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The creative process for writing our book started with a whole school experience. All of the students, throughout the school, had a workshop with Trudy Roberts to explore Indigenous language. Trudy introduced us to Bundjalung words like jingeela (hello), and how to count from 1 to 5. Some classes even danced and sang with Trudy.
A group of students were then selected to work in depth with Trudy to explore the story of "Djungaa Ngaariyan" (Pelican Playground).
See The Artists for more information on these students.
heads shoulders song.MOVHeads, shoulders, knees and toes song.
counting.MOVCounting 1 to 5.
The students worked with Trudy Roberts to develop their interpretation of the story "How the birds got their colours".
The story comes from "Djungaa Ngaariyan" (Pelican Playground) a Budjeraam (Dreamtime story) which Trudy shared with the students.
The students listened to the story and worked together to develop a children's book. The process included making sure we used indigenous words and their meanings, whilst keeping it succinct.
Students shared their ideas in dot points, then worked in groups to develop the stories. They then shared their story with the group as a play. As a group we joined the stories together and edited to get to the final product.
Creating the illustrations for the book was a multi layered approach. Students first created simple black and white outline images of different Australian birds. They used information books and images to inspire these simple designs. It was important to keep the images simple and stylized so they could be used in the book to show the birds before they discovered the colours.
Once students had taken photos of the simple outlined birds, they used these to inspire the paintings. Students worked with Oral and Victor to develop their Indigenous art skills. They focused on the dots - size, layering, outlining - to create different effects. Students were encouraged to use these new skills in creating their art works.
Students painted their canvas with simple backgrounds before painting their birds.
The book was digitally created by layering images.
Photographs of the painting backgrounds were digitally manipulated to create the page backgrounds.
Students took photos of the simple outline illustrations, then overlaid these to develop the images as they are seen on the pages.
The creative decision to use the canvas paintings on the final pages was a group decision.
By using these techniques we could ensure a piece of art from every single participant is shown in the book.
Oral Laurie created the foot print images which track across every page and the front cover art work.
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