Bringing Colour Theory into Charlie’s Childhood Drawing’s

We decided to use a lot of ‘danger’ colour’s in Charlies childhood drawings such as red,black and yellow. We wanted to express a troubled childhood.Even in happier drawings we included yet or black to express the forever present mental problems.

We also used a lot of blues as blue can be used to express sadness and melancholy. It can also be used as a calming and peaceful colour.

Here are some examples

Even in his adult years, all letters from his father were in blue ink but Charlie still uses black, in his very last letter from Charlie when he has found peace and happiness we used blue ink, as a small detail to express feeling safe and secure at last.

Here are some examples

 

 

Meaning Behind a Child’s Drawings.

We decided to research children’s drawings and see if there is any particular meaning behind them, some of the research i found is actually quite shocking.

A Bunch of Balloons

 

Balloons can symbolize a child who has trouble making friends, who make feel isolated or has a close bond with a parent and wont stray from that. You can see that clearly in this drawing as there is a balloon string attached to the mother too.

Stick Figures 

 

Drawing skills often begin to tell a story in kindergarten. Although kids at this age tend to use simple stick figures, you can sometimes pick things up from facial expressions, where family members are placed, and what they’re doing. This second picture, drawn by a 5-year-old girl, is an example of that. She drew her mother on the far left, followed by the family dog, her father, herself, and her 8-year-old brother. The girl drew herself as larger than her parents — this typically reflects good self-esteem. It’s worth noting that she placed herself between her father and brother: When children are between 4 and 6 years old, they develop a sense of their gender identity. As a part of this normal developmental process, young girls often get physically and emotionally closer to their father (boys this age tend to get closer to their mother), and the feelings are temporary.

taken from http://www.parents.com/fun/arts-crafts/kid/decode-child-drawings/

Lots of Detail 

 

The 7-year-old girl who drew the third picture is a triplet who was born prematurely. When I asked what the people in the picture are doing, she started on the left with her brother, who is on the high-functioning end of the autism spectrum. “He’s doing the laundry, Mommy is working on the computer, I am hanging up clothes, Daddy is washing the car, and my sister is washing the glasses.”

The fact that she has drawn numerous body parts and clothing on her parents suggests that she has mature visual and motor skills. By looking at everyone’s clothing, I see that she recognizes gender differences. The drawing also shows the children and parents as a cohesive unit; they seem to enjoy doing everyday tasks together. Notice how they’re each drawn in a distinctive way — the brother has a larger frame and a big head, and her sister has glasses, for instance. This tells me that she’s able to think of each family member as an individual.

http://www.parents.com/fun/arts-crafts/kid/decode-child-drawings/

 

A Hole in the Ground

 

The last image was drawn by a 7-year- old girl who’d recently gone with her parents and younger brother to her grandfather’s funeral. I was impressed with several aspects of her picture, including her ability to visually distinguish the adults from the kids and to draw faces that reveal sadness. She drew herself and her father in profile, which may indicate that she and her father have a strong bond. It was encouraging that she drew everyone close together, and touching; this shows she perceived her family as tight-knit in this sad moment in their lives.

The Soccer Match

 

This top drawing is terrific: It shows a family enjoying a sport together. When the 9-year-old boy who drew it was asked to describe the image, he answered, “We’re playing soccer. Dad said to pass, so I passed to him, and then he passed to Mom, and Mom passed to my little brother. And he scored!” The boy’s description of his picture reveals his active engagement with other members of his family. I notice that his mom is drawn as the biggest person in the family, and while that might not be significant, I could use the opportunity to say, “You drew your mom as the largest person in the picture. Is she the leader of the family team?”

A View From Above

 

The 7-year-old boy who drew this last picture says it’s “all of us playing Sorry.” I immediately noticed that he drew his family from the perspective of someone looking down at their game table. This suggests he’s got strong visual-spatial skills; children like this are often artistic and particularly good at puzzles and games. This family is engaged in playing together at home, which reveals a positive relationship among them. Since he drew his parents and younger sister around the sides and bottom of the board and himself at the very top, I might point to that and comment, “Great drawing — you sure are the strong one in the family,” and wait for his response. I’d start there because he depicts himself in a way that indicates a well-developed sense of identity.

 

i got all of this interesting information from http://www.parents.com/fun/arts-crafts/kid/decode-child-drawings/?page=2

Work so Far

Yesterday and this morning as a group we have been creating Childrens drawings, teenage diary entries etc from Charlie Babbit’s point of view (Tom Cruise from Rain Man). Here are my pieces so far.

Trying to make them look old has been our biggest difficulty.

A young drawing by Charlie depicting his dead mother as an angel in heaven.

 

As he grows, so does his love for cars, here is a pen study by Charlie of his dads car

 

An angry teenage diary entry from Charlie

He defaces his drawing to write about how he hates the car as his dad wont let him drive it

Here is a letter from Charlie after he leaves home

 

A childhood drawing of charlie, his dad and the rainman

 

The Rainman

This drawing shows rain man and his early adoration for cars

Rain man helps Charlie through hard times, he sees him as a hero and someone who isn’t afraid.

 

The rest of the group have done a lot of fantastic work as well and i can’t wait to see it all as a scrap book.

Drawing as a Child Would.

For this project we will need to take our drawing skills and throw them to ones side as we need to create drawings that are supposedly drawn by a 4 year old+

I had researched this a little last semester and gotten by boyfriends little brothers and sisters to draw their idea of what a monster, villain, super hero etc would be like in their heads, here were their drawings…

 

We will be making this ‘scrapbook’ digitally and using certain paintbrushes and layering effects to make it look like it was drawn by a child and thats around 50 years old.

Just googling children s drawings has helped me understand a childs idea of how they draw and use colour.

 

 

Eco Warrior Web Page Design.

I had previously designed a home page for the eco warriors top trump cards, as had some of the rest of the group. I decided to make two more pages for the website, i wanted to be able to visually explain how a child would submit their work and did so by creating the page below.

I wanted to make it very simple and using simple worlds so it was child friendly. Using my boyfriends little sisters information i made the page look as if she was submitting her work. She has browsed her computer and chosen her drawing. She has entered her name, age and some information about her character. Once she is happy she can submit her work and we can then transform it into one of the card designs seen at the bottom of the page. She could also safely give us her address or email and we could send her a real hard copy of her top trump card.

At the bottom of the page there is a click through link to view the gallery of other kids word, and here it is below.

Again, i tried to make this page very easy to understand and very user friendly. Clicking teh black arrows with let the images move either left or right like a gallery reel. If the child wants to take a closer look at a card they can click the image at it will become larger, as seen below.

Making the product more interactive by allowing kids to submit their work!

With out top trump card idea, we had decided to make a webpage so that the kids could watch their characters fight online using the data on their cards. We also thought it would be alot more fun if the kids could create and draw their own characters with back story. I decided to try this out by getting my boyfriends little brothers and sisters to design some characters and give them a little back story.

Once they drew the characters i transformed them into top trump cards by adding colour and making them look professional without losing their childish imperfections.

Here are the kids original drawings.

 

and here are my the cards i designed using their pieces of art.

 

the idea would be for the kids to draw their character with a little information about the character and they could either post it to us or email it via the website. We would then create these styles of cards with them. The child would receive their card in the post and 40 more of their card would be produced and randomly placed in new packs so that other kids will have their character and viceversa.

My boyfriends little brothers and sisters got very excited when i showed them the cards and thought it was ‘soooo coool’ and asked if they could do more, so i do think it would work successfully as a product.

Eco Warriors magazine cover and Website Homepage Design.

 

I decided to design a website home page for children and a magazine cover based on the eco warriors. With use of typography we made a logo which i included in both designs. I found this quite difficult to try and look professional but did my best.