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The Moral of the Story

Tell It with Type: Alter a Book Page

No book on storytelling would be complete without a project that uses literature! And sometimes spelling it out with words is the most effective way to share the moral or theme of your visual art. There are many ways to add words to paintings. You can cut out individual words and collage them. You can scribble them in paint pen. You can even scratch them into a wet surface. In this project, though, you’ll be finding words—and a story—from a book page. The process is called creating a blackout book, and you’d be amazed at the fascinating found stories and poetry you can unearth from vintage books, newspapers or even old letters. This can be a very meaningful project, too, because it reminds us that as storytellers we have the power to rewrite the narratives we inherit.