MEET THE ILLUSTRATORS

by Joan Waites

One of my favorite art classes to teach to children is a class called “Story Art.” Each week of the session, we discuss a different illustrator and the books they have worked on. We talk about what medium they used, the colors they chose, and what style the art was rendered in, (realistic, whimsical, cartoon or a combination).  We also discuss what the artists were like as children, and their path to becoming professional illustrators. Students always seem to be fascinated seeing photographs of the artist as a young child, and especially examples of artwork they created at an early age.

A few examples of books that contain information about well-known contemporary illustrators as well as photographs of the artists and examples of their art are the following:

Talking With Artists, (Volumes I, 2, and 3), Compiled and Edited by Pat Cummings, Clarion Books

Artist to Artist: 23 Major Illustrators Talk to Children about Their Art 

Contributing editors: Patricia Lee Gauch, David Briggs, Courtenay Palmer and Kiffin Steurer, Philomel Books

Once we have discussed the featured artist, students then complete a project that uses the same medium or is based on a specific character from one of the illustrator’s books. The possibilities are limitless. Two examples of projects I have used are:

1.      Making a “Rainbow Fish” character from the book The Rainbow Fish by  Marcus Pfister

Using a piece of cardboard, cut out a simple “fish” pattern for each student.  Have students trace the pattern on two pieces of heavy weight aluminum foil. Cut out each foil tracing. Next, glue the foil to the front and back of the cardboard and trim the edges. Using a Popsicle stick or pencil, have students etch a design on the front (and back if they wish). Lastly, use colored permanent markers to add colorful fish scales or patterns.

2.      2.  Another project children really enjoy is making their own Eric Carle -like animal or creature. Begin by having students experiment with washes of watercolor, drips, and splatters on a piece of watercolor paper. After the paint dries, have students cut or tear shapes. Finally, have the students glue the shapes on a piece of colorful construction or tag board paper. A black marker can be used to add eyes or other smaller features.

Encourage your students to save some of their early art or stories they have written. Someday, they too may be featured in a book about their life and work!

http://www.joanwaites.com/

PENCIL TIPS WRITING WORKSHOP: RITUALS OF PREPARATION

by Pamela Ehrenberg

Begin.

A deep breath.  A certain chair.  A shift of music on an iPod.

For a lot of writers, students and teachers alike, it takes some getting used to the idea that you can't sit around waiting for a Muse to inspire.  We know that we need to begin writing for the Muse to understand she is welcome--but still the blank page stares back at us.

A particular notebook.  A special pen.  A header at the top of the page.

How does one begin without knowing what to say?  In her book The Creative Habit, Twyla Tharp talks about "rituals of preparation," ways to signal to the brain that writing time has begun.

Closing one's eyes.  Rereading the previous day's work.

The idea, says Tharp, is to make the process automatic, to train the mind to understand that a particular action or setting is invariably followed by creative activity, so you don't need to waste time worrying about what you will say.  Set the brain on auto-pilot, and before you can stop to protest, you are already in a creative flow.

Unplugging the telephone.  Sipping hot chocolate from a certain cup.

Students of all ages love ritual, as a means to find order in a seemingly chaotic world.  Rituals need not be elaborate--or even perceptible to an outsider, as when Tharp suggests stomping her foot and shouting, "Begin!"

Teachers have long understood that rituals help in all sorts of classroom activities, from collecting lunch money to lining up for recess.  It only makes sense that rituals can help writing flow more smoothly too.

What kinds of rituals--planned or unplanned--do your students use to prepare their minds for writing?  How will you help them begin?

http://www.pamelaehrenberg.com/Site/Home.html

PENCIL TIPS WRITING WORKSHOP: NUTTY NURSERY RHYMES FOR ALL AGES

by Mary Quattlebaum

My fellow bloggers are a wellspring of great ideas!  Pam recently wrote about writing humor, Laura about crafting fairy tales with kids, and Joan about using props to create characters.  My writing exercise uses pieces of all these ideas.

I’ve done Nutty Nursery Rhymes with kindergarteners, third through fifth graders, college poets, and MFA writing students.  This exercise is a helpful way to loosen students up, encourage wordplay, and prompt thinking about and revising for plot and setting. It can be done as a group or individual exercise.

Added Bonus:  Creating a Language-Rich Environment:  One of the best ways to create a rich pre-literacy environment is to read poetry aloud to children, say literacy experts.  The rhythms, rhymes, repetition, onomatopoeia, and language patterns of nursery rhymes help children to become familiar with language and interact with texts/books in a playful way.

Exercise for All Ages:  Read aloud some well-known nursery rhymes:  “Little Boy Blue,” “Jack and Jill,” “Hickory Dickory Dock,” and “Baa, Baa, Black Sheep.”  Have class delight in and talk about the poems’ rhymes, refrains, onomatopoeia, and plot/what’s happening.

For Pre-K, Kindergarteners, and First Graders:  Talk about the unfinished nature of “Hickory, Dickory Dock.”  The clock only struck one!  Have kids as a group brainstorm what the mouse might do when the clock strikes two, three, four and so on, up to ten.  Write down the kids’ ideas/rhyming words, have kids draw pictures of their favorite rhyme/number, and post these on bulletin board.  This class nursery rhyme will be lots of fun to recite over and over again—and to share with visiting parents.

With “Baa, Baa, Black Sheep,” brainstorm sounds, colors, and functions of other animals.  For example, Moo, Moo Brown Cow/Have you any milk?  Or Cluck, Cluck, Red Hen/Have you any eggs?

For Older Kids, College Students, and Poets:  Work with “Hickory, Dickory, Dock” and “Baa, Baa, Black Sheep” (as above) to help sharpen their poetry writing, wordplay, and rhythmical skills.  Have them create a contemporary version of Little Boy Blue.  (Might he be at a zoo?  A city park?  A swamp?  What animals would he find?)  Or a goofy version of Jack and Jill.  (What different things might they fetch?)

Added Bonus for Older Kids, College Students, Poets:  They’re often interested in the derivation and age of many nursery rhymes.  The Oxford Dictionary of Nursery Rhymes, edited by Iona and Peter Opie is a wonderful resource.

Books to Share:  My favorite nursery rhyme compediums are A Child’s Treasury of Nursery Rhymes, selected and illustrated by Kady MacDonald Denton, and Tail Feathers from Mother Goose, selected by Peter and Iona Opie, with pictures by such distinguished children’s illustrators as Maurice Sendak, Shirley Hughes, and Quentin Blake.  Delightful picture-book take-offs on nursery rhymes include Spinster Goose: Twisted Rhymes for Naughty Children by Lisa Wheeler, and The Neighborhood Mother Goose by Nina Crews.

http://www.maryquattlebaum.com/Mary_Quattlebaum/Welcome.html

PENCIL TIPS WRITING WORKSHOP: SALT IN THE SOUP OR HOW I LEARNED TO WRITE

by Jacqueline Jules

The more I work with student writers, the more I think about how I developed my own writing skills. When did I become careful about punctuation and spelling? When did I start making a conscious effort to add sensory details or to build a story arc with a satisfying conclusion? Looking back, I see that I learned to write the same way I learned to cook—by testing recipes and listening to advice.

As a young bride, I remember my mother-in-law tasting my soup and pronouncing it too salty to eat. You can bet that I followed the recipe more carefully the next time. I also remember a professor, my first year of college, who wrote in red ink, “Don’t bother passing in a paper with this many typos again.” My embarrassment over both incidents has changed to gratitude. Now I measure how much salt I put into my soup and I proofread my manuscripts carefully. Editors at publishing houses frequently admit that stories submitted with grammatical errors are tossed without reading. If I had never listened to that professor, I wouldn’t be the author of twenty-two children’s books today.

The first book in my Zapato Power series, Zapato Power: Freddie Ramos Takes Off, is dedicated to my writing group. Dedications like this are not uncommon. Authors frequently pay homage to the critique groups who made the suggestions that transformed a mediocre story into a publishable one. Editors are often thanked as well. Every time I read my Thanksgiving picture book, Duck for Turkey Day, I am grateful to my creative Albert Whitman editor, who gently but firmly guided me into writing an important new scene for the book.

      

Contemporary writing curriculums all urge educators to teach the writer, not the writing. While I understand that this advice is to discourage teachers from overwhelming young writers with too many suggestions at once, I still find the distinction puzzling. In my own experience as a writer, I know I have learned a great deal from the revision process of a particular piece, often guided by others who pointed out places in my story that didn’t make sense or fell flat. And I have seen my students come up with absolutely brilliant ideas for revision when I have questioned a sentence that confused me. I trust that my students will find that the lessons learned from fixing one story will carry over to the next. It is the recipe that guided me and most of the authors I know to publication.

Jacqueline Jules

http://www.jacquelinejules.com/

PENCIL TIPS WRITING WORKSHOP: PLAYING WITH WORDS

by Laura Krauss Melmed 

Debbie Levy, author of The Year of Goodbyes (Disney-Hyperion 2010) and Maybe I’ll Sleep in the Bathtub Tonight and Other Funny Bedtime Poems (Sterling 2010) recently encouraged aspiring authors “to play when writing.  If a stream of words is running through your mind, you don’t have to channel it into something with a defined structure right away; get the words on paper (or on the screen) and see where they seem to want to go…whether writing fiction or nonfiction, consider using different formats and points of view.  There’s no one correct way to shape a piece of writing!”

Many books and on-line sources present games designed to stimulate creativity and jump start the process of playing with words.  It is also fun to come up with your own exercises.  Here for starters are several suggestions:

Play with Cut-outs:  Cut out pictures from online or hard copy magazines and newspapers, of subjects that you find compelling, and scatter them on the floor. Then, look out the window or at a blank wall for the time it takes to count ten breaths. Next, look down and pick a picture--do it quickly without giving yourself time to think. Put that picture on a mosaic board. Look at the pattern you've made from those pictures. What sort of mood do they evoke? What narrative do they bring into focus?  Write a narrative weaving together the pictures you’ve selected. (Based on a tip from www.editingoffice.com)

Play Story Tennis (requires a partner): One of you writes a few paragraphs of a story. It can be about anything. You then pass it on to your writing partner (email is perfect for this) who then writes the next paragraph and so on and so on. (From the “One of Us” creative writing website http://www.oneofus.co.uk/index.php/writing_tips/writing_exercises/)

Play Doubles: To minimize the waiting time when Story Tennis is being played face-to-face, and for a real right and left brain challenge, how about having two stories going at once and using a timer to signal when to switch with your partner?

Play with Magic: For my picture book, Prince Nautilus, I imagined the consequences of a girl finding a magic seashell on the beach.  Along these lines, author and artist Keri Smith, in How to Be An Explorer of the World, Penguin Group, 20008, suggests assembling a box of small objects (for example, a feather, a key, a mitten, a small figurine and a pinecone).  Each student selects an object, ascribes a magic power to it, and writes about it. 

Play with Dialogue: Alternatively, I might ask students to select two objects from the box and then write a dialogue between them.

Play with Poetry: Write a poem that incorporates all of the objects.

Lastly, here are two exercises based on games described in a YouTube video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UaO7TYQJXqc by Jamie Cat Callen, author of The Writer’s Toolbox:

Play Pick-up Sticks: Write a bunch of interesting sentences on Popsicle sticks.  For example, “No one knew how the cat with six toes got out of our house every night, but there he sat on the doorstop each morning, as regular as clock-work” or, “The ruby slippers were a little big on Darcy, but the minute she put them on, her heels began to click together involuntarily.”  Have students line up the sticks randomly face down and then select three sticks.  They must use all three sentences in a story.

Play Cards: To prepare, start with a stack of index cards of three different colors, say blue, green and yellow.  On each blue card, write a description of a protagonist.  On each green card write a description of a goal.  On each yellow card, write an obstacle.  Make all of these as wildly diverse as you can.  To play, each student picks a card blindly from each pile and then writes a story based on the selected protagonist, goal, and obstacle.

Remember when using these or similar exercises that the object is not to produce a polished piece of writing, but rather to follow where your words take you.  Above all, playing with words should be fun!

http://www.laurakraussmelmed.com/books.htm

PENCIL TIPS WRITING WORKSHOP: STORY IDEAS FROM FUNNY FAMILY STORIES

by Pam Smallcomb

A common complaint from kids (and adults, for that matter) is “I can’t think of anything to write!”

Trying to help a group of kids come up with ideas for stories is a little like trying to catch smoke with a net. The more you try to explain the different ways to generate story ideas, the murkier things become.  Looking out into the room, you can see their eyes glazing over.

A good exercise for elementary school aged kids is to have them write about their own childhood (as short as it may be!). That’s too general, of course, and so tightening their options is a good idea. One direction to go would be to have your students write about the funniest memory they have of their own family. The great thing about this exercise is that if they can’t remember a funny episode, they can simply make one up. By using their own families, each student has a cast of characters who are defined and ready to go. All they need to do is either ‘pretend’ that a funny event has happened in the past, or retell a real one.

Maybe their funny memory happened during a holiday (a Thanksgiving dinner disaster, perhaps). It could have happened on a family vacation.  Remind them of those long car rides to DisneyWorld, or of family reunions. Many will have brothers and sisters, or dogs and cats.  If they don’t, they can add one into their story and see what happens. It’s their chance to have the pet llama they always wanted for their birthday, but never got.

While they are writing their funny family memory, it’s a good time to remind students that when you write humor, exaggeration is your friend. If Aunt Ethel is tidy, she is super tidy. She is so tidy that she walks around the dinner table wiping the condensation from the water glasses so it doesn’t drip on the plastic tablecloth.

If Uncle Ernie snored through your big sister’s wedding, he was so loud the bride and groom couldn’t hear their vows.

 

  When retelling a funny memory, exaggeration is like an amplifier. It turns up the funny volume. But if you use too much exaggeration, your reader won’t know where to focus.  If Uncle Ernie is the star of your funniest memory, let his story build and climax, and make the best use of exaggeration when he snores through your sister’s wedding.

http://www.pamsmallcomb.com/

PENCIL TIPS WRITING WORKSHOP: CREATING BELIEVABLE AND AUTHENTIC CHARACTERS

by Joan Waites

When presenting to students or adults about the art of picture book illustration, I’m often met with surprise when I describe the amount of research I do when working on any given project. “Don’t you just make it up in your head?” they ask. Oh, if only I could work that type of magic!

As you can see from the photo of my messy desk, taken at the very start of a new picture book project (due out in fall 2012), it is filled with art guidelines from the publisher, photographs, doodles, and even props. This particular book revolves around a main character who was a wealthy plantation owner, living in the 1700’s. But what did he look like? What did he wear? What did his home, his wife, his children and his plantation grounds look like? My job was to make the authors’ characters and story come to life on the page.

After reading the manuscript over and over again and collecting photographs, books on costume, hairstyles, food, and even pictures of children’s toys and plants that would be found at the time and location of the story, I began to develop a sense of who the main character was. His imagined facial features and body type, where he lived, and how he might have dressed was all incorporated into my preliminary sketches. Most often, I will also use live models to pose for me. Family, friends, and neighbors have all appeared and been turned into various characters in my books. Some illustrators have the opportunity to travel to a location to get a better sense of the story they will be illustrating, but of course that is not always possible. Surrounded by all the information on my desk, I can travel into the story and imagine myself there.

Whether the characters are actual historical figures or a fluffy bunny that lives in the meadow, giving the reader a sense of who that character is by written description or in the illustrations is essential. For example, the little bunny that lives in the meadow can be shy, fierce, or lazy. A shy little bunny might be described or shown wearing glasses hidden behind a tree with his nose in a book. The lazy bunny might be a bit overweight, snoozing in grass that is strewn with partially eaten carrots, while other bunnies are shown in the background going about their busy day.

Using these examples, have your students create a believable character using words or pictures. Older children can be assigned a true historical figure or someone fictitious who lived during a particular period in history. Younger students can use an imaginary character to describe and/ or illustrate. Have students collect photos from magazines or the internet, books and props that will give them a sense of who their character really is/was. Using a digital camera, students can also have their classmates dress up and pose for each other, using the printed photos as reference for their drawings.

Using some of these ideas among many others can be a great way to create believable and authentic characters that will come to life on the page!

http://www.joanwaites.com/