Illustrating a Snowy Scene with Uri Shulevitz

Young readers are quite often drawn to books by the pictures that appear on their pages. These illustrations engage children to not only want to read, but to spend time exploring a book, looking for items they recognize; studying a character's expressions; or admiring the patterns, colors or textures in a scene. In Storybook Art: Hands-On Art for Children in the Styles of 100 Great Picture Book Illustrators, authors MaryAnn F. Kohl and Jean Potter introduce children to the illustrators that create many of the illustrations that appear in their favorite stories. Through activities tailored to each illustrator's style, children learn to develop illustration techniques which can be used to illustrate stories of their own creation.

The following activity from Storybook Art features the artwork of author/illustrator Uri Shulevitz in his award-winning book Snow.

Read more about Uri Shulevitz here.

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Imitate Uri Shulevitz’s adaptation of snow piling up on the title’s letters on the book cover; the town, and the trees. Create a snowy transparency that will cover the drawing in just the right places with a thick layer of falling snow.

Materials:
9” x 12” gray or light blue colored paper (construction paper)
masking tape
pencil
crayons or colored pencils
blank overhead transparency sheet (acetate sheet)
markers and correction fluid –
- non-toxic correction fluid with brush: Wite Out?® PLUS Water Base Correction Fluid
- non-toxic liquid correction fluid in pen style: Fluid Bic Wite-Out Plus Waterbase™
- waterbased presentation or transparency markers: Stabilo OH Pen Marker™ or Vis-a-Vis™

Process:

1. Tape the corners of the gray or blue paper to the table with masking tape.
2. Draw a scene that will soon be covered with snow. Suggestions include a town, school yard, park and house. Leave room for block letters that will title the picture.
3. Print or write the title of the picture in thick block letters. The title can be SNOW or any other word that goes with the picture, like FRIENDS, FUN, FLUFFY, or WINTER. Choose one.
4. Color in the drawing and the title, but do not draw or color any snow. That step will come later.
5. When the picture is complete, place a clear transparency sheet over the drawing. Then tape the top two corners only, so the transparency can flip up.
6. With the white-out correction fluid, make dots of white on the transparency to look like snow falling. Continue the dots in places where the snow might pile up – on the block letters, on a rooftop, on someone’s hat. Draw more snow with the whiteout. Snow, snow everywhere.
7. Make the snowfall stop by lifting the transparency. To see the snow cover everything, lower the transparency.
8. To display the snowy picture, tape the picture and transparency together at the top two corners, so the transparency will flip up. Tape or pin to a wall or bulletin board.

Variation
Spatter paint over a drawn picture using a hand-misting bottle filled with slightly thinned white tempera paint.

This activity is from Storybook Art © 2003 Bright Ring Publishing, Inc.