Tuesday, 16th February 2016

This half term we have been working with a great bunch of children of mixed ages in our Visual Storytelling course with illustrator Amy Pennington.

On Day 1 the children developed amazing new characters in groups which they took on new adventures in Day 2.

We began Day 2 with some more warm up exercises. We played a game called pass the face; exploring the emotions and expressions our characters might need.

We then warmed up our drawing fingers by drawing a setting described by Amy using both hands at the same time. This helps slow us down and concentrate on our drawing…and creates interesting effects.

Following this we worked in pairs as illustrator and storyteller, taking it in turns to tell and illustrate a story quickly on strips of paper.

Some fun little stories emerged!

The next stage was to plan out an idea for our main adventure. We had multiple copies of all the characters developed on day one and worked in groups to plan an idea.

Amy modelled a simple story – beginning, middle and end.

We then got to work mapping out scene one. We had a variety of tools and materials to choose from. The children were given a great amount of freedom to choose and work as they wished. Collage, oil pastels, watercolour pencils, charcoal.

We had also prepared some interesting scenes for them to use as backdrops to stimulate their creativity.

The opening scenes took shape…can you guess what is happening or make up your own?

Soon they were working on the middle and endings to their stories. Adults circulated, chatting to them about their ideas and helping them when they hit brick walls – which wasn’t very often!

There was a busy buzz of creativity in the room all afternoon.