Monday, April 29, 2013

Story Time

Dearest People,

Today I illustrated a story with 18 kindergarteners. I am in my last year of visual art high school and my final project assignment is called "Games and Activities for Children". I must create an art project and a brochure describing it. So I created an interactive storytelling game involving a set of wooden rubber stamps, which I spent hours carving by hand.








Here is how the game worked: I started telling a fairy tale and drawing simple scenery as I went along on an easel for all to see. As different animal or people characters entered the story, the children holding that animal would stamp it into the scene. As the story progressed I asked the kids for ideas on how to make the scene in the story more interesting. For instance during a forest rescue scene, one girl suggested yellow parachutes, which she drew into the picture.


I told two fairy tales. The first I made up. It was about some water-dwelling animals who unwittingly make their home in a giant's soup bowl. The second tale was a revision on Jay Williams' "The King With Six Friends". My version was more like "The King With Three Very Antsy Friends".

After the story time and a potty/tea break, we started the second half of the activity. I passed out booklets to each kid and they were allowed to use the stamps and fill them in any way they wanted. This idea was so last minute that I suspect the Holy Spirit may have had a hand in it. I had spent a few hours the night before making the booklets by hand.



The kids really got into the booklet project. Some blindly stamped any and all motifs as many times as possible, some were slow and methodical creating interesting patterns with the stamps and some created scenery and embellished the stamps with faces and clothing. But the best were the kids who told stories. They illustrated stories and formed little groups where they narrated them to each other. That was my favorite part, because it was evidence that the project was fulfilling its purpose. I had wanted to draw the kids into the creative process of storytelling and encourage them to think about telling stories using visual elements.






I am not done yet. I still have to create a brochure describing it and present it to a panel of judges. But I really feel like God has blessed this throughout. I was stumped for an idea, but after the people at my Bible study prayed for me I got the idea for the stamps. A week later my brother Isaac's teacher invited me to try them out with the kids in his class. And just last night a talented photographer friend agreed to take pictures last minute. God has been faithfully feeding me inspiration and blessings. I am so thankful!

Lucy

Thanks to Josefína Kořena for the brilliant photos. You rock.

2 comments:

  1. Woohoo!! I love this!! Good work Lucy! You're amazing.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Woohoo!! I love this!! Good work Lucy! You're amazing.

    ReplyDelete