THE ART OF VISUAL NARRATION

Krzysztof Tusiewicz

1. Introduction

The evolution of the approach to a picture as the object of magic, art, and communication is about 30,000 years old. Has anything changed since the primitive times until now?

The human silhouettes presented here are rock drawings, dated 30,000 years ago, which were found in Spain and Africa.
Here, one can see the scene of fight. The dynamism and expression of this event are reinforced by the abundance of figures.
Three silhouettes of dancing figures can, thanks to the rhythm which is expressed by them, tell a story about themselves, one can feel their expression and hear the sound accompanying the dance. The shape of flexible bodies of two dancers arouse delight with capturing the appropriate moment of motion.
The sight of these two drawings, this spontaneous record of life, arouses delight for the artist's gift now. Thanks to them, our imagination, inspired by the captured image, can make a journey into that world.
So can we say now that these drawings told us some story?
Yes, because story-telling with a picture had existed since the moment humans started to preserve it. For over 30,000 years it has been accompanying us, offering us aesthetic sensation, information, and message.
The world has changed, and the picture people looked at changed as well. But it became the natural tendency that people tried to communicate something, using the picture. Because the picture is everything we see and notice, but also what we seize and preserve. Today, as never before, all areas of life have captured the picture. It is not enough to see it in the galleries.
We can see it on the stamps, billboards, advertisements, in the Internet, we can also send it via a mobile phone. We can copy it as many times as we want, take a photo of it, print it, or join it in a film. It is needed for our identification or to pass information about our health. The media have captured it, economy and business too, but also artists and the contesting street. Why is it so indispensable?
Because it speaks without any word - it tells a story.
We acquire more than 80% of information from the surrounding world, using our sight. It is a sufficient reason for people who want to reach us to see about the picture. Even such media as radio or newspaper, and such areas of art such as music, seek the support in the picture. It is ubiquitous. It informs, tells a story, moves, and manipulates with the audience, using its shape, colour, size, and motion.
We, within the confines of the "Animated Debate" project, tried do prove that thanks to the art of story-telling with a picture, one can communicate beyond borders - borders of languages, cultures, and physical and mental condition.

2. "Animated Debate" - the example of practical application of "Story-telling with a picture"

The classes of the groups in Poland were divided into four modules:

Art activities
Computer work
Animations
Language classes

The picture played a very important role in each of them. Animation, which was our goal, was only one of many ways, one of the means of expressing thoughts by the picture. Therefore, before the participants began making the animations, first they expressed themselves using the static pictures.
The most important question which appeared then was: "What can you see ?" - when you hear the music, or when there is a still life in front of you. The second question was: "How to show it ?". They looked for the answer, using available means of expressions. Crayons, pencils, paints, markers, scissors, scraps of cloth, clay, and the objects of everyday use, became the elements of their pictures.
Then the time came for the third question: "How to tell it ?" and the follow-up "How to show it to be understood ?"

These questions accompany the whole Animated Debate. Even if they were not uttered directly, they were hidden in the work connected with a drawing, script, storyboard, and animation. I think that asking these questions to the participants was one of the most important decisions which resulted from the schedule.

Art activities - the answers to the questions.

"What can you see?"
The participants brought their own works on a free subject to the first classes. We discussed every work. They were mostly crayon drawings. The simple exercise using the question "what can you see" allowed to look at the works in a different way. The question was asked not to the author, but to all present at the classes. Everyone saw something else and was confirmed in the conviction that it is possible to see in this way, that it is possible to have one's own opinion, and one's own image of what one is looking at. The author received many interpretations of his/her work and in this way, s/he learnt that the drawing is not unambiguous.
The next step was computer drawing in the Paint programme. The topic was free, because it was important to check the skills of workshop participants. The drawings were really different. This what required discussing and paying special attention was the form of the drawings. Drawing in this simple graphic programme imposed accuracy and precision. The drawings were devoid of spontaneous mistakes, which give the personal colour to every creative activity. It was necessary to show the tools available in this programme, which allowed randomness.
As in the previous exercise, all drawings were discussed in the group. The participants began to get used to the critical approach to their works. It was a difficult moment which was preceded by the conversation about the criticism being inspiring, and that nobody laughs at the drawings and their authors, as well as it is worth to hear others' opinion about one's own work. We introduced some rules which were valid through all the classes. Everybody could say everything but they have to remember that they may also be criticized in a moment. One had to remember that the criticism must be balanced and fair.

The exercises with drawing on a free subject, inspired by music which is listened to, is already described in the chapters of CD Guide. I would like to come back to it, because I think it was a really important exercise. The participants had to answer directly the question what they see while listening to music. They had to paint it, deriving the ideas from the imagination which was stimulated by music.

drawings made while listening to music

The exercise was done with a great interest and participants' involvement, and its result was a surprise. Nobody has ever before heard this music and known that it was the music composed to a western film. Its association with the desert, cacti, and the "wild west" showed not only the talent and genius of the composer Enio Morricone, but also the sensitivity and ear for music of the participants. It showed that the question "What can you see?" could appear on all next classes in a hidden form. The participants proved that they can "see" significantly more than it results from the task. It was replaced with the command: "draw your school, home, street, and yourself".

"How to show it?"
Art projects had several roles to play. In case of working on a rainbow, it was about showing the after-effects of colours or drawing attention to a composition, but also presenting how the same subject looks, made with different techniques; how the rainbow can be variously shown. The first drawing was made with traditional crayons.

drawings of the rainbow

These drawings showed how a simple topic can be interpreted in a diverse way. One could draw only the rainbow, but also the rainbow with the world around, or the rainbow as a detail. The exercise was preceded with a conversation which reminded of some possibilities to see the same thing differently, and indicated the need to look at the world with one's own eyes. The examples present that these conversations were needed and that the expected results occurred.

Some of the participants made the rainbow in the "Paint" programme.

drawings of the rainbow in the Paint programme

Thanks to these practice, we could analyze what possibilities could give such tool as a crayon and computer. We discussed whether these techniques render the essence of the rainbow ot whether it can be done differently. Then the exercise with painting the rainbow appeared.

painted rainbow

In this case the emphasis was put on improvisation or accident. Such possibilities can give painting on wet paper. The colour selection was the authors' selection but not the colours' merging. The achieved results were discussed and compared with the previous rainbows. It was a very instructive exercise which made the participants aware of the importance of the "How to show it" question.
The possibility to choose out of many means was surprise for the participants. Used to school discipline, where are usually one method for everyone, the participants approached work in a very creative work. And this was the purpose of these exercise and questions.

"How to show it to be understood?"
Work on answering this question began when the scripts of big animations ("Pansies", "Little Shoemaker", and "Hercules") were started to be made. It was started when one had to choose parts to show from the literary texts. Then the questions "What can you see?" when we read a part of a text and "How to show it to be understood" appeared.

It turned out very soon that much information which was important to the plot, was not seen, because it was included for example in a dialogue. This work on a text, and on the picture which is to replace is, was the first lesson showing the importance of so called "adaptation". It showed that a literary text is something distinct, and translating it on the picture language has its own rights. In this way the scripts were created. After choosing the scenes which would be put into the films, the parts which would be inspiration for takes were isolated out of the text. It is visible in the examples of work on animation storyboard.

"Pansies" storyboard

But before the storyboard was created in such a form, drawn frames were created spontaneously, in a way the workshop participants perceived them. They were often the drawings of the figures which were "lost" in the background, they were always small, invisible, they did not show what a character was doing.
Sending a few frames of the "Pansies" storyboard to the partner - the British group, asking about the point of the story, turned out to be a perfect lesson. The answer was a compete surprise for the authors. The story interpretation was much different than intended one. The participants were indignant at first, but after calm analysis it turned out that such an interpretation is possible. Showing the participants' mistakes made them introduce far-going corrections. Careful watching properly arranged drawings of the storyboard allowed to read a story not written in the storyboard, but the one which really resulted from the actual content of the drawings.

They learnt the difficult art of gaining distance to one's own work. When they themselves discovered for the umpteenth time that what they wanted to tell does not result from the frames, they drew the next ones. Because the storyboard is perfect, practical example of application of the "Story-telling with the picture". Here, one can see how necessary is conciseness, uniqueness, and legibility in picture story.

Work with computer - animations - answers to questions.

Let's look closer at the answers to the questions "What can you see", "How to show it?", and "How to be understood?" in case of animations, using the examples of picturing the notion "Happiness", "My yard", and "Romeo and Julia".
These were the subjects that appeared in the second year of work on the "Animated Debate" project. It is important because the fact that the instructors accepted this difficult task was possible only thanks to their experience gained in the first year of work.
This experience allowed us to change the tool which the participants would use as well as the form of the presentation. It resulted from our experience that these are to be the forms of the picture which are especially created to be put at the website of the project. They are also to answer the question what is happiness for the participants, what is their yard and what Romeo and Julia are associated with. So they had to be animations, which already being planned, had to be adjusted to the websites conditions, and also their presentation forms had to be different.

Happiness

As in case of all projects, we started from discussing the idea. The participants knew that their works would be published at the separate Internet websites and they have to take active part in their creating. Therefore, parallel to their work on the development of the concept, some of them made their own, animated inscriptions "happiness". In the second year of "Animated Debate" also new participants took part in the classes, so there was the first animation lesson for them. It is worth taking notice what character have these inscriptions, what colours, what fonts, what idea of animating is useful for its content. It is the independent conceptional work of the participants.

Happiness - Internet web page

Work on illustrating the concept proceeded according the following scheme:

Happiness

Detailed description of the concept. What do you associate with happiness? Write everything what comes to your mind.

Descriptions should be as short as possible. Sentences are concepts.

Illustrating concepts - what do you see- Reading your concepts?

Going, it seems, roundabout way, from a concept, via extensive descriptions to several concepts was necessary to make them realize what "happiness" means. It took much time, but thanks to such accurate analysis, the answer to the question "What can you see" was much easier. But easier did not mean easy.

The group which performed the concept "Happiness" (as all the other Polish groups) was so called dysfunctional group. In this case, dysfunction regarded, in prevailing part of the group, physical handicap, mental, or both at the same time. Therefore, the work of the group had a very specific character. A few participants were able to do their tasks only thanks to the volunteers' help. The dysfunction did not mean the lack of creativity, it was necessary only to arouse it to see the results.

Happiness - Piotrek - - - - - - - - - - Happiness - Tomek

Piotrek and Tomek's works proved that one is able to work on difficult tasks in spite of serious dysfunctions and use similar criteria as in case of able people. Their journey in "Animated Debate" where they took part for two years, showed the legitimacy of our choice. It consisted in combing together disabled and able people in one group. The participants give each other cooperation, help, and friendliness and it was visible all the time at classes. Therefore, looking at the works which were created during "Animated Debate", it is hard to say who made them. Thanks to team work, not only animations, but also lasting, humans bonds were created.

Piotrek, with volunteers' help, illustrated the concept "Happiness" using different techniques. He liked best making animations in a programme which had ready background, figures, and their motion phases - in the Cartoon Maker programme. He could also make soundtrack in this programme. His "Meetings with people" and "When my mum picks me up from school" are made with this technique. The animation "Meeting with my friends and acting in the theatre" was began as a drawing in the Paint programme. This animation appeared together with a story about the book, flying over heads. "When I meet a priest in my school" was a difficult animation made in Corel programme, where the background and figures were painted in the Paint programme. "I like ice-cream" is a drawing which, as the author said himself, did not have to have any animation.

Work on illustrating the concept done by Tomek, had its own story. Despite the initial inhibitions, whole project was done by him unaided. It was not the easy job for him, but thanks to the will to share with others what happiness means for him, extremely interesting animations were created. The moving "walk - overcoming disability" was being created for a long time, but the technique was very complicated. It was necessary to animate not only a person moving on a wheelchair, but also a person getting up from it. It was a real challenge to "cut out" a figure from the background drawn in Paint and introduce it into the "frame". While making "Love - to have a girlfriend" it was, thanks to the previous experience, much easier. "Swimming pool" is the animation very similar to "Love", but "Meeting with Adam Małysz" it was a challenge again. However, as the author of the work said, it was worth to spend time on searching the photos in the Internet, add own - made during the classes, and make the animation of a flying jumper in Corel. It is an example of right combination of photography and animation. "Home atmosphere" is a compilation of figures from Corel's cliparts, made in this programme. It is a joke about the atmosphere at home.

My Yard

The work on illustrating the concept "My yard" proceeded according the same scheme as "Happiness". But other authors (mostly disabled) also showed their sensitivity to the surrounding world, and they showed that they can interpret the reality very personally.

My Yard website

Romeo and Juliet

The project "Romeo and Juliet" was assumed technically and essentially as the continuation of the previous ones "Happiness" and "My yard".
But owing to the distinctness of the subject it has become a new challenge. The great majority of the participants had not known anything about Romeo and Juliet. A lot of time was needed to familiarize them with the sense of these characters at least in broad outline. It was possible thanks to the information from the Internet, reading Shakespeare's texts, or watching a film .When everybody was ready to think about the animation, they wrote some short ideas. They were very different. Each of them was carefully discussed; first we had to know what we wanted to tell so that the form of animation was adjusted to the content.

As a result, some extremely interesting and personal interpretations of Romeo an Juliet were created. They are different form the previous projects because they have soundtrack and therefore they are more similar to films than the previous illustrations of concepts. Here I would like to stop for a little longer, because all three of them represent totally different points of view.

Romeo i Julia - Asia

"Romeo and Juliet" in Asia's version is enormously personal expression. This interpretation, as well as the interpretation of "My yard" "Yard asia" is definitely marked with personal experience and a specific perception of the world. For her, the world is exactly like she is showing it. This version of "Romeo and Juliet" , with the music selected by her, tells us a lot about the author's dysfunction. But this image of the world is told legibly, the emotions can be read without difficulties. This is a good example of picture illustrating.

Romeo i Julia Grazynki

"Romeo and Juliet" of Grazynka is a modern version of this love. Juliet as a rebellious violinist and Romeo as a rockman are a couple who exist thanks to the cover sheets of a newspaper, which was created especially for the project. The conflict occurs because the violinist's parents who are famous philharmonic musicians, are against their relationship. But love wins. Music is adjusted to the pictures and it emphasizes the meanings of the headlines. The story has a coherent form and content. It is told in a brief but legible way. The original form of transmission is its great advantage.

Romeo i Julia Kuby

The interpretation of "Romeo and Juliet" by Kuba is also a modern version of this story. This time Juliet is a police officer, and Romeo is a graffiti guy - it is a conflict of jobs, but once more, affection wins. What is left is laughter and rejection of Romeo by his friends- graffiti makers, too, as well as Juliet's demotion in police. This all is told in a very light way with a sense of humour. The texts added in "bubble speeches" only supplement the picture story, and the sub-headings in the ending only strengthen the effect of surprise. And again, we deal with a very personal, but legible art of story-telling with a picture.
These examples of computer animations are not all which can be shown while answering the question "What can you see?", "How to show it?", and "How to be understood?". Such are all the animations which finish the phase of the project. The gallery - films is really worth seeing so that one could realize that the participants remembered about all the questions mentioned above during the workshops.

During one of the last classes, the group which cooperated with British partners received a task to do. They were to try to draw a review of the British version of "My yard".
In my opinion, it was a very difficult task, which was to be the summary of all the work on building in oneself a creative need of story-telling with a picture. The participants one more time watched the partners' animations carefully, wrote their remarks and tried to draw their opinions using a pencil. The one difficulty in this task was to make some characters - graphic symbols, and not stories as in the previous tasks.
One has to remember that it was a "dysfunctional" group. At the very beginning of work there were some difficulties with understanding the essence of the task. Only individual conversations activated the whole "avalanche" of ideas. This work was to be, in its assumption, entirely individual and independent. And it was such. It showed that it is possible to communicate with a picture made by the workshop participants.

asia

ewelina

kasia

maciek

This phase of the project, especially its second year of work, showed that story-telling with a picture has become a language of workshop participants. It presented how conscious creators were born in common and unconscious picture's receivers.
The way was not easy. It was necessary to overcome ignorance, change habits in perceiving the reality, learn a new language - the picture language. One also had to overcome the difficulties resulting from disability. Looking at all crated projects, one can say half-heartedly that the results confirmed the participants' creativity and involvement. Thereby, the need of existence of the "Animated Debate" project was confirmed as well.

Language classes

In the prospect of the finished project, one can see how important role played language classes, because they were not limited only to teaching language. It was the form of classes which was expected because the participants had the opportunity to be in contact with English in a different form than at school. All captions under the drawings, the letters to the partners, using the forum, or learning the words, but while making a scene to one's film, as mentioned above, these are all tasks which were done with pleasure, and thanks to it, more effectively.

The role of language classes was discussed in the essay entitled "Teaching English in the context of Animated Debate". There one can read about the meaning of image in these classes.

3. "Pass on - the art of story-telling with a picture" - the workshop for teachers

From the very beginning, one of the most important goals of "Animated Debate" was to spread experience and knowledge which was gained during the work - that is pass on. Thanks to the fact the that time of our project was divided into two years, we had a clear picture of our successes and failures already after one year. We could share it with others. Basing on our previous work and the experience gained then, we worked out new themes of the classes. We were curious how accurate our choices would be and how objective was our evaluation of the project which has been done so far.
Therefore, the meetings with all people interested in the idea of Animated Debate play a very important role. It is worth noticing that the process of gaining new experience does not refer only to the participants of the classes in Poland, Romania, Great Britain, or Italy. It was also extremely important for the instructors, coordinators, and other people who were responsible for the proper course of the project in all four countries.
Since the first, partner meeting in Poland, via the visit in Bucharest, partner meetings in London and Sicily, the exchange of opinions and experience has become an extremely essential, creative element which undoubtedly influenced the quality of our work. We met as a group of five people for who story-telling with a picture is everyday work tool. So it was possible to improve together our syllabus effectively. It was important to get to know one another, get to know places and conditions we worked in, and conditions which resulted from each country's culture and the structure of each partner organization. It allowed to work out the way we taught others to use the tools of the art of story-telling with a picture in a better way. These partner meetings became the first step in our relay called "Pass on".
The specific fact about the work in Polish groups was the constant presence of volunteers at the classes, who helped the disabled people. Their participation, apart from the undeniable role of excellent helpers in conducting the classes, had also one more crucial goal. Most of our volunteers were teachers, educators, or they will become such in the future. Working with us, they learnt not only about the project, its participants, but also the methods and specificity of our work. One can say that they learnt the picture language together with is. It was a special kind of learning, acquired while practicing, not from books, the one being born in the middle of work with people, creative cooperation with the participants of "Animated Debate" . In this project they met suddenly the compilation of many areas of art, ICT technologies, and first of all, the story-telling with a picture. We do hope that the volunteers will remain the next, important link of pass on. We do believe that they will use our experience. And this guide will help them.
During the second year of the project, simultaneously to the Animated Debate classes, we began the course for teachers, which was co-organized by Teachers Improvement Centre "WOM". The subject of the classes, such as of this essay, was the art of story-telling with a picture. The syllabus included four sessions. On the first meeting, we presented the idea of the "Animated Debate" project as a practical application of the art of story-telling with a picture. Also the goals and methods of our work were precisely discussed. Teachers could see the results of our participants’ work. The most important for us was to make teachers realize the role and significance of the story-telling with a picture in today's world.
The teachers we worked with were IT teachers, art, Polish, foreign languages teachers as well as teachers working in first classes of primary school, and that is why, the possibility to apply story-telling with a picture in the subjects they taught was for sure a challenge for them. The summary of the course was to be the projects, created by the teachers, which should be later used at work in school. It turned out that the diversity of specializations did not disturb at work - on the contrary, it positively influenced the abundance of ideas which appeared during the course.
The second meeting was held during the classes of "Animated Debate". The teachers in small groups, took an active participation in work on animations. They had the opportunity to see how the participants of the project worked and what techniques of illustrating (also computer programmes) they used. They could talk about the works which were being created and the method of illustrating, chosen by every participant of the workshops. The teachers' own projects ideas were also discussed. Then the ideas of multimedia works were born. Each of the teachers has had them ‘inside’ for a long time, but owing to the atmosphere of "Animated Debate" and classes on the story-telling with a picture, these ideas could be manifested. They were discussed thoroughly enough, so that they could be executed later.
The third time when we met, all the teachers' projects were in the forms of saved ideas. They were discussed in details with the whole group taking part in the workshop, so that our practical experience and the experience of the group helped to verify them. In this phase the ideas and projects from being only theoretical, changed into ones that can be included into school curriculum. Very interesting and diverse projects were created.

I will discuss a few of them to show this diversity.

Let's meet

Authors: Anna Natkaniec, Katarzyna Rudolf

Two project with similar assumptions and title were created. The target groups were the youth from the gymnasium who took part in the international exchange of the friendly schools.

Their goals are:

Establishing the dialogue using the IT technologies
Acquiring the skill of establishing the contacts with peers from other countries using a computer
Stimulating the creativity in expressing thoughts, feelings, and emotions using a picture
Developing creativity
Mutual learning about regions, cities and environment

These goals should be accomplished by sending messages about oneself by e-mails, but in a form of self presentation, using a picture. The project establishes, instead of using words, sending the parts of surrounding reality, recorded with a camera or scanner, which is characteristic for us, our character and surroundings. One can send for example the picture of package of one's favourite chewing gum, the part of one's clothes, the photo of one's mascot, etc. The partners collect the information, interpret them, and ask in e-mails - using words - for the next ones. There the information about the place of living, surrounding, countryside appear, but only in the form of a picture. The communication is developed whose ultimate goal is mutual recognizing of the corresponding couples during the greeting ceremony of the partner visit. To begin such an exchange of picture information, the participants work out the plan of self-presentation at the very beginning, and the instructor helps to do it, during the art, photographic, and literary classes.
In this case, the story-telling with a picture was used to present a human, a particular person. It had to answer the question : who am I? where do I live? What do I look like? The verification of the legibility of the message through the result of this puzzle was an additional trump of the project.

I'm not from anywhere

Authors: Dominika Paszek, Zofia Gawełek

The classes designed for the children and youth from the village societies

Goal:

Main- making relatives, friends, and family aware of the value and significance of life
Making children aware that traditions existing in their homes and families are something exceptional, unique, something which allows to feel one's own identity
Discovering the charm of our grandparents and parents' childhood and youth
Using the modern tools to reconstruct, learn, and understand old, past years
Showing the similarities and differences between the past and presence

The programme of this project includes searching, browsing, and archiving the old photographs and reproductions and making the drafts of persons and objects, as well as photographic documentation. It assumes taking the stylized photo, using the make-up and dressing-up and the show of old fashion. Next, there will be a discussion about "The participants" experience and the model of a family which is promoted in Polish soap operas'. One of the result will be creating the multimedia album, using the elements mentioned above, and creating an Internet website.
This idea combines many topics, but combines them thanks to the picture. All above goals can be achieved basing only on the visual message . It is worth collecting some sound traces, such as songs, or the sounds of once used machines and devices, to make the project complete. It does not belong to the role of the picture, but it is worth doing it as complete as possible, to have a wise and complete development of the concept "I'm not from anywhere".

Stone

Authors: Urszula Góra, Urszula Skęczek, Agata Szary, Ewa Wojtowicz

The leitmotif of the project is: Most of all watch out for stones - they are what really matter. The rest is sand'.

The project is addressed mainly to the youth from gymnasium.

The goals of the project:

Group integration
Pointing at the most important value in life
Stimulating to work on oneself
Shaping the positive attitude to life
Creating a film, basing on the animation of the parable entitled "Stone"

The course of the project:

Discussion about the parable entitled "Stones"
Discussion about the most important values in our life
Searching the ideas for the picture message - story-telling with a picture
Collecting some materials to a film: trip to the river, collecting stones, gravel, and sand
Creating the storyboard
Creating the scenography
Taking the photos of the particular motion phases of the "Stone" project
Choosing the sound to the film
Whole film editing and processing

"Stone"

At the beginning of the course, the authors of the project were not convinced to the value of their idea, After the discussions and consultations, it turned out that the project has a deep sense and it should be accomplished as soon as possible. Seeing the classes convinced them that the form of animation, chosen by them to illustrate the concept, is possible to accomplish by the youth from gymnasium who has never dealt with such work. Because of the lack of technical possibilities, the workroom of "Animated Debate" helped in film editing.
Since the very beginning of the work on the project, the involvement of the authors and youth was visible. It was conducted with following all the rules of the story-telling with a picture. The idea underwent all recommended phases.
The final effect surpasses the authors' expectations. And not only. The film was presented, together with all the animation works, at the final show of the "Animated Debate" project. Then the fourth meeting of the teachers course was held, where apart from the work display, several teachers who completed the classes "The art of story-telling with a picture" were awarded with certificates.

4.Ending

Two years of experience in the work on the "Animated Debate" project confirmed the thesis that "The art of story - telling with a picture" is the living art. Living that is pulsating with its beauty for more than 30, 000 years. Living that is changing in the pace of the world. Living that is present in the human's desire for the global communication.
Progressive commercialization, of also art, has made the language of story-telling with a picture more common. Times when only "the initiated" had the access to the picture alphabet, passed irrevocably. This is a positive tendency for the development of this language, which allows free, multilaterally, and spontaneously formation. Today, the access to the tool of story - telling with a picture is easier; also the places where one can study it, are created. More and more people are fascinated with this exceptional language of message - art and communication, and more and more people want to use it in their life creatively.
Among other things, the experience in work with youth during "Animated Debate" proved that. In our project story-telling with a picture served for the communication between people. We communicated "above the borders" literally and metaphorically speaking, drawing and painting, sending our works to our international partners, making animations and films which have wider and wider audience now.
There was one more specific communication with a picture - the communication of disabled people. It was
inscribed in the rhythm of our work, and thanks to it, for two years, nobody was accused of the lack of communicativeness. Their works showed distinctness and, but the one understood and accepted by their friends, and also, what prove the open shows of our works, accepted by the surrounding world.
The picture has become the bridge. Let these drawings, made by the classes participants, show how important and beautiful that bridge is.