8/9/2019 Close Looking the Doonan Way.pdf

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There is an important stage in a person’s 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.

Spend time thinking about how the

lines, shape and colour have been

organised.

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.

Focus on the story told by the words.

Look at the pictures separately, thenread the words and pictures as a

whole. What is the relationship

between the words and the pictures?

Note anything which claims attention

(dominant colour, tone, scale,

repetition of shapes, objects). What is

the effect?

Look at the direction characters are

looking/moving. Usually, the

characters follow the story’s direction

and only return back when they are

ready and their story is complete.

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 objectin 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

character’s 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?

Looking at pictures is a pleasurable

activity, not regarded as ‘work’ by

pupils, and pictures make satisfying

subjects for investigation (Doonan:

49)

Stage 1: Introduction

Give them the book, look at the

front cover and think about what

they notice and want to know.

Stage 2: Symbol System

How do words and images tell the

story?

Stage 3: Visual Investigations

Consider the lines drawn, use of

colour and where objects are.

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.

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 andimages work together?

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.

Is the meaning of the picture literal or

expressive?

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There is an important stage in a person’s 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.