Make a sketchbook!!

So some of my students know I am taking "art teacher classes."  Really that means I am working on my Masters through The Art of Education University!  While we are apart right now, I'm taking a teaching related class, but I'm also taking: 

THE FIRST DRAWING CLASS I'VE TAKEN SINCE COLLEGE!!!

This week the first assignment is to start a sketchbook, so yesterday I read all kinds of things about starting your own sketchbook as an adult, and then I read about how to use them with elementary students!  They even posted their kid friendly prompts, most of which I already shared with our 5th graders before we left or in this post:  



Anyway, I found a really GREAT tutorial about how to make a sketchbook at home that seems durable, uses mostly common materials, and the bonus is you can ADD PAPER if you run out.  Now, seriously, if you want to make a sketchbook you can always just staple paper together into a book.  We do it all the time on Fun Day at school, and that's mostly how the 5th graders and I made all the ones we sent home with families on the last day we were at school -- we did use the office's fancy "saddle stapler" though.  But right now my own kids are using a regular lined spiral notebook.4



But if you have: cardboard, glue, colored paper, white paper, book rings, and a hole punch, here is a great video tutorial.  Well explained and they look really nice when they're done.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Let's draw our PETS!!

Image
Do you know what so many of my students LOVE to draw over and over again?  Animals they love.  For many it is their pets (our pet count increased by 6 last week but more on that later...) .  For some it is a pet maybe they wish they had.  Just over two years ago, my family took in our cat Fritz as a foster cat, and he wound up staying with us for good.  Our boys love him more than anything and he has turned into the subject of many of their comic books: Aidan uses "Fritzie" as a character in many of his drawings. When we went to the Columbus Museum of Art this winter we also found some pet-type animals on display -- James Thurber often depicted a dog in his newspaper and book drawings, and in the interactive kids area, we were invited to create with Post-It notes, so of course we left a cat behind.  When I was in high school our dog was the subject of several of my art projects. He was a cock-a-poo, which is just a medium sized, very furry white dog.  I
Read more

Chain reaction fun!

It happened, finally.  The kids were bored enough to start creating something new!!  This has been their day's learning.  On my phone we also recorded it in slow motion, which was really fun because when it didn't work we were able to watch it and figure out where things went off course.   This is what artists and scientists do -- they work through problems, they try different methods, and they adopt a growth mindset to keep trying.  They go through hard time and boredom, and they make something new to the world out of it! (Bare with me...first attempt at posting video shot on my phone to Blogger - all three videos should work, though!)
Read more

ACTIVE art!! (Part 1)

Image
When you're looking to draw figures in motion in art, the obvious place to go is the "stick figure" to start.  In fact, many artists have used their own version of the basic stick man in their art for years.  Keith Haring wanted his "bubble figures" to be universal -- they could be every man or woman.  In fourth grade we make collages inspired by Haring's figures.  Students draw and cut out the figures, putting them on a background with props and "action lines."  The students love to create them jumping on trampolines, riding horses, playing sports, and dancing to music.  It's not always easy to just draw a figure into an imaginary pose, though, so we have a couple of tricks up our sleeves to practice poses.  The first is "gesture drawing!"  Gesture drawing is doing a quick sketch of a person who is posing for you.  At school I invite students up into the front of the room to pose for me, and then I draw them as a stick figure o
Read more