Illustration

Looking at different illustrators in art fits in well when making important cross curricular links to other subjects and naturally the theme of illustration fits in with literacy. You can look at doing this through two different ways, you could ask your children to create illustrations for a book you are studying in English, or for a piece of their own writing. Another way you could address this is also to look at creating an illustration of a recognisable character in the style of another illustrator. Out of the two I prefer the later task as I think it gives the children more opportunity to be creative as well as allows for a variety in the work produced by the class. I have had a go at making my own illustrations, my first illustration is of Olaf from frozen in the style of Lauren Childs.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

You can see from my images that I have used different materials to create the same style of Lauren childs. I have used wall paper, wrapping paper, paints, pens and pencils. I even Stained my own papers to create some of the colours that I wanted.

 

You could further this activity more by then photo editing the childrens final work. This allows for the children to use their own original pieces of Art work to edit and enhancing the work that they have already created.  Using editing allows for children to experiment with their work as explained by (cox and Watts 2007 p.77). This enables children to experiment with their work without fear that if they try something new and it does not go as planned they have not ruined their work. Allowing children to play with composition, colours and layers having freedom in their work.  (Cox and Watts 2007 p.77) states that how children are able to review and modify their work therefore having a direct effect on the quality of the work produced. This also helps make Art accessible to all children and all will have opportunity to achieve, even children who do not feel confident in their artistic ability can use photography and photo editing software to create a piece of Art. It also allows the children to experiment and see how they could further develop their own work, to reflect on this in their own studies. Being able to reflect and experiment their selves is similar to Vygotsky (1978) and his suggestion that children learn best in their zone of proximal development. In this case the ICT allows for the children to experiment with effects and editing without the aid of the teacher and work independently.

 

 

 

 

The first image of Princess Jasmine is a simple pencil drawing that has had colour added to it using water colour, the colour are flat and dull and I think the overall look of the image is not of a high quality. The second Image of Princess Jasmine has had the picture sharpened, colour enhanced, and increase of contrast as well as text added. I personally think that the second image is a much higher quality, and in accessible to all schools as the editing was done with Picasa photo editing which can be downloaded for free and is very simple to use. Personally I think with guidance even KS1 should be able to use the software.

 

 

 

 

Reference List

 

Cox, S. and Robert, W. (2007). Teaching Art and Design 3-11 reaching the standard Series. London: Continuum.

Vygotsky, L.S. (1978). Mind and Society: The Development of higher psychological processes. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.