1. Visual literacy and
picture story books

2. What is visual literacy?
The ability to interpret, negotiate, and make meaning
from information presented in the form of an image.
Visual literacy is based on the idea that pictures can be
“read” and that meaning can be communicated through
a process of reading

3. Interpreting the visual text
Art elements
• Colour
• Texture
• Line
• Form
• Space
• Shape
• Size
• Balance
1

4. Interpreting the visual text
Media
• Media – tool and surface an
illustrator uses
• Techniques – the way in which
the illustrator applies one
medium to another
e.g. painting, drawing,
sculptural, printing, collage
• Mixed media – two or more
techniques
2

5. Interpreting the text
Aesthetic perspective
• Focuses on the affective/personal response of the
viewer to the illustration
• A visual text that engenders a significant personal
response is more likely to motivate someone to seek to
understand and interpret a text
“Essentially an aesthetic perspective asks questions about how the illustrator has
created mood or feelings and what personal responses are engendered by the
illustrators’ combination of elements in balance and layout.”
Reading the visual, p187 (Anstey, M. & Bull, G., 2000)

6. Interpreting the text
Functional perspective
• Analysing illustrations to learn: sees the artist as a
storyteller rather than creator of art
• Looks at how elements and media/techniques come
together to convey meaning about:
- Characterisation
- Setting
- Plot
- Theme
Reading the visual, p188 (Anstey, M. & Bull, G., 2000)

7. Interpreting the text
Functional perspective
“The best children’s books are about the complex business of being human. They
may seem to be about rats and pigs and rabbits and koalas and all manner of
unlikely adventures, but they’re not really. They’re about people. They are about
Life with a capital ‘L’. They are concerned with the transmission of human values to
a group of readers and listeners who are at a crucial stage of discovering how the
world works and how they might live. In practice picture books are strong on story
and they’re subtle on metaphor. They’re simple and direct in their telling (the
author’s voice is intimate and personal), and complex and insinuating in their
meaning. They focus on the particular as a means of understanding the abstract –
as children do. They are exploratory (as children are). They’re preoccupied with
rights and wrongs – as children are – without being moralistic. They delight in the
idiosyncratic – as children do. They’re clear-sighted and truthful. They’re optimistic.
Above all they are playfully serious – or seriously playful.”
Ros Price, ‘Women’s Book Review 1990–1991’, in Creative Connections: Writing, Illustrating and Publishing Children’s
Books in Australia, papers of the Canberra Children’s Book Council, seminars 1987–1993

8. Interpreting the text
Social critical perspective
• Critical literacy
• Messages and associated beliefs about issues such
as gender, ethnicity and socioeconomic status
• The messages that we read/view help us to construct
a particular picture of the world
Reading the visual, p190 (Anstey, M. & Bull, G., 2000)

9. Telling stories through pictures
• Illustrations are often used to clarify the meaning of
the text for early-years readers
• The majority of story books also have illustrations that
add meaning, and in some cases possibly
subvert/change the original meaning
• Wordless book

10. 3

11. Telling stories through pictures
Illustrators often say there
is no point in illustrating
what has already been
told in words
4

12. Telling stories through pictures
“With every book my first rule of thumb has been to
not draw what is there already in the words. I try to
find something from behind or between the words,
something unsaid, something from the moment behind
and beneath the moment, something about where those
words come from, something from and about the heart,
to then add to the words.”
Drawn from the heart, p 296 (Brooks, R., 2010)

13. Art elements
Colour
• ‘Hot’ colours – excitement, happiness, anger
• ‘Cool’ colours – harmony, peace, sadness
• Placement of certain colours near each other can
prompt mood, or draw attention to certain features
• Media used can emphasise colour, e.g. luminous
watercolours, gouache – more intense

14. Jan Ormerod, illustration from Lizzie Nonsense, Little Hare Books, 2004,
watercolour on paper, courtesy of the artist

15. Elizabeth Honey, illustration from Not a Nibble, Allen & Unwin, 1997, watercolour and ink
on paper, courtesy of the artist

16. Art elements
Texture
• Connecting the sense of sight with the sense of touch/
feel
• Can rouse memories, and create empathy for
character and setting
• Use of media influences texture

17. David Miller, illustration from Snap! Went Chester, text by Tania Cox, Hachette
Australia, 2003, paper sculpture, courtesy of Woodleigh School

18. 5

19. Art elements
Line
• Can create mood
• Curves – warmth, safety
• Jagged, sharp - excitement, destruction, unease
• Line can draw attention to something in the illustration

20. Shaun Tan, illustration from The Rabbits, text by John Marsden, Lothian,
Hachette Australia, 1998, oil on canvas, courtesy of the artist

21. Bob Graham, illustration from Greetings from Sandy Beach, Lothian, Hachette Australia, 1990,
colour pencil, pen and watercolour on paper, courtesy of the artist

22. Art elements
Form
• Refers to the boundaries of an object and how it
relates to other objects
• Used in the positioning of characters to show their
relationships and how they feel about each other

23. Ron Brooks, illustration from Fox, text by Margaret Wild, Allen & Unwin, 2000, mixed media on paper,
Peter Williams Collection

24. Fox
“That first picture was a real mixed-media job: a multilayered collage of
bits and pieces of different papers, heavy impasto, oil paint, acrylic, ink,
watercolour, shellac, oil sticks…and instead of drawing with pens, pencils
or whatever, I gouged, scratched and scraped my way through all this
stuff using kitchen forks, bits of wire, old dental tools, bits of rusty tin,
sandpaper – whatever seemed to work – to find my lines. I then worked
the oil sticks into and over the whole picture, working and rubbing them in
across the entire surface, obliterating the whole image under deep black,
red, blue, brown or green oil. After allowing this to dry a little, I rubbed and
polished off the higher, flatter, smoother surfaces with soft cloth; laid
glazes of acrylic and wash over the top, gouged back in again, varnished
again with shellac, added more colour here and there – until I felt the
image had everything I was able to find. Until I felt it matched the voice in
the writing – the texture of the language.”
Drawn from the heart, p 282-283 (Brooks, R., 2010)

25. Ron Brooks, illustration from Old Pig, text by Margaret Wild, Allen & Unwin, 1995,
watercolour on paper, courtesy of St Catherine's school

26. Jane Tanner, illustration from Love From Grandma, Viking, 2010, colour
pencil and watercolour on paper, courtesy of the artist

27. Art elements
Space
• Liberal use of space indicates isolation, emptiness
• Busy illustration can infer chaos, lots of activity,
energy
• Space can also draw attention to specific objects

28. Rebecca Cool, illustration from Isabella’s Garden, text by Glenda Millard, Walker Books
Australia, 2009, acrylic on canvas, courtesy of the author

29. Armin Greder, illustration from The Island, Allen & Unwin, 2007, pencil
on paper, courtesy of the artist

30. Art elements
Shape and Size
• Visual outline of an object which we use as to
recognise objects
• Rounded – warmth, safety
• Angular – excitement, confusion
• Use of object/character size can convey different
emotions

31. Leigh Hobbs, illustration from Mr Chicken Goes to Paris, Allen & Unwin, 2009,
gouache and pen on paper, courtesy of the artist

32. Elizabeth Honey, illustration from I'm Still Awake, Still, music by Sue Johnson, Allen & Unwin, 2008,
gouache on paper, courtesy of the artist

34. Art elements
Balance
• How different elements come together and which
elements are dominant
• Arrangement of objects in an illustration rather than
the elements – chaos or stability, or the effect of
drawing one’s attention

35. 6

36. Gregory Rogers, illustration from Way Home, text by Libby Hathorn, Random House Australia, 1994,
chalk, charcoal, pencil and torn paper, courtesy of Books Illustrated

37. Activities
Comparing images
• Compare different images (from the same story)
which portray different moods indicating possible
changes in character, plot
• Consider elements and media/technique

39. Activities
Comparing images
• Compare images from multiple texts
• Investigate themes, characterisation and setting
through the use of elements and media/technique
• Illustrator study - compare images from multiple texts
by the same illustrator to see how they differ

40. Armin Greder, illustration from The Island, Allen &
Unwin, 2007, pencil on paper, courtesy of the artist
Shaun Tan, illustration from The Rabbits, text by John Marsden,
Lothian, Hachette Australia, 1998, oil on canvas, courtesy of the
artist

41. Ron Brooks, illustration from Fox, text
by Margaret Wild, Allen & Unwin, 2000,
mixed media on paper, Peter Williams
Collection
Ron Brooks, illustration from Old Pig, text
by Margaret Wild, Allen & Unwin, 1995,
watercolour on paper, courtesy of St
Catherine's school

42. Activities
Education kit
More activities can be found in the education resource,
eg:
• Short-activity ideas (Bloom’s taxonomy)
• Book-based activities, e.g. Lucy Goosey; Fox; To the Top End
• Theme-based activities, e.g. My home, my family; What does
tomorrow look like?; Telling stories through pictures
Activities are aligned with the e5 instructional model (engage,
explore, explain, elaborate, evaluate)

43. Sample activity
Telling stories through pictures
Based on Lesley Reece’s (Fremantle Children’s
Literature Centre) framework for studying picture
books
1. Write out the text from a picture story book and read then
discuss
2. Students create illustrations for different sentences and
then discuss illustrations
3. Read the original story with illustrations then discuss

44. Sample activity
Telling stories through pictures
• Rule up 2 columns
• 1st column – copy the text from one page
• 2nd column – list all the things shown in
corresponding illustration
• Look at how the illustrator has gone beyond the
written text through the use of art elements and media

45. Sample activity
Education kit – Telling stories through pictures
7 8 9

46. Alternative activity
Students predict text for a
wordless book or discuss
what they think is
happening
10

47. Online resources
• http://www.slv.vic.gov.au/look
• http://www.delicious.com/lookeducation
• http://www.diigo.com/user/lookeducation

48. Book cover references
• Margaret Wild, illustrated by Anne Spudvilas, Jenny Angel, Puffin, 1999
• Jackie French, illustrated by Sue deGennaro, The Tomorrow Book,
HarperCollins Australia, 2010
• Shaun Tan, The Arrival, Lothian, Hachette Australia, 2006
• Margaret Wild, illustrated by Ron Brooks, Fox, Allen & Unwin, 2000
• Jeannie Baker, The Hidden Forest, Walker Books, 2000
• Jeannie Baker, Window, Random Century, 1992
• Sonya Hartnett, illustrated by Lucia Masciullo, The Boy and the Toy, Penguin
Books Australia, 2010
• Gary Crew, illustrated by Steven Woolman, Beneath the Surface, Hachette
Australia, 2004
• John Marsden, illustrated by Shaun Tan, The Rabbits, Lothian, Hachette
Australia, 1998
• Stephen Michael King, Leaf, Scholastic Press for Scholastic Australia, 2008