Skyping With Cynthia Jabar

Class 62 had two opportunities in the past 10 days to Skype with children's book illustrator and digital media artist Cynthia Jabar. http://cynthiajabar.blogspot.com/    It was very exciting. The students had great questions that covered a wide range of topics.   Ryan M. wanted to know what it was like to live in New York City.  Rebecca was curious as to how Cynthia had become interested in our project.  Nicole wanted to know how she became an illustrator.    Avery wanted to know Cynthia's favourite baseball team.  One student, Tay, was happy to show Cynthia that one of her books was in our school library. Tay also had very good questions about the process of illustration.   Hope and Bianca wanted to know how difficult it is to  publish an ebook. Justin C. wanted to know what programs Cynthia used.  Emily was curious about what Cynthia's work day is like.

All the students were very interested in how Cynthia had become a children's book illustrator.  Cynthia has a science background, but has been illustrating since her university days.  Usually a book is written first and then the publisher seeks an illustrator for the book.

Cynthia had great design advice for class 62.  Simplicity is best.  If the app looks too busy, people will be confused and won't want to use it.  She also told us that colour choice is important.  It should attract interest, but also reflect the town of Dundas.  Our town is not a modern place.  This should be suggested by colour.

The students had a good discussion about this.  Ryan G. thought that perhaps our app should have an antique look with black and white aged photos to reflect its historical nature.  Others thought blue for the waterfalls is appropriate, and then green and yellow because they are our school colours.  It seems we will be going with blue and yellow as the main colours. 

Thanks Cynthia for taking the time to help our class out and to Sydney who grabbed the camera and began taking pictures. 

Getting Ready to Skype With Cynthia

When Cynthia comes on line, the students rush to line up and ask questions.

Lining up to ask questions.

Cynthia's book is in our school library.

Cynthia has kindly posted advice on her blog for class 62. We'll be responding shortly. :)