Wednesday, March 8, 2017

March Meeting: Paper Telephone and FlockDraw

There was lots of energy and silliness at our March meeting as we discussed The Inquisitor's Tale: Or, the Three Magical Children and Their Holy Dog by Adam Gidwitz, not surprising for a book whose highlight for many Bookshoppers seemed to be the farting dragon...

After talking a little bit about what was based on fact and what was based on fiction, we set about getting our creative juices flowing with a short paper-based activity. Since the book we read was "illuminated" with drawings in the style of medieval texts, I thought it would be fun to try our hand at illuminating our own short stories collaboratively through the game, Paper Telephone. Most Bookshoppers had heard of this activity before: it involves each participant writing down a short descriptive sentence and then passing it to the left for the next person to illustrate. That person then folds over the sentence so the next person they pass to can only see the image. This continues, alternating between writing and drawing, until the paper has returned to the person who started the story. Our results were confusing and, at times, vaguely disturbing, but mostly hilarious. They are displayed below.








After sharing our illuminated stories, we transitioned to a similar activity using the free online tool, FlockDraw, which allows you to draw together on the same canvas from different computers. The drawing tools are very simple, but the Bookshoppers had a blast jumping back and forth between each other's online canvases writing messages to each other, sabotaging each other's drawings, and otherwise wreaking good-natured havoc. Unfortunately, the temptation to erase everything every few minutes was too great, so there are no finished pieces to share, but we might need to revisit this tool for a future project because it was a big hit!

Our next meeting will be Monday, April 3, from 5:30-7:00 at the Main Library. We will be discussing The Flinkwater Factor by Pete Hautman.