little art books

WOW.  What a fantastic class.  Do I say this too much?  AMAZING.

After introducing the Little Art Book project to the children and showing them some examples of my own little art books, they started creating their mini masterpieces.  I prepped small (approximately 4x6" pieces) of paper for watercolor, acrylic painting, printing, mark making, drawing, and collage.  I also had small fabric swatches with needle/thread available.  The children explored with all of these mediums while starting to build collections of work that looked something like this:

Once we completed our collections, we started assembling our little books.  The children chose five folded pieces of colored card stock and sewed the bindings together with needle and thread.  Once their books were bound, the children chose one of their original art works.  With scissors, they cut out their favorite part of each piece, eventually filling every page with a little excerpt from every creation.  

After a snack picnic outside of applesauce, crackers and lemonade, the younger children freely painted while the older students created a painting based on a favorite page from their books.

And I think it's fun to add a photo of the original piece of work that was cut up for the little art book pictured above here:  

As a side note, it was SO HARD for me to continue with this lesson and let them cut up their work. This is SO FUNNY considering children create magnificent work EVERY time they sit down.  Needless to say, I still found myself having to hold my tongue.

Summer is coming to an end.  Fall classes (including dates for Oct - Dec) have been posted and are on the books! View this link for class dates and weekday workshops (during school closures).  There are still four seats available in next Sunday's class too.  I'll be driving back with goodies from my favorite place on the shores of Lake Superior.