Analysing a Picture Book

If you are using a picture book as a related text some of the following resources may be of use. An Introduction to the Grammar of Visual Design (PDF) Here you can read about specific concepts to help read (and write about) visual images, including mood, perspective, colour, lighting, and more. Based on the work [...]

The Dream of the Thylacine

The Dream of the Thylacine. The Dream of the Thylacine is a lament for a lost species, and a celebration of the Australian landscape. It interposes arresting text and images of the last known thylacine in a concrete cage with sweeping colour paintings of the animal in its natural environment. Intense, poetic and beautiful, this [...]

Nobody Owns the Moon

by Tohby Riddle Here is a gift, not from this blog, but from Tohby Riddle, that whimsical Australian cartoonist, illustrator and author. Tohby has presented some illustrated notes on Nobody Owns the Moon. …. I recently talked to a student about using this as a related text with Herrick’s The Simple Gift. I’d only read [...]

Shaun Tan on illustration as narrative

The Colin Simpson Memorial Lecture, an annual event of the Australian Society of Authors, was delivered by illustrator and author Shaun Tan on 28 March, 2009 at Redfern Town Hall, Sydney. Tan, whose recent works include The Arrival and Tales From Outer Suburbia, speaks with great insight about illustration as a narrative device. He comments on [...]

tales from outer suburbia

by shaun tan This anthology by Shaun Tan is a unique collection. The fifteen illustrated stories are packaged in a beautifully designed book. The stories are all very short pieces about strange or unusual events which occur in the outer suburbs, but each is different in visual style. The Water Buffalo presents a conundrum with [...]

Fox

by Margaret Wild and Ron Brooks He belongs nowhere. He loves no one. Dog rescues Magpie and tends to her wounds after a bushfire. Unable to fly, she is distraught but finally accepts Dog’s friendship. Together they fly with Magpie’s good eyes seeing for Dog who carries her on his back. Then comes Fox. His friendly approach leaves Magpie [...]