July 18, 2012
Each summer, the kids create and fill up their “Yesterday Books” with pictures and stories of their Summer of Funner adventures. Sometimes, these are illustrated journal entries, and others, fantastic fictional histories. So, each July, we start off our Summer of Funner by choosing notebooks and decorating the covers, transforming them into our famous Summer of Funner Yesterday Books! You can have a look at Last Year’s Yesterday Books by clicking here.
This year we turned it up a notch by adding two things: Rulers & Pop-Art Animal Olympians!
Rulers: Last year, the kids chose journals with half-ruled and half-blank pages to use as Yesterday Books. This year, however, they chose blank books. They told me that they wanted to have free range to choose when and where to place their text. With this in mind, we decided to attach small rulers to the coils of our notebooks via an elasticized string. This way, the kids could make ruled lines on the pages in a jifffy.
Pop-Art Animal Olympians: For the covers of their books, the kids wanted to re-visit the Andy Warhol pop-art style of illustration we used for one of Bea’s Birthday pARTy activities, our now famous Pop Art Name Plates. Rather than simply printing-out an image four times over, I had the kids try to reproduce the same image by hand four times on the same page before inking it in with permanent marker. Then, they used highlighers to colour each of their four images in a different shade. As this is the summer of the London 2012 Olympics, the kids wanted to incorporate an Olympics theme into their Cover Art. To do so, they drew their favourite animals with medals.
Here’s a look at the results, with an illustrated DIY to follow:
____________
Yesterday Books with Pop-Art Animal Olympians
The Illustrated DIY
Supplies
Blank Notebooks, with one blank page removed for the cover
Pencils
Black Permanent Marker, preferably with thin tips
4 different coloured Highlighters
Clear Contact Paper
Small Rulers (we used a $1 4-pack of rulers for geometry class)
Elasticized String or Ribbon
Scissors
Masking Tape (optional)
Method 1 (of 3): Making Pop-Art Animal Olympians as Cover Art
Using a pencil and a ruler, divide the white paper into four quadrants.
In pencil, draw an animal with sports apparel and/or an olympic medal in the first of the four quadrants.
Do your best to replicate that image in the remaining three quadrants.
With a black, thin-tipped permanent marker, re-trace your pencil drawings.
Using long horizontal or vertical strokes, fill in each of the four quadrants with a different coloured highligher.
Method 2 (of 3): Attaching the Artwork to the Yesterday Book
Cut a piece of contact paper several inches wider and longer than the size of your notebook cover.
Peel off the back of the contact paper.
About 1/4 in from one of the the longer edges of the contact paper, now sticky side up, place the left-hand side of your artwork face down.
Carefully flip this sticky page back over and align the artwork onto your notebook.
Press that 1/4 inch of sticky paper down near the coils or spine of your notebook.
Open the notebook so that the sticky overhanging edges of the contact paper are facing up.
Using scissors, trim a “square” from the contact paper at the upper and lower lefthand corners of the notebook so that the contact paper will fold over the inside edges of the notebook cover without requiring folded corners.
Fold the overhanging edges of the contact paper over onto the inside of the notebook cover.
Method 3 (of 3): Attaching the Ruler
Cut a piece of elasticized string or fabric ribbon about 4-6 inches longer than the length of the notebook.
Knot one end of this string to the upper coil of the notebook. (If there are no coils, use masking tape on the back cover.)
Knot the other end of this string around the ruler. (If the ruler has no holes or openings, use masking tape.)
Your Yesterday Book is now done!
Now, it’s time to rule, write, and draw!!!
Comments are closed.