Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Brianna Blair
Art and Storytelling
Back in the fifteenth century, Leonardo da Vinci made
the following remark about visual storytelling:
The eBook isnt about winning or losing. Its about an exploration, and
experience, rather like a pop-up book. What many publishers are doing
wrong at the moment is just copying printed picturebooks on to this
format, which does both media a disservice. Its just like looking at a
PDF. Children will simply flick through. A printed picturebook is a
particular kind of physical experience that can be savored and
revisited. The eBook needs to exploit its own particular characteristics
and strengths to evolve as similarly special but distinct experience.
What are your thoughts?
Color
Convey emotions
Symbolic
Cultural reference
A thin line appears more fragile, whereas a bold line appears more
impactful and stable.
Shape and lines deliver ABSTRACT meanings (the ones you can make
on your own, or that are purposefully designed by the artist to convey
a certain feeling.)
Artists use line to convey movement and mood
Lines everywhere! In motion, festive,
fun
OR
Calm, sleepy, still
Morris Louis
American, 19121962
Beta Kappa, 1961
acrylic on canvas, 262.3 x 439.4 cm (103 1/4 x 173 in.) Charles Sheeler
National Gallery of Art, Gift of Marcella Louis Brenner American, 18831965
Classic Landscape, 1931
oil on canvas, 63.5 x 81.9 cm (25 x 32 1/4 in.)
National Gallery of Art, Collection of Barney A. Ebsworth
Shapes, shapes, shapes!
Edward Steichen
American, 18791973
Le Tournesol (The Sunflower), c. 1920
Piet Mondrian tempera and oil on canvas, 92.1 x 81.9
Dutch, 18721944 cm (36 1/4 x 32 1/4 in.)
Tableau No. IV; Lozenge Composition National Gallery of Art, Gift of the
with Red, Gray, Blue, Yellow, and Black, Collectors Committee
c. 1924/1925
oil on canvas, 142.8 x 142.3 cm (56 1/4
x 56 in.)
National Gallery of Art, Gift of Herbert
and Nannette Rothschild
Shape
Can you see sea-like creatures in this piece?
Vegetation?
Your eye often (comfortably) goes to the center of the page, unless
objects are placed purposefully. If the objects or text is placed toward
the sides, the eye moves across the page.
Find a Caldecott Award winner or
nominee
Artistic Styles (from-the-text terms)
Realistic art: represents natural forms and provides accurate
representations without idealization
Impressionistic art: depicts natural appearances of objects by rendering
fleeting visual impressions with an emphasis on light
Expressionistic art: communicates an inner feeling or vision by distorting
external reality
Abstract art: intrinsic geometric forms and surface qualities with little
direct representation of objects but rather an emphasis on mood and
feeling
Surrealistic art: presents incongruous dream and fantasy images
juxtaposed with very realistic ones
Primitive and folk art: reminiscent of the style prevalent at the time the
story events occurred
Realistic art: represents natural forms and provides
accurate representations without idealization
Impressionistic art: depicts natural appearances
of objects by rendering fleeting visual impressions
with an emphasis on light
Expressionistic art: communicates an inner
feeling or vision by distorting external reality
Abstract art: intrinsic geometric forms and surface
qualities with little direct representation of objects
but rather an emphasis on mood and feeling
Surrealistic art: presents incongruous dream and
fantasy images juxtaposed with very realistic
ones
Visual Representation
A tremendously important storytelling medium, one that
equips young minds with a fundamental understanding
not only of the world but also of its visual language.