Art Journal Class, or How To NOT Teach Bookmaking
Posted on July 10, 2006
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Saturday I taught an art journal making class to some girls from work. I wanted to run through the class at least once before I approached the rubber stamp store.
I had handed everyone a supply list a month ago and asked for a small amount of money up front to cover the cost of glues, things that were hard to find & stuff they probably wouldn’t want to use themselves again. My intentions were honorable, I suppose – I wanted to minimize everyone’s up-front costs, and seeing that I could barely squeeze out $10 from each person, I think I should have expected the trouble to follow.
Ten-thirty am on Saturday, I was at the office setting up for the class. I was running late, and handn’t cut my papers to size yet. No one showed up until 11 or so, which gave me time to cut & set up the table.
There were problems from the beginning. I hadn’t brought my t-square or cutting mat since I thought everyone would have had their paper cut to size. I, of course, was wrong. So instead of starting at 11 and having a great 3-hour class, the first two hours or so (11-1) were spent waiting on one girl to go get her canvas boards and cutting 30 sheets of 8×11.5 300lb paper (not the 140lb I had asked for).
And during the cover decorating stage of the bookmaking, one girl had to re-do her cover since she used the wrong photocopy, and two didn’t bring any photocopies so they spent more time than I had expected painting their covers.
Despite all the delays, the actual assembly went relatively smoothly. We took our time, chatting, taking breaks – I think the actual assembly once I took out all the stops & starts was about 3 hours, which is what I had expected (although I was there from 10:30am to 5:30pm).
Everyone was VERY happy with their books. At least two were very sceptical that they would even be able to make a book at all and when they finished, they were so proud of their creations.
I love seeing the brightness in people’s eyes when they make something with their own two hands. It makes me proud of them, and encourages me to teach more often.
Lessons:
- Just because you’re a paper freak doesn’t mean your students will know what 140lb watercolor paper looks like.
- Don’t expect anyone but you to know the difference between mat board and canvas panels, even if they’re the “crafty” type.
- Never expect anyone to cut their own paper.
- Bring your camera. Always.
So I did learn a lot this weekend. I know now that if I do another class teaching anything, I should have each person’s supplies cut & assembled into kits and just build in the cost of the supplies to the cost of the class. The most I can expect is a small basic toolkit (ruler, pencil, xacto knife & scissors).
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