Sketchbooks from All Reused Materials! How Green!

Don't want to mess up that brand new sketchbook you got? Here's your solution!

You get junk mail, right? And paper bags sometimes? And maybe you eat cereal?

Well if you do these things, and you've got a hole punch and some string or wire or whatever, you are in the sketchbook business.

Here are two different types of sketchbooks, for example.

The big one was made out of a cereal box and a paper bag. The cover is a piece of the cereal box, with the printed part on the inside. That one I stapled.

The small ones are also from a paper bag. I took a long strip, folded it like an accordion, punched two holes in the side with the non-fold edges, and added string. Insta-book.

You can get more special about it too, if you want. For this next one, I added some beads. I also used a cereal box here, you can see the happy cereal-eating lady peeking out of the inside back cover.

And, it comes with a nice reminder to eat breakfast. This is part of the fun of using random packaging. You never know what great things you might be able to cut out and use.

Again, the pages are made from a paper shopping bag that I had. I just cut the pages to slightly smaller than the cover and punched some holes.

These are made entirely from random paper products that come into your life. And a bit of string or other fabulous details. By making sketchbooks or notepads out of reused materials, you can be a lot less precious about it and get busy putting something in them. Glue in your favorite stuff out of a magazine, or tell a story, or give it to a friend. When you use it up, make another one.

My daughter took one and customized it with some newsprint and a sticker on the front:

Then she added even more stuff on the back,

And even a picture of "milk and cookies" on the inside.

Next, it will be time to draw in them! Look out. We've got sketchbooks and we're not afraid to use em!

Have We Forgotten that Education is a Two-Way Conversation?

We hear so much every day about how education has to be a partnership between schools and families - how students have to contribute to their own success - how it takes a village - how it's all about good teachers, no it's all about involved parents, no it's about having the right metrics, etc. etc. etc. etc.

All this partnering, and involvement, and measurement, and so on - and it's all aimed in the same direction, down the street of "success." The "product" is these students who grow up to be "successful." And we've defined what that means - they need to get high test scores, get good grades, get into a good college, get a good job.

It's that "good" part that gets a little problematic. What if it were more about getting into "the right" college, and pursuing "the right" career?

Well, that would require a two-way conversation.

Because in order for a student to grow up into his or her best self, we need to know who that self is. We have to listen.

That is what arts education is for. It is to give young people the power to bring their own voice to their educational conversation, to reveal things about themselves, and to show those things to the people in the world who care most about them. Their mentors, teachers, families.

If you don't have that side of the equation, you don't know what "success" is.

It also seems that every time someone talks about the best teacher they ever had, there's a pattern to it - that teacher saw something unique in them, didn't give up on them, brought out their best. That teacher listened. And as a result, that student did better. Performed better, learned better, became a better student and a better person. Because someone listened and noticed.

Arts education allows us to listen to one another, and to speak in ways that are safe, and constructive, and deep and detailed. And it lets students bring their own voice to the table.

When we cut the arts out of our education process, we take away each student's unique voice. We take away a process of disovery that should be taking place within each young person. And we close off an avenue of rich, personal, valuable conversation about who each student is. We stop listening.

Critical point: It's not about whether every student is "good" at painting or playing an instrument. It is that the process of creation, bringing music to life, making something unique, is good FOR them. Here's where we get in the way again - we want them to be "advanced," to "achieve," in the arts. We don't treat the arts as a means of self-discovery, they are just another item for the college application. A way to win awards. To achieve.

I know these days it's all about the money and the test scores and the budget cuts and government mandates and all this. But I argue that if every student got thirty minutes a day to create, to engage in some creative activity, write something, paint something, make something, each student would take a step toward finding a voice and sharing it with the world. And that this acknowledgement, and voice, would make them better students, and better people.

I submit that a two-way educational conversation results in a better educational outcome, in all aspects of learning and development. That hearing and seeing our young people gives them power to become something. That giving them the means to express themselves is not a waste of budget or a nice-to-have, it's a core part of the interaction between the education system telling them what they need to do, and the students telling us who they are.

If our students don't get to hold up their end of the conversation during their education, how will they do so in that big world where we want them to be so successful? Let's stop giving them the anwers, and start asking them some questions. And give them the instrument, the paper, the time and space, the paints, the room to move, the time to write, or whatever they need, to discover for us - and themselves - some answers.

Art. It's not just pixels.

This is one of the best talks I've ever seen about the importance of the arts. Ever.

In it, Ben Cameron talks about the performing arts - but I think this applies to the arts in general, performing or not.

Because, a print of a painting does not offer the same experience as standing in the same space in front of a masterpiece that the artist occupied when he or she first stretched out a brush to make the first mark on the canvas.

Art is a living thing, people are living things, pixels and text and pictures and videos are reproductions.

Someone really smart once said to me (okay it was my husband), that when you play a brass instrument, you breathe life into it for a while, and then it sits and goes cold again. You have to bring it to life. And an amazing life it can be, but you have to put it there. This is what online life is like. You breathe life into it, but in the end it is not a living thing. It goes cold until you come back.

And I heartily agree with Mr. Cameron that there is going to be a huge premium on experiences that connect people in coming years. Facebook isn't going to cut it. Oh, it will initiate a lot of things, and it will reinforce "dirt world" relationships, but people who are good at looking you in the eye, hearing you, and having a conversation with you that is NOT recorded, does NOT get archived, can NEVER be reproduced because you can't ever go back to that day, that weather, that time, those people, that mood, that topic, ..... people who are good at this, are going to own the place.

I absolutely love being able to keep connected to people and to do business and have conversations all over the world all the time. Love it.

But next time you see a live performance coming up that you want to see, go. That performance will never be replicated again. Those people, on that day, under those circumstances, that performance, and the unique energy between that audience and those performers - will never happen again. Go.

New Free Coloring Page: ART!

In honor of Arts Advocacy Day, here's a new printable coloring page all about making art - and the great part is, you get to decide what the painting looks like! Plus, there's a bit of space at the top there if you want to add a speech bubble or a title or something.

Enjoy! I've also added this to the Coloring Pages list so you can get all the rest of them too!

It's Arts Advocacy Day Today!

So, I guess the arts are in trouble because now we need an Advocacy Day for them. Sigh.

In honor of this somewhat troubling fact, here are 5 things I have to say about the arts:

1. When we have a national tragedy or major event, say September 11th or the Super Bowl or anything huge, what do we do? We have music. Always.

2. When we study an ancient civilization to learn how they saw themselves in the world, we look at their art. That's where they put that information.

3. We don't tell people that they are not allowed to speak or balance their checkbook because they can't use words like Mark Twain or numbers like Stephen Hawking. But we're really quick to tell kids to put away their pencil if we don't like their drawing.

4. You don't have to make art for it to be good for you. Looking at and consuming art is just as important. It makes you part of the human dialogue.

5. Everything around you right now was designed by somebody. Maybe without paying any attention, maybe by default, but it was designed. The trees were designed too. Someone did a really good job with those.

So, advocate for the arts today if you like, but better yet, buy a book of photography you like or go to a museum or get yourself a shiny new song off iTunes or something.

And, get a pencil and paper and go draw with a kid.