is laid flat, a larger portion of
the carp is revealed along with smaller fish that appear to be
swimming toward the eye.
o Detective LaRue: Letters From the Investigation by Mark Teague
(2004) depicts a different illustration on the back than the one
featured on the front cover. Canine sleuth Ike LaRue is shown peering
through a magnifying glass at paw prints that undoubtedly belong to
the feisty felines popping out of the trash can behind him. The front
cover is in shades of blue and gray while the full-colour back cover
shows Ike busily typing as a police officer reads a newspaper and
consumes his daily doughnut. Neither of these illustrations appears in
the book itself, but the reader will definitely ponder what Ike is up to
now.
• Endpapers How do the endpapers take you into the story? What information is provided
here? Do the endpapers set a mood for what is to follow?
o Teach: The purpose of a compares endpapers to the stage curtains for
play, which are the first thing the audience sees when it enters the
theatre as well as the last thing seen when the play is over. Endpapers
serve as a structural bond between the body of a book and the casing.
They are glued down to hold the book together.
o Examples: Endpapers are often white but may also be a solid colour
such as the dark green in Muncha! Muncha! Muncha! (Fleming, 2002).
This colour isn’t a random choice but is seen throughout the pages of
this story in which Mr. McGreely tries to find a way to keep persistent
bunnies from eating his vegetables.
o Other times, the endpapers contain a design such as in Mo Willems’s
Knuffle Bunny: A Cautionary Tale (Willems, 2004) where the beloved
bunny is being tossed around inside a washing machine. This picture
also gives a hint as to the climax of the story.
•
Title Page Look at the font used and the illustration-How are you positioned as a reader?
How is your reading of the book directed?
•
•
Page Opening is used to describe the two facing pages in a picture book.
Size How does the size affect your response to the book? Does the size encourage sharing or
the private viewing of the book?
• Format The picture book will be in a square, vertical or horizontal format. The format affects
the shape that the artist fills with pictures. How does the shape affect what the artist can
show?
•
Other aspects include: layout, plate, frame, vignette, bleeds, border and montage. These might best be introduced
using examples of art work.