Who Am I And Who Are You?
How to Establish a Character Visually
CFE Level 2 (Ages 8-10)
Resource created by Jonathan Gibbs, Edinburgh College of Art
Contents
Drawing techniques – helpful resources
2
Activity One – drawing characters and feelings
2
Activity Two – drawing places and putting characters in them
3
Activity Three – creating a new animal character
5
Activity 4: Character things - odds & ends
6
Examples of great illustrated characters for discussion
7
About this resource
Alive without breath, as cold as death.
Never thirsty ever drinking.
All in mail, never clinking
The answer to this riddle is a fish, naturally, who you’ll meet again in Activity One of this
resource!
Who Am I And Who Are You? will enable pupils to create a illustrated character and
characters. As such, the activities in this resource relate to the art of picture books and
children’s literature.
However, bear in mind that they also have a wider connection to comics, games design,
graphic novels, animation and film, and you may choose to encourage pupils to work in
these media.
Children’s illustrators often work as author and artist, as well as illustrating work by other
writers. Where do they start? Who Am I And Who Are You? presents a series of activities
which cover aspects of character development, emulating familiar working methods of
professional illustrators, as well as students in art colleges and universities.
Following these activities will enhance and inform the child’s ability to invent and interpret
in pictorial form. Each activity gives a structured task which will result in completed works
which express ideas about character, narrative, and sequential story telling.
Drawing techniques – some helpful resources
Throughout this resource, pupils will have a chance to develop their drawing skills. These
resources from around the web should help them with common drawing techniques
1. Edges, shading and outlines – an excellent, simple tutorial:
http://bit.ly/DrawingTechniques1
2. When you come to Activity Two, the first few minutes of this video should come in
handy if pupils are drawing an indoor scene: http://bit.ly/DrawARoom
3. If your pupils are drawing 3D objects, this tutorial might come in handy:
http://bit.ly/DrawAHouse
4. When pupils are using coloured pencils, encourage them to blend two colours
together to see what results they get.
Activity One – Drawing characters and feelings Exa 2-03a, Eng 2-31a
We conjure images into our minds at the drop of a hat. It is immediate. For instance, we
can visualise an angry fish by thinking about how an angry fish would appear and how it
would behave.
Let’s explore how we can create characters with distinguishing emotions and features.
Part 1
Gather your pupils in a group next to your whiteboard.

Ask the pupils to describe a feeling. What does that feeling feel like? What does it
feel like to be angry, sad or happy (or whatever feeling the pupils have suggested)?
Does it change the way you feel physically (for instance, anger makes you feel
tense, while happiness makes you feel somehow lighter)? Answers should be
written up by the teacher, or a pupil.

Now ask the pupils to imagine an animal which is feeling the emotion you’ve just
explored. Ask the pupils to draw the animal on the whiteboard alongside the
answers to the first question, with guidance from their classmates. Several pupils
can work on the drawing together.

Encourage the pupils to discuss the way that they have depicted the emotion.
Part 2
In the previous activity the pupils suggested a feeling to explore. Now we consider how
this feeling changes.
Feelings always have an opposite feeling, or they come in pairs. For instance:
Like - Don’t like
Happy - Sad
Fast - Slow
Asleep – Awake
Ask your pupils to draw pictures of their characters in contrasting states. An angry fish has
become a peaceful fish, for example!
Now, explain to pupils that changing emotions can be used as the basis for a plot. Using
the example of the fish above, ask your pupils for ideas to explain how why the fish has
gone from angry to peaceful.
Then, ask the pupils to come up with ideas for their own characters: how have their
emotional states changed, and what has happened to effect this change?
Explain to pupils that in any good story, things need to have changed by the end. Now that
they have some idea of how their characters’ feelings will change over the course of the
story, they have a great foundation for a story!
Activity Two – drawing places and putting characters in them Exa 2-03a,
Eng 2-31a
Part 1
Setting is often very important to the development of character and plot. In Wallace and
Gromit films for example, the rooms have as much character as the cast. And the cast
cannot do what they do without a backdrop or set

Ask pupils to think of a place. What is it like? This question is multi-faceted because
‘what it is like’ depends on appearance, but it also depends upon what it feels like.
This is another way of describing atmosphere, and atmosphere is the character of a
place.

Draw the place, or ask pupils to help draw it, on the whiteboard. Ask pupils to draw
the place only with thick lines. It could be a landscape, a room, a street or a table,
for example.

Ask pupils to fill the place with some things. They should bear in mind what they
have said the place feels like – what things would help to convey this feeling? Ask
them to draw the things using only thin lines.

Is the image convincing? Does it look real or unreal; like a dream or a cartoon?

Having completed the line drawings, thick and thin, two colours should be added.
These should be drawn as flat colours, giving clear shapes and forms: in this work
we are thinking in terms of graphic, comic, narrative drawings, with expressive and
simple colour.

Following on from the above, pupils should draw their own places, using a
combination of thick and thin lines. Then they can add things into the pictorial
space.
This has introduced the idea of place as a setting within which stories happen.
Part 2
This activity allows for the assemblage of pictures, of illustrations, and it considers the idea
of placement and composition at an introductory level for the pupils.
The activity has a playful and tactile quality, as well as making use of the work made in the
previous stages of this resource. The idea of making a background on which to
superimpose shapes and forms predicts the art of silhouette, animation, stage design, and
dioramas. The materials are simple: paper, pens, pencils and colour.

Ask your pupils to copy two of the animal character drawings from Activity One. They
must be careful to consider their scale in relation to the place drawings, because these
animal characters are to be superimposed into these settings.

Cut out the drawings, carefully paying attention to their outline shapes.

Place the characters in the settings, using different combinations. Blue-tak can be used
to temporarily fix an animal in its place (you can fix them permanently with PVA
adhesive or Pritt Stick).

Such drawings can be photocopied or photographed in different configurations, to
develop sequential narratives, or humorous alternative arrangements of the pictorial
elements.
Activity Three – creating a new animal character Exa 2-03a, Eng 2-31a
Hybrids and Monsters
This exercise is about joining together different animal characteristics in one creature.
The teacher may draw on the flip board, as a direct response to the pupils. Also, pupils
should work in smaller groups and draw for themselves. All of these activities will allow for
individual creativity as well as collaborative working.
The pupils should take it in turns to do the drawing, so that each pupil has an opportunity
to contribute.
The person doing the drawing will ask for:
A body
A tail
Arms
Legs
Head & neck
Face – eyes, nose and mouth
Feathers, fur or skin
What emerges is a hybrid creature, in which each characteristic has been considered and
suggested by the group. It is an artistic collaboration.
Tips for pupils while doing the exercise
1: use thick outlines, so that there is a consistent quality to the drawing
2: then employ fine lines, to explore a different quality.
3: Experiment - draw in dots, dashes, straight lines and curved lines
Activity 4: Character things - odds & ends Eng 2-31a
This exercise will help pupils understand that objects can add depth to a character. It will
also show them how objects can help to move a plot forward.
Firstly, talk about objects people own and how this is related to what they are like.
Explain that objects often tell us more about the people who own them.

Ask pupils to choose five of their possessions; things that they most value, or things
that they like. Ask them to draw these things. Then ask them to discuss the things:
what might these objects tell others about them?

After this, ask pupils to come up with objects that imaginary characters might have.
For example, what is in a footballer’s suitcase? What kind of toys would a prince
have, and what kind of toys might a beggar have?

The scope of creativity can be expanded by imagining fantasy characters. For
instance, what is in the wardrobe belonging to a dream-catcher? What does a time
traveller’s bedroom look like?
Part 2
After this, you can discuss with pupils how objects can be used to create a story and move
it forward. Give them an example of a character and an object, and demonstrate how the
object can be used as the basis for a plot. Below are two examples you can use, otherwise
you might want to ask for your pupils’ own suggestions for this full class discussion:

For a very simple example to kick off, imagine your character is a dog and his object is
a strange looking toy. Ask your pupils what surprising things could happen to the toy to
drive the story forward. For instance, the dog could lose it, it could be replaced by a
new toy he doesn’t like, it could turn out to have magic powers, and so on. What
happens after the dog finds out this surprise?

For an example of how things can get more interesting when the object’s relationship to
the character is less obvious, imagine your character is a penguin and the object is an
umbrella. Ask your pupils questions about the relationship: where did the penguin get
the umbrella? What do they use it for? Does it just belong to them, or do they share it?
Then, ask them what surprising things could happen involving the umbrella. Does it
disappear or change? Does someone come looking for it?
After this, ask pupils to return to their own ideas, and mind map the things that could
happen to their objects. After this, they can move on to writing an illustrated story!
Of course, pupils may already have good ideas for a plot from the emotions activity on
page 2. You could combine the two approaches to creating a plot
For a darkly humorous look at how objects can be used to drive a story forward, try Jon
Klassen’s picture books I Want My Hat Back and This Is Not My Hat.
Examples of great illustrated characters for discussion
Throughout these drawing workshops it is important to keep interest in the idea of
character, and to keep the process moving.
This is partly concerned with introducing a simple process such as ‘use only outline in
black’, or ‘use cut paper shapes’, whereby pupils may express an idea with limited means.
And it is partly concerned with defining the meanings of ‘character’ and how it may be
illustrated.
Therefore, examples of characterful drawing, illustration and design can give direction to
the class as a whole, and to individual pupils.
As reference for Who Am I And Who Are You? I recommend the following illustrators and
artists:
Johnny Duddle The Pirates Next Door, Gigantosaurus, The Cave Of Doom
Maurice Sendak Where The Wild Things Are
Lauren Child My Name Is Claris Bean
Quentin Blake Zagazoo
Charlotte Voake Ginger
Oliver Jeffers The Incredible Book Eating Boy
Angela Barrett The Hidden House
John Burningham Mr Gumpy’s Outing
Patrick Benson The Minpin