There is an important stage in a persons aesthetic development that depends upon having insights about the ways in which

pictures may be interpreted Doonan: 8

Close Looking: An Approach to reading Picture Books a process that cannot be hurried (Doonan: 19)
Settings and colour play expressive
roles as does the shape of the book.

Pictures may amplify, elaborate,

extend and complement the words.
They may also contradict.

Consider the book as an object. Why is

it the shape it is? Study the cover,
endpaper, title page, opening, size,
typeface, layout, frame and border.

Consider the book as an object. Why is

it the shape it is? Study the cover,
endpaper, title page, opening, size,
typeface, layout, frame and border.

Ask about personal (cultural) links you

make with the page.

Is the meaning of the picture literal or

expressive?

Stage 2: Symbol System

Stage 3: Visual Investigations

Consider the lines drawn, use of
colour and where objects are.

Focus on the story told by the words.

Look at the pictures separately, then
read the words and pictures as a
whole. What is the relationship
between the words and the pictures?

Look at the direction characters are

looking/moving. Usually, the
characters follow the storys direction
and only return back when they are
ready and their story is complete.

Give them the book, look at the

front cover and think about what
they notice and want to know.

How do words and images tell the

story?

Spend time thinking about how the

lines, shape and colour have been
organised.

Note anything which claims attention

(dominant colour, tone, scale,
repetition of shapes, objects). What is
the effect?

Stage 1: Introduction

Stage 4: Words to the Pictures

How the words of the text tell us
what to look at and what we might
look out for.
By drawing vertical and horizontal axes, and the diagonals (the structural skeleton),
over a rectangular or square picture, you can make apparent the visible lines on
which the forces lie. The invites us to consider how the elements are held in balance:
look at sections and their opposite side and how they might be balanced. An object
in the upper part of the page is heavier. Location of the right is heavier than the left.
Larger objects are heavier than smaller. Bright colours are heavier than dark.
If a character or event is surrounded by
white space then it is charged with
emotion and we are to focus on the
characters feelings.

We read the text from left to right.

This gives a sense of moving on.
Always see if the pictures are doing the
same. If not, why not?

Stage 5: Reading a Picture Book

With the text, we want to turn the
page and read on but the pictures
require us to stay. Do the text and
images work together?
Looking at pictures is a pleasurable
activity, not regarded as work by
pupils, and pictures make satisfying
subjects for investigation (Doonan:
49)

There is an important stage in a persons aesthetic development that depends upon having insights about the ways in which pictures may be interpreted Doonan: 8
Useful Terms:
Basic Ingredients: The shapes, colour, lights and darks, scale and intervals.
Bleed: A picture bleeds if it extends to the edge of the paper. The effect suggests a life going beyond the page. The beholder becomes a participant rather than a
spectator when this happens.
Continuous Narrative: Shows one character portrayed in more than one place, and possibly in more than one setting across a single picture plane.
Doublespread: The story in a picture book is presented in a sequence of pairs of facing pages.
Endpapers: The pages at either end of the book.
Frame: A picture smaller than the page on which it appears is framed by white margins of the paper. Picture can also be framed by borders.
Gutter: The space of the inner margin where two pages meet at the binding of the book.
Layout: Refers to the shape, size and arrangement of the illustrations and the placement of the text throughout the picture book.
Picture Plane: The flat surface of the whole picture.
Recto: The right-hand page of a book.
Running Story: Refers to minor characters who appear throughout the sequence of pictures and who have a life of their own which flourishes independently alongside
that of the main characters.
Typography: The design of the whole book, including the choice of format, size, typeface, position of display lettering, length of lines, spacing between lines, break of
lines to facilitate reading.
Verso: Left-hand page of a book.
Viewpoint: The position of the beholder in relation to the picture. A low viewpoint gives an image an elevated importance. A high one puts the viewer in control. When
at a fixed level, it encourages us to travel along.