7th Grade Sketchbooks

I am really pleased at how the 7th grade sketchbooks turned out! Even though it took us well over two weeks. I had decided before school started that I would have all classes make their sketchbooks in modified forms of bookmaking. It wasn't a success and I sold back much of the color-coordinated posterboard I bought to use for the year.

At the OAEA Fall Conference, there were two workshops I took that inspired me for 7th graders sketchbooks. The first was a workshop on handbinding books. The instructor (a fellow middle school teacher) was amazing and I left with a really cool book of my own and a few ideas for next trimester. The second was a workshop on paste painting. It was pretty cool, using layers and assorted items to pull thru the paint. There is a whole formula for creating the "paste" for the paint.

My own little hand bound book

Second painting

I already knew that 8th graders would have "real" sketchbooks and 6th graders were using the pocket folder system. I decided for 7th grade, we would make covers using the paste painting technique. I just used regular tempera paint and then grabbed a bunch of random items to make marks. We had so much fun doing this! And they turned out AMAZING!

using a lace doily

cut up foam circle

a seashell worked great

After these dried, we glued them onto bookboard to create the front and back covers. I used Yes! Paste thinned down a little bit (otherwise is was SO sticky and hard to work with). Then we started on the binding. Each student had 4 sets of 5 11x17 sheets folded in half (to create 4 signatures) plus one from me that had Welcome to Art and their warm-up boxes. We used a western longstitch binding that seems to have held up pretty well. I worked in small groups, teaching the stitch but once they got the hang of it, students were quick to finish.

Once their signatures were all bound, the covers were glued on the front and back.

they lay flat, too!

You can see the binding