Understanding Composition and Illustration
As students are reading each fairy tale they will also be learning about illustration and composition. There are a variety of wonderful children's book illustrators to use as examples, and the fairy tales which I have chosen vary greatly in their style of illustration. To begin our exploration of illustration I will go through two different processes with my students. The first two Grimm fairy tales that students read will be strictly text, no illustrations. Students at this time will get a chance to explore verbal to visual representation without any influence. After reading the Grimm version of Cinderella without illustrations I will ask the students to do the best drawing they can of the evil step-mother. We will look at their illustrations and compare them to each other. We will talk about similarities between the drawings and what students were trying to show in their drawing of the step-mother.
From these drawings we will discuss how illustrations can change a story. I will ask students what illustrations they remember, and why these illustrations have stayed with them. Next, before reading Grimm's The Three Little Pigs I will share with students a variety of different depictions of the wolf. This time they will explore visual to verbal representation by describing what they think the character of the wolf is like from looking at the illustrations. They will again need to use supporting evidence to back up their claims. Then, after we have read the story, I will ask students which wolf they would choose for their illustrations if they were the authors, or which characteristics from among the illustrations they might combine. Again, they will need to support their answer using specifics from the drawing, not simply their opinion.
When they read Grimm's Little Red Riding Hood, students will finally be allowed to look at the illustrations in conjunction with the text. We will talk about the benefits of being able to see the images, as well as the disadvantages. This time they will be able to use verbal and visual information at the same time. I will try to tie in books students have read which have been turned into movies as a parallel example. For instance, I loved the Harry Potter books and had created a wonderful world corresponding to them in my imagination. When I watched the movies I was very disappointed because the fantasy world had been much better in my head. In the end, though, despite such concerns, we will focus on reasons why illustrations help support and enrich the text.
While students are reading the remaining texts, they will be doing a series of drawings to express different themes. I will be using Molly Bang's Picture This as a starting point to explain composition and how simply through basic shapes, colors and repetition an artist can effectively express an idea. I think that this is important, because not all students feel confident in their drawing abilities. Bang uses Little Red Riding Hood as the model for the illustrations of her book. The initial exercises will be done simply with cut paper, so students will be limited by color and by shape. As a way of showing the usefulness of simple forms, when we are reading Little Red Riding Hood, we will discuss the feeling that Red Riding Hood might have in the woods. Students will discuss a time when they may have felt similarly. Our first composition will focus primarily on color and shape. We will talk about limiting the composition to two colors for this particular scene. We will discuss which elements of the story will be important to include in the composition, and will then decide which two colors would best represent them and why. In this particular scene from Little Red Riding Hood students should note that their composition will need to include Little Red Riding Hood, a path, a wolf and trees. Next students will cut out a variety of shapes of different sizes from the two colors we choose. Students will begin to experiment with which shapes best express the mood they are trying to achieve. I would like students to experiment with shapes and sizes to begin to understand the idea of composition on their own. For this particular composition shape and size will be most important. Molly Bang explains that flat horizontal shapes create calmness, vertical shapes are more active, and diagonal shapes create movement and excitement. (Bang 42) With this information, students should begin to find that by using rectangles or triangles to create the trees they will begin to get a feeling of uneasiness, and by turning the tree trunks at a slight angle they will make the viewer even more uncomfortable. In deciding on a shape for Little Red Riding Hood, they will need to choose what feels most appropriate. Bang says that pointy shapes are scary, while rounded shapes are more comfortable. (Bang 71) Therefore students may want to represent Red Riding Hood with a curved shape and the Big Bad Wolf with a more pointy shape. The illustration in Grimm's Little Red-Cap is a perfect example of this: although it is only a line drawing, everything about the wolf except his tail is pointy and triangle shaped - his nose, tongue, hat and sword. On the other hand Little Red-Cap is all soft, curvy shapes from her bonnet to the pattern on her dress. We will discuss this image as an example of Bang's theories.
As students work through their compositions I will hold conferences with them to look at their progress and to talk to them about why they have made particular choices in shape, color and arrangement. Halfway through their compositions students will take part in a peer critique. They will be supplied with a worksheet of questions about their peers' work, which they will answer honestly. In this case they will be asked whether the artist has captured the mood, whether the Big Bad Wolf looks scary, etc. It will also include space for helpful suggestions. Peer critiques are a process that I use often with my students. I find that the students can often be each other's best teachers, and that it is good for them to hear constructive criticism from someone other than myself. It is important when using this strategy to be clear that all feedback should be positive, helpful and specific. Saying, "It's ugly," would not be tolerated, whereas saying, "I think that if you made the wolf a more threatening shape it would look better," would be helpful criticism.
For the first few exercises in composition I would like students to continue using cut paper. I think it is a wonderful medium, one that is often neglected. It is also an easy way to limit students' choices so that they are focusing on creating a mood without being overwhelmed by complex materials and the need for drawing skills. Just as I will be using text that is easy to comprehend, so too we will start with basic building blocks of composition so that students can focus on mood without feeling intimidated.
After we have talked about the rules for composition involving shape and color, we will move onto scale or size. This time we will use the wolf from The Three Little Pigs as an inspiration. Students will need to choose only three colors. They will create a composition where the wolf looks intimidating to one of the pigs. There will need to be a drastic scale change between two of their objects, as indicated by the text. This lesson will reinforce the use of shape and color, while also introducing scale. Once students have decided on a shape and color for each character, they will cut out those characters in a variety of different sizes to see how the two will interact. Bang writes that contrast is important; hence the larger a shape is the stronger it looks. (Bang 8) In Steven Kellogg's The Three Little Pigs, the first time that the wolf interacts with the pigs is a perfect example of this. The wolf takes up half of the composition, and even breaks out of the format, making himself the strongest element in the composition. Once students have finished their own compositions, we will discuss and compare them again, noting which are most successful and why.
The last compositional element which students will be responsible for is placement on the page. Students will be challenged to create a composition for Cinderella, selecting the point when the bird gives her the dress and she is just ready to go to the fair. This composition will be very different from the other two, since it will have a joyful tone. Bang says that the eye will move to the center of the page unless the artist places things to keep the eye moving around the page. Students will be challenged to crop parts of their composition. This means that objects will be running out of the format of the page - which keeps the viewer's eye moving. Bang also writes that the upper half of the page is free and happy whereas the lower half is sad and heavy. We will experiment with this as a class by moving Cinderella around the page. This exercise will also reinforce our previous lessons about limited color, shape, etc.
As we continue reading, students will begin to explore different media, from pen and ink to watercolor, trying out different types of drawings and looking at different illustrators. The media and styles made available will vary greatly depending on the class makeup. If I have a class of students who have taken art classes before, I will make more choices of materials available to them, whereas if I have a fairly inexperienced group we will take time learning only a few new materials. Throughout the illustration process we will continually be referring back to the original elements of composition we have learned.
Once students have a good grasp of illustrating the text based on mood and character, we will begin to work on the composition of a two-page layout with text incorporated. We will compare ways different authors use illustrations: full page with text on the bottom, small illustrations placed throughout the text, one page of illustration with one page of text, or text incorporated throughout the illustration. Jon Scieszka's The True Story of the Little Pigs! furnishes a perfect example of a variety of ways to integrate text and image.
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