Student Worksheet

Imagery Analysis - Activity Instructions

Put on your best beret and white coat as you become a serious art critic, analysing how the illustrator of Where Happiness Hides has put together two images to create different moods in the audience. Then pick up your brush and create your own pictures which communicate important messages to the reader.

Illustrations are a very important part of story books, especially for younger kids. The main purpose of illustration is to communicate a message to the reader. While illustrations can be impressive to look at, their main job is to support the meaning of the text, through expanding upon it or making it clearer. Younger kids use illustrations to help them understand the text, especially if they don’t understand all the words.

The french term 'mise en scène' refers to everything that you can see in the frame. Because illustrations are created, and not taken from real life, the illustrator can be very deliberate in what they choose to include in the image to help communicate the message.

Step 1.

Read Where Happiness Hides.

Step 2.

Compare and contrast these two images using the table below.

Image 1

Image 2

Step 3.

The illustrator put a lot of thought into what they were going to include in these images, and how the images were going to 'work'. The images were deliberately designed to have an effect on the reader.

Do some quick sketches to try and explain these difficult words to young kids. Think not just about what these words look like when they’re happening in the real world, but also how they feel. How can you communicate that feeling through composition, framing, point of view and colour choice.

Step 4.

Choose one word from the four above, or create your own, and complete a full A4 artwork communicating that mood. You might do an illustration, painting or cut paper collage.

Keep in mind:

Who is the main character in my piece? How can I frame the piece so that the audience shares their point of view?
Is it clear what is happening?
Do the elements of the piece (colours, shapes, other objects) make the audience feel how I want them to feel?

Taking It Further

Is it possible to tell a whole story through nothing but pictures? No speech bubbles or text, just images. You would need to think hard about the composition, framing, point of view and colours of your images.

See if you can create a story from purely visuals. You might upload it to a safe social media site or online community (such as your school one) and encourage people in the comments to tell you how the story made them feel, and what they thought you were trying to say with the story.

Imagery Analysis (home learning)

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