Book Art!

Last week, we made beautiful book art with Laura and Mikaela. First, I have to say their bulletin board was wonderful. Simple and to the point, black background with rich, varied, gorgeous images! It connected very well to their lesson. The images were displayed on the Smartboard, and discussed. I think they served as a wonderful introduction to techniques and ideas we could use in our making. When it came time for the demo, we all gathered around the table. Almost everyone has done this when giving their demo, and it works. Everyone can see, and its more intimate making it easier for students to get involved and ask questions. The teacher samples were amazing! They were both so different, and it was almost hard to believe they were made from books! We all got really pumped to start working once we saw those teacher samples. When we were sent to choose a book from the table, I was concerned that everyone going up at the same time could be problematic. I knew the book I wanted right away, so that made it easy. I think most other people made their decisions easily as well, but I wonder how it would work in a high school or middle school classroom. Would their be arguments? "I want that book!". The key element was the variety, which helped. There was truly something for everyone!

The book I chose ended up being a collection of poems, "Excuse it Please". They were mostly humorous with lots of funny pictures. We had a good amount of time to work which was important to the process. Because my book was really a bunch of stories instead of just one, I read through most of them before I chose what to focus on. I found a poem about "Hiram Hickory Nut" and he was having all the nuts to dinner in Connecticut. First of all, it was adorable. Second, this was just a few days before Thanksgiving and I was getting ready to have all the nuts over my house for dinner! I connected with the story. I went through, cutting out images of different characters. There were a few pictures of couples, one pouring wine on the other, a woman pushing the man away, jolly good fun! There was a pompous looking man in a suit declaring something obnoxious, an old man chatting with the March Hare, and a lion playing the piano for ambiance (a calm in the storm of chaos). On the table, of course, was a huge turkey, and all of this took place under the hickory tree. I had a lot of fun with the context clues.
I used the methods Laura and Mikaela talked about. I found the folding and slots extremely helpful in setting up the characters for my dinner party. I tried to use subtractive and additive techniques. I saw subtractive as cutting the images out and raising them up (ex: the tree, the table). I considered the characters who I took from other pages and attached to my new set as the additive elements. When Aaron read the objectives out loud, I thought they clearly aligned with our activity and our instruction. It was such a wonderful way to include literacy with art making. I want to make book art forever!