Book of Home project at LaGuardia Senior Center.13 7/29/2021

 

LMCC - Creative Learning Grant

Book of Home

 Blog 13 7/19/2021


We started our new project today - making an accordion book in which we experiment with color blocking, shapes, and collage. The purpose is as always to have fun making art, and to document special moments in our lives. We will do this by looking at everyday objects, the mundane, from a new point of view resulting in unique representations of them. This has become especially significant since COVID 19 restrictions have kept us in our homes for much longer periods. 


Warm up was a word association game about colors incorporating facial expression and gesture. Chi’s fast movements represented energy, the color green of youth and vitality. Situ made a large round gesture suggesting red the color of the setting sun. Helping’s large smile and flicking fingers also meant red and happiness. Sam Sam gestured for all the colors of the rainbow while Yu Lan created the image of a giant green tree and her sleeping beneath it. Lily looked upwards and moved her arms, hands and fingers above her head suggesting the color of clouds. What an inspired group!! Colors do affect how we feel. 


Our pop-up book is almost complete but needs a pretty ribbon to keep it tied together, so we spent some time teaching how to make the slit in the cover and first page, thread the ribbon through and tie it. Chi showed her book to her daughter-in-law who was impressed with this very clever way of visually sharing stories. The photos used as inspiration for the pop-up book need a safe place, so we made a slightly larger pocket and attached it to the inside of the back page and placed all the pictures inside. 


Now it was time to open the package Spica had prepared and find the rice paper, cardboard, ribbon, and accordion folded white paper. The cover was made by carefully gluing each piece of rice paper to each cardboard rectangle. Next the ribbon was centered across the inside of one cover and glued into place. The first page of the accordion folded page was glued onto the inside of one cover and the last page to the inside of the other cover. Now the students have an accordion book ready for their images and stories. Even more fun awaits us next week!!


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