Writing/Telling Your Story Your Way (with collage)

1. Introduction Writing telling your story your way (with collage): Welcome to Writing your Story Your Way. Hello, my name is Robin. I want to whether you want to write a poem and put some illustration to poetry, or you want to illustrate whole pages for a book or story or video that you want to share. This class is all about illustrating through collage. Let me start from the beginning. In 1995, I started writing poetry during a time when I was home with my children. It was a way for me to have a creative outlet. I actually loved it. I didn't realize that it was so beneficial to me emotionally. I fell in love with that. Then from there, from poetry, I started writing other things. I was encouraged because people were buying my poetry and I was stunned. But it spurred me on to want to do more. Later on I started writing plays. We actually performed a whole play. I'm also excited to share that I wrote some books. One of the books that I wrote is a children's book. It is called One Shot A Boy Makes a Shot Against all Odds in the Game. I love this book. I wrote the words to this book. I was very excited about this book. But one thing that happened, it took me a long time to write this book because I didn't know or feel confident to illustrate it. The illustrations are awesome, but I didn't illustrate them. I said the next book that I write, I'm going to figure out how to illustrate it myself because I'm very passionate about telling my story my way. One of the things that I did was I was scrolling through Youtube, I saw someone illustrating with collage and I thought maybe this is the way that I can illustrate my book and I took a leap of faith. That's what I'm going to ask you to do in this class. Maybe you've never done it before. We're going to do it together. I'm going to show you the steps. This is going to be a 32 or 34 page book that is actually about to be published. But we're not here to talk about publishing, that's a subject for a whole other class. But I want to help you write your story your way. Why don't we get started? The first thing that you want to do when writing a story is brainstorm. In terms of writing a story. It's a little book that you want to write, or maybe it's just for a newsletter. Maybe it's just something you want to share with your children. Brainstorming is very important. Maybe you know what you want to write. Maybe it's a story that you've been thinking about, like me for a long time, but you just don't know where to go with it. Maybe it's something that happened when you went for a walk. Maybe it's a story that you want to tell from your childhood. Here's what I would ask you to do. If you do not know what story that you want to write about, you can use this one as an idea. Think about your own childhood and something that happened, maybe one day that stands out and you will never, ever forget. If you don't know what you want to write about, choose that as a topic I want you to just write. Do not worry about grammar, spelling, You're just writing anything that comes to your mind about this day. Let's assume it was a day when you got a puppy. What are we going to do? We're going to write about the day I got my puppy. So think about the smells. What did the puppy smell like? What about what he looked like? What was the occasion? Was it a birthday? Was he wagging his tail? Maybe your sister actually wanted a puppy and she didn't get one. Whatever you can think about this story, I want you to just write it down. Take a few minutes and write it down. 2. Lesson 1 Brainstorm: The first thing that you want to do when writing a story is brainstorm in terms of writing a story. Or it's a little book that you want to write. Or maybe it's just for a newsletter. Maybe it's just something you want to share with your children. Maybe you know what you want to write. Maybe it's a story that you've been thinking about, like me for a long time, but you just don't know where to go with it. Maybe it's something that happened when you went for a walk. Maybe it's a story that you want to tell from your childhood. Here's what I would ask you to do. If you do not know what story that you want to write about, you can use this one as an idea. Think about your own childhood and something that happened, maybe one day that stands out and you will never, ever forget. If you don't know what you want to write about, choose that as a topic I want you to just write. Do not worry about grammar, spelling, You're just writing Anything that comes to your mind about this day. Let's assume it was a day when you got a puppy. So what are we going to do? We're going to write at the day I got my puppy. So think about the smells. What did the puppy smell like? What about what he looked like? What was the occasion? Was it a birthday? Was he wagging his tail? Maybe your sister actually wanted a puppy and she didn't get one. Whatever you can think about this story, I want you to just write it down. Take a few minutes and write it down. 3. Lesson 2 Research: I tried to exhaust all the things that I want to write about. You know why this is important? Because when I was illustrating this latest book, there was a thought or something that I wanted to include that I didn't have in my brainstorm notes. So I had to go back and I had to redo some of the scenes because it was something very important. In this instance, it was just a creek. Now, it may sound like it's unimportant, but it's a pivotal part of this story. Part of the story that you want to write. I would encourage you, this is the point where if you know that you want to write a certain story, that you would do your research. This is the part that I would say, take your time, slow down and do your due diligence. Writing your story is not just putting it on paper, It's making sure that it's telling the story that you want to tell. Some of the things that I do is I go to the library, I'll look at books that help me to write children's story. This is research. I found some books that actually tell you how to write a good story for children, how to make it interesting, how to make it engaging, and how to write in a way that's relevant for that child's age. And one thing that I also learned was attention span. Children all have a different attention span. And I'm sure you know this if you have children of your own or if you've just been a student in general, I've taught preschool for years and three, four and five year olds cannot sit still very long when you're writing a story for them. You have to keep in mind how long the book is, because I guarantee you a three year old is not going to sit still for a 50 page book. It's just not going to happen in your research, think about that. Who is your target audience? Who are you writing for? Okay? You say children, is it a nine year old or a two year old? Two year olds may tend to have hard back board books, right? And of course, a nine and ten year old, they might be beginning to read chapter books and so you're still going to have pictures, but it's just going to be a little different. What am I saying? I'm saying do your research, figure out all the parts of your story, also get feedback. This is so important. I have been to writers groups. I have used people who were artists to look at the book and give me their feedback. You might not want this all the time. But it's very important because although your story, you're going to tell your story your way, you want it to be enjoyable. You want it to be readable. You want it to be something that's going to be engaging for your audience. I would say find somebody that you trust and will give you some honest feedback about your book. And believe me, it's very 4. Lesson 3 Storyboard: What do you do from there? Now you're saying, I know I'm ready to write my story. Well, one step that I thought was very important was, and this is something that I learned in my research. I didn't start out knowing this. One thing that I learned was the importance of doing sketches. I will say that I am not a professional artist in that I have drawing skills, although I've been drawing all my life, never had any formal training. Although I love drawing pictures, you say, how important is this? This is very important. What I did was, as I brainstormed about my story that I wanted to write about, the little bird, I try to remember all the scenes that were important for the story because I wanted to tell the whole story. These are sketches. Under each sketch, they're notes. It's telling and describing what is happening in the scene. It's for me because when I draw the picture, or when I tried to illustrate or when I illustrate the picture, I wanted to capture what is in the scene. I'm sure you know this, but I wanted to show you the thumbnail sketches that I did. Actually, these are big and I did one of these for every page of my newest book that's coming out. Okay. So now you don't have to make these could be stick figures. It's really not important how the images look as long as you know exactly what is happening in your scene. But it doesn't have to be a book. This could be a newsletter. This could be so many different things. You could want to write a poetry story and you want to illustrate it. I want you to be encouraged that a thumbnail sketches doesn't have to be done just for a book. 5. Lesson 4 Supplies Needed: Now you say you know the story that you want to write. Did your brainstorm, did your research? In fact, you might already even know what your book or what your story is and what your outcome, whether it's going to be poetry just for your children, just for the library or whatever it is. You know what it is. Now, how do you get started? What are you going to? This is what you're going to. You're going to need some acrylic paint. You're going to need some glue. You can use whatever color you want for your acrylic paint. Now, why am I saying acrylic paint? You're going to be taking this acrylic paint and you're going to need some craft paper. I think this might be card stock. If this is all I have on hand, I don't want you to go out and buy anything extra special, but it's what you have on hand. Okay, build our collage. So for me, I wanted to try to have as many colors as possible. So all I did was take my paper and start painting. Okay. This is not anything fancy. Okay? Okay. Supplies you're going to need. You're going to need some scissors. You're going to need paint. And in this case it's acrylic paint and some glue and some brushes. All these things I already had, I didn't buy any of this stuff new. Okay, so you will need some other things when you're actually making the collage. I will show you now. So you'll know you may not need this, but in my collage I needed it. I made these characters because that was the best way for me to illustrate my characters in my story. Drawing them just wasn't giving me the satisfaction that I wanted with this character. These are actually articulated paper dolls. I'm sure you probably already know what that is. But in this case, the dolls I made, actually their arms move in their body parts move. Can you see that? So you're saying why is that important? Well, I found that to be important because I was able to use the different characters in different scenes as if I was using a digital device. So I was able to take this and put it on different scenes in my story. That made it a lot easier for me to use the same characters throughout the whole story. Okay? And so these are some of the other scenes that I created in my book. Okay, You at some. 6. Lesson 5 Parts of a Story: Let's talk about the story structure now. I'm sure you know this and I don't want to assume anything at all. So we're going to talk about, briefly, just the six parts of a story. The background. We're exposition a conflict rising action, a climax falling action, and a resolution. With that said, we're going to take three pieces of paper. Now, since we've already discussed and did your brainstorm, you know all the pieces you want to be in your story, you know this area. What you're going to do is take each part of your story and just to begin to write what goes in the background. In my story about my little bird was the boy heard the sound. I'm going to write the boy a sound. Okay, So you're going to continue that as you go throughout your whole story, right? So what else is in the background? Maybe he had pets. It's just given us some background about our story. And then next is conflict in my story. The sound of a loud noise, the beginning of a conflict. It wasn't a full conflict. It was maybe part of rising action. So you have to figure out where each part of your story goes. And once you have done that, I want you to, once you've done all that, now this should be full of your notes from your brainstorm. Okay, so how is your story going to end? That's your resolution. How is it going to be at the most exciting point of the story? That's your climax. Okay, so what about the rising action in my story? The rising action started with the rain. As the rain came down, there was thunder, there was lightning, and the creek started to rise. So it was something that carried the story along. Give me out, once you have written all the notes that you think are part of the six parts of your story, I want you to do sketches. Now, these could be stick figure sketches. It doesn't matter. I want you to sketch on each page what you think symbolizes your conflict. What symbolizes your background information? What symbolizes rising action? You know your story. What symbolizes your climax? The most exciting point. What symbolizes your falling action? And what symbolizes your resolution. Okay, so now, once you have that, you are ready to begin illustrating your story. Are you ready? 7. Lesson 6 Putting it all together: You have an idea of what you want to do in your story. So I'm going to show you how I actually did it. Okay, So now I'm going to go in here and I need brown because my trees are brown. Okay, I'm going to pull out my brown. And this is the part where it is going to get messy. I hope that you don't have on any fancy clothes because it will get messy. So I'm going to pull out some brown. Okay. And you have your scissors. Now you can. Okay, wait a minute. Now this is where this is the part that's going to be challenging. Okay? So now you have your, your sketches. Okay? So I want you to be open to being flexible as you illustrate. Because you're going to find that when you start to actually do it, you're going to find other elements. It's going to come into play. Okay, let's illustrate our scene now, please. This is where I want you to relax and just feel what it is that you want to do. It's no, right now I'm starting my tree now. I want you to have fun with this process because it's very relaxing. Maybe you could put on some music and just keep going because you know what, If you think about a tree, trees look and have so many different shapes to them. One thing about this glue is reposition glue. This is good because when you put your strips of color down, you can change it. Now, I have my first book that I illustrated that's coming out next month in March. I'm excited about that. I just want you to see that I'm beginning my tree. Okay. Okay, so you're going to be ripping paper, You're going to, oops, ripping paper, finding different shades of brown. So now I'm going to go back in and see if I can find any other shades of brown that would look good in my seen. Okay, so now I found some other. So this is what's going to happen. You're going to start creating your characters and your scenes, and you're going to be digging in to your files with all your different colors, and you're going to be trying to make your scene look the way you imagined it. And it doesn't have to be exactly the way you imagine it. I just want you to have fun. This is the whole point of it. Now I'm making my tree. And guess what? There's no right or wrong. Okay, But I want us to get back to our story for a minute. I want you to keep your story in the forefront of your mind all the time. Now I'm thinking about my background scene or the exposition in the beginning of the book. I imagine that my character is outside of his house and there's a tree. So that's the reason why I am. Now, maybe you put this in your brainstorm that there was a tree. That is why it is important to add that to your brainstorm. Because if you don't guess what, you are not going to have this tree in your scene right now. We're going to keep making our tree. I don't know that you are trying to get your work published. That's another conversation that we are not going to have. I do have several books published and Actually, I wanted to share some of the ones. I actually have a journal that I published. I actually have a novella. I have two of these, as I mentioned, a children's book. And I'm in the process of publishing another one. But every publisher is going to have a different requirement. That is the reason why I can't really talk about that because it's just not going to be specific. Now that we have the base of our tree started, how about we get started with some green, green greenery? Okay. Remember, remember a magazine clippings? This is where they are going to come into handy. They're going to come in handy. I want you to know this is going to be a messy process. So hopefully you don't mind getting glue and paint everywhere because it's going to be a messy process. What do I want to do? I want to put some green leaves. Now, here's what I would say you are going to, okay? So remember what I said, You can cut your, you can cut them or you can rip them and you're going to see that your ripped collage paper is going to have a different effect. It's going to have a different effect than the ones you cut. So now what I want to do is I'm going to make some branches, okay? Okay, let's do that. Okay? I want you to see that this is the process where you build your story, okay? Okay. So now what are we going to do? Okay? All right, one thing that's great about this reposition of glue is that you can pick up your work and just, you know, put it back down and move it around. It's great. Okay, so now I'm making some branches for our tree. Now see, this is a perfect opportunity for me to say that I noticed that I don't have a lot of dark brown. I have mostly tan. Next time you do your painting, do your collage prep work, you might realize that you might need a different color. Okay, So just be in tune with that. Now what I'm going to do is I'm going to cut out some leaves, but this time I'm going to cut them out. I'm going to cut them out, and I'm going to do it with scissors, okay? Because I really want them to look authentic. Okay, so here we go. Mm hmm. I hope you're having fun. Is this should not be stressful. It should be relaxing. It should be relaxing. Now in this class, what you're going to do is as you develop your story, whatever you want to write, you're going to do that and you're going to actually incorporate your own, your own illustrations in it. Now I want you to know that in this, in my book, Jordan meets Songbird, that, that I used collage clippings, But I had to also use a little bit of digital art. Because the reason I had to use digital art, which it turned out to be pretty good, is because there was an element that I did not think about when I did my brainstorm. That is the reason why it is important for you to try to think of everything that's in your story. Now it's okay because you won't be able to think of everything. It's just the way it is. But just so you know, if you can. Try your best think of everything that you wanted having there. You won't have to go back and redo it. I had to actually go back and redo a scene because I hadn't put it down in my brainstorming notes. Okay. So now, okay, now we're getting our leaves on the tree, and then you have to think about what time of year is it? Is it summer, spring, winter, fall? Right. Okay. So okay. All right. Mm. Just be prepared for some messy fun, okay? Okay. All right. Okay. All right. All right. So now we're going to put a few more leaves on here. Mm. Our tree is coming along. It's coming along nicely. You don't have to be so precise. Okay. And depending on what it is that you're going for, perhaps you want to illustrate some shapes. Maybe this is for young children and you could make your leaves in different shapes. It's your story, your way, remember. That's what this is all about. Okay? All right, so now our tree is coming along. Now it might be a good idea if, you know, you're going to be doing trees and leaves to cut out the little leaves ahead of time, Okay? So now here we are. I just wanted you to see where we were with our tree. We go a little further and we put some grass down at the bottom of our tree. How about that? Let's try that and then we'll be done with this illustration for now. Okay? All right, so one thing about this, I want you to have fun. Okay? And to be confident to know that you can do it because it's fun. There's a lot of detail work and I hope that you don't mind detail work because I do. It makes your story look engaged in. And remember your audience. Who is your audience? What are they going to think about the illustration? That's really important. I mean, it's so important. So important. Okay, so now I'm just taking the green strips, I'm just putting them down here. It's going to be at the bottom of my tree. And like I said, this these little magazine cutouts, they are super for collage. I mean they're thin, they go on. It's like a dream. I just wanted you to see where we were and how it is shaping up. I'm going to put some more leaves on here and I'm going to put some flowers. But I wanted to give you a little tip. I have scrapbooking paper with all kinds of designs already on them and many of them have flowers. With the illustration that I did here with my book. I don't know if you can see that these were from the scrap booking paper. They already have flowers in design, so I cut out some of them. I thought that would make our story so interesting. And it does look at that. These are from that. This is from a magazine that is from our scrapbooking paper. Your collage is going to have so many different elements in it, it's just going to make your story more interesting. Okay, so let's see where we are with our tree. Let's put a little bit more now. This is your collage, your way, so you can stop and make it as detailed as you want. That is the key. It's your collage. Okay, so. Okay, so let's see what else we have, okay? Now, this might be an area where you want to rip your paper down here with the grass. If you're doing grass, you may not need to snip it with scissors. It all depends on what you're going to. I'm going to stop right here. And one thing that I can say that I am really, I'm really, really enjoying collide so much that I really don't want to stop, but I have to stop. Okay. Okay. Okay, here we go. Okay. Okay. So now this is one thing about collage. You have to remember, it's changeable. You can lift it up, you can change it. It's not etched in stone. You can reposition things. Just have fun with it. Just have fun in this situation. What I did was I used text boxes to incorporate inside of this and I will show you that in a minute. Can you see that? Because I know where each part of my story is supposed to line up from my brainstorm. I know where to add it. My I added here in text boxes. It's just something for me to frame my story. It is not ready yet, but this is my practice book. This is practicing to see how I can make my story line up with my collage work. I'm quite proud of what I'm doing. So I just wanted you to be encouraged to know that you can also do the same thing. Like I said, this is a practice book for me. But I wanted you to see how the illustrations can be I'm added to text or text can be added to illustration to tell your story your way. In this class, you're going to do just that. At the end of our course, you're going to have an assignment. And it could be whatever you want. It doesn't have to be a little children's book. It could be a poem that you want to illustrate. The poem will go inside of your book or inside of the card. Okay. And it could be a newsletter. I want you to know it doesn't matter what it is that you're writing. You can use collage art to illustrate your story your way. Thank you for being a part of this course and I look forward to seeing what it is that you have created.