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Ocean Symbolism In Storytelling
The ocean contains multivalent symbolism — the known and the unknown; surface versus deep. The circle is closed. Nothing ever comes to an end. Wherever one has sunk roots that emanate from one’s best or truest self, one will always find a home. To return is not to revisit something that has failed. I can…
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The Reflection Character In Storytelling
You may have heard of the ‘shadow in the hero’ when creating a character web for a story. Shadow in the hero describes a relationship between opponents. But what if two very different characters bring out the best in each other? What do you call that? What Is A Reflection Character? This is my term…
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Fog Symbolism
In stories and in art, fog and mist symbolises a variety of related things: obfuscation, mystery, dreams, confusion and a blurring between reality and unreality. First, a description of fog from classic literature: Fog everywhere. Fog up the river, where it flows among green aits and meadows; fog down the river, where it rolls defiled…
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Picnics In Art and Storytelling
Picnics — literal picnics — play an important role in Western children’s literature. When discussing children’s literature, ‘picnic’ has a different, related meaning.
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Aerial Perspective In Picture Books
When looking at an image, how does the viewer get a sense of depth? The artist can add depth to an image using various tricks.
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Writing Activity: Describe A Classroom
Describe a classroom is the perfect writing activity for schools. Maybe you’re in a classroom right now. If so, you can write about that. If not, you can imagine any sort of classroom you like. It may be one classroom in particular, or it may be an amalgamation of several, or of all the classrooms you’ve…
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Upside-down Knitting In Picturebook Illustration
School Library Journal (Betsy Bird) posted an article about knitting as depicted in picture books — so often the knitting needles are coming out the top, whereas if you’ve ever knitted in real life you’ll know that the needles come out below the hands. This is a wonderful observation, and once you’ve noticed it you’ll…
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Common Wish Fulfilment In Children’s Fantasy
Genre fiction and children’s fiction often functions to allow the reader to experience a particular form of fantasy. Some wishes are considered more worthy than others. FIVE CHILDREN AND IT The classic book that is entirely about what happens when you wish: Five Children and It, by E. Nesbit, published 1902. Nesbit had a firm grasp…
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Moon Symbolism In Storytelling
They wouldn’t be so cocky if they knew what me and the moon have going. Ken Kesey, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest OVERSIZED MOONS There is a rule that moons in picture books must be bigger than the look in real life, from anywhere on Earth. I didn’t fully realise this was a rule…
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Still Images In Picturebook Illustration
The ability to depict movement is perhaps the most important skill of a picture book illustrator. The same goes for comic book illustrators. But not everything is all about movement. Although a professional illustrator has to be good at depicting movement, there is a time and a place for ‘stills’, even inside ‘high-movement’ stories. Below I take a…
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Continuous Narrative Art In Picture Books
A continuous narrative is a type of visual story that illustrates multiple scenes of a narrative within a single frame. Multiple actions and scenes are portrayed in a single visual field without any dividers. The sequence of events within the narrative is defined through the reuse of the main character or characters. Continuous narrative emphasises the change…
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Panoptic Narrative Art In Picture Books
Let’s say there are 7 main categories of Narrative art. Narrative art is art which tells a story. Panoptic refers to ‘showing or seeing the whole at one view’. Panoptic narrative art is often a bird’s eye view. The ‘camera’ is above. This is the art world’s equivalent of an all-seeing (omniscient) narrator. Panoptic and panoramic…
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Composing The Thumbnails Of A Picture Book
How do you go about the task of mocking up a picture book? Most picture book illustrators make a dummy of thumbnails, to check the story flows well. Many writers (who are not also illustrators) find this a helpful practice, too. The following notes are from Framed Ink: Drawing and composition for visual storytellers by…
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Levels of Detail In Literature
The first job of the storyteller is to decide what to leave out and what to include in the narrative. To spot a liar, ignore everything except the level of detail in a person’s story, new research suggests. This One Strategy Will Reveal if Someone’s Lying With 80% Accuracy, Study Finds In terms of sexual…
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The History of Hansel and Gretel
Hansel and Gretel is one of the best-known fairytales. Almost everybody knows the basic story but, more than that, this tale is the ur-story for many seemingly unrelated modern ones. For example, whenever a character meets a character in a ‘forest’ (whether the forest is symbolic or not), the audience is put in mind of…