Making Hardcover Sketchbooks, Step by Step

So, I was showing someone the sketchbooks we made this year and I realized that I never posted the steps we used to make them! Here they are!

You need an inexpensive sketchbook and canvas board twice the size of the cover. Scissors to cut the fabric, a light weight fabric scrap the length of the book and a paper cutter to cut the canvas board.
Let the sketchbook maker paint the canvas board.


Next, add glue to the cover and stick one side of the fabric into it. Add some glue on top of the fabric and place one half of the canvas board on the cover and hold it. I like to put the cut side towards the spiral binding.

Flip the book over and repeat these steps.with the second half of the canvas board.

Cover the spiral binding with the fabric. 

The fabric will keep the spiral covered and keep other decorations from sticking to the binding. We used craft tape to cover the fabric. Some of the stiff glitter stuff could use a bit of tacky glue, but the fancy patterned Duct Tape works like a dream!

Sketchbooks Assembled!!

So...here they are! Our finished sketch books turned out great! I love this idea. You can take a less expensive book and make it look so amazing with the painted canvas board, a strip of fabric and some really cool tape. I love it! It took us two classes to paint and assemble the books, but it was worth it!

Wanted: An Amazing Art Show

Last year, my third grade team asked me if I could help with a project (PBL) they do in the spring. I have a huge curriculum the third grade scope and sequence is one of the longest that I teach so I could not import the project into the art room, which was their first choice. I started thinking about ways I could help without being in their classrooms. First, I made a video on poster making and using guidelines.  Then I decide to include some of these skills in our self portrait unit. 

 

 

The students created Wanted Posters based on character studies they were doing in their classroom. We expand the learning by looking at Fredric Remington's depiction of the Old West. The independent, adventurous, brave, honest spirit of the Western pioneers, Native People  and soldiers that he illustrated inspired many to travel into the American West.

First students created an identity web in their idea books (https://youtu.be/IC96j35WQkk). Then they were asked to choose a positive character trait to be "Wanted" for as well as an Old West style name that was positive and personal. Some went so far as to make the name match the trait in context. Using rulers guidelines were drawn in and letters were printed and centered. (Math! Divide to find the center point!) Students reviewed facial proportions and learned how to draw hats onto their portraits. Finally the paper was trimmed to make it look ragged and stained with liquid watercolor to give it the illusion of age.

Then the posters were laminated and hung at the Regal Cinema 16 in Green Hills for the month of October! We opened the show with a reception for artists and families with popcorn and lemonade. We had a wild time celebrating these outrageous characters!!

Oceans of fun with painted paper!

 Painted paper has OCEANS of applications!! This summer, right before we went back to school (the first week of August which is still summer!!) I taught this fun painted paper/collage lesson with our on-site extended day program (Tiger Club). I painted the ocean wall years ago, when I had all that free time before kids and marriage. It is kind of a landmark in our building, but it was designed to be an interactive wall several versions of the curriculum ago and we created sea creatures and added them every year when 1st grade studied the ocean. I decided to revive a new version for some summer art fun!

SO...after I wrapped up a week at the Tennessee Arts Academy, I was so fired up about painted paper I couldn't wait to try it out. Here is a picture of Laura Lohmann in action at TAA!!

My "Tiger Club" kiddos are always willing to be my lab rats so I headed over there to test the waters! Here is what we did...
First we painted two papers each, some did more until the paint was gone. No water just mats to clean the brushes on...it was awesome!!

 

Aren't they awesome!!

 

The next day, we created our amazing fish! Cutting and gluing and sharing all the beautiful papers. No one even freaked out about not having THEIR paper.  Once they finished I had made "water" with craft paper. The dow rods I had fit perfectly into the plastic ceiling hooks so I made a pocket of folded paper at the top of the craft paper with the rod through it. The kiddos brought their finished fish straight to the paper for display. Once they were all finished and layer out on the papers I taped them in place and snapped the rods into the ceiling hooks in about five minutes! They looked pretty awesome!

Mirror, Mirror in my hand...a Frida Kahlo inspired self portrait.

 I love using oil pastels over paint, it is one of my favorite ways to create self-portraits with my students, especially young ones. These are 2nd grade portraits inspired by Frida. Students learned about her live and art before creating their portraits using mirrors. Then we framed them on paper that is shaped like a hand held mirror. (Thanks Phil from There's a Dragon in my Art Room for that idea!) Using crayons they added some motifs that are common in Mexican folk art as well as some symbols that are personal to each artist to decorate their symmetrical mirror shaped picture frame. They look almost as serious as Frida herself!

 This is a quick paint before the artist intro. We whip up the skin color for the head, neck and shoulders, adding the hair last and whisking it away to the drying rack before breaking out the idea books to learn about Frida Kahlo and practicing some front-view facial proportions!

 This way the paint is dry before we add the oil pastel the next week. Day three includes cutting out the portrait, gluing the three papers together and adding the designs on the mirror. You can see more on our Percy Priest Elementary Artsonia.com art gallery!

Our school year is in bloom with radial flowers by 3rd grade!

 We are off to an amazing start this year so I wanted to show off some of these amazing flowers created by 3rd grade artists. This is one of the lessons that I learned from Laura Lohmann (Painted Paper) at the Tennessee Arts Academy (or as my husband calls it "Art Teacher Art Camp").  After learning about radial symmetry and learning how to paint without water, they created these amazing flowers. I love how very different each one turned out, just like the artists that created them!

Rock-it Baby with that leftover table paper!!

So every year I cover my color-coded tables with the corresponding paper color. It is incredible how challenging it is for my very smallest students to remember what color table they sit at when all the tables are brown! But after a week or two, the paper gets kinda nasty so I usually just roll it up and toss it in recycle.  But not this year....Here is the before picture!

And this is what my tables looked like after everyone had been through the art room for the first day of art!

The second graders are adding some "circle painting" inspired backgrounds to these six rocket ships. Our theme is "Soar to Success" so rockets are the big thing. The fourth graders came in and detailed the rockets and now they are hanging all over the school! This is the fastest I have every managed to get student work up! They're so awesome and I heard not less then three times that it was "The best art class ever!" I Rocked-it, (haha)and suddenly I hear Def Leopard in my head, don't you...Rocket, yeah, Satellite of love! Rock-it Baby! Come on!!

Chalk-it-up 2nd grade!!

We welcomed Street Painter Lee Jones (Chalk-it-up.com) to our school again this year to work with our 2nd grade students. She did a one hour presentation about the history of street painting and went room to room giving a chalk technique demonstration using hard board. The kids were so excited to take their designs outside! We spend three weeks designing new species of butterflies and moths, paying close attention to the parts of a butterfly and how to tell a butterfly from a moth. (They will be studying the life cycle of butterflies in science right after this unit). 

When the day finally came for us to chalk, it rained. Bummer right? Well there was a bright side... the tiger Lee chalked wasn't on the sidewalk this year, it was on hard board, which means we get to keep it forever!! She set up her board on the stage in our cafetorium (nope-not misspelled...it is a cafeteria that thinks it's an auditorium because it has a stage in it). All the students were able to see the tiger develop throughout the lunch periods and when they came to eat the next day, they were amazed!!

Lee was headed back to Florida, but it was sunny in Nashville so I took all 130 2nd graders out into the front driveway to create butterfly compositions. Each box (3x4feet) housed two artists. I demonstrated how to layout the two designs so that they both overlapped and touched the sides of the box to create interesting negative space in the composition. Lee had already taken care of the chalk technique and in two hours we had 130 amazing butterflies and moths!

That's me doing the Demo!!

This is just half the driveway!

That is my son's butterfly in the bottom left!

We peeled the tape up, leaving a nicely defined image!

How great is that?!!