year long project - 3rd year

 Due to the nature of the process, all the paper was very rustic and textured and I was curious to see if pressing it over night would help at all; It did not... still just as textured and rough which is probably because I pressed dry paper, I will try it with the next batch when the paper is half way through the drying process and see if it makes a difference. A strange little pile of paper, a bit like popadoms which is kinda amusing. Not entirely sure how this paper is going to react to any form of mark making because of just how rough/textured it is but let's see... The paper does not particularly like being drawn or painted on, that's for sure! It doesn’t mind the ink roller pen too much but it's still a bit unpredictable and not enough to work with to create illustrations going forward! It takes reasonably well to being printed on though, I would just probably need to print on it as an entire sheet rather than this sort of collaging effect. It works really nicely so th...

 I’ve been meaning to make paper since first year! Finally getting round too it, I thought it would be good to lead by example, so to speak, by using paper from past projects this year that I would have otherwise recycled to make new paper. It’s a relatively simple process that I think children would both be able to do and want to do. YouTube video(s) I found to help:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H8zkeybyHcI&ab_channel=MOMDOESDIY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CCkGEXdBqac&ab_channel=AribaArts https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ow5LeG-zzyg&ab_channel=MOMDOESDIY A variety of paper types ^ I noticed that the ink from the post it notes was starting to bleed onto other pieces of paper, as with the pen ink. Given that the water it was soaking in was going to go down the drain I thought I should check (for future reference) if the ink is harmful for the environment. This lead onto generalised research into eco friendly ways of creating art - something I’ve been meaning ...

 Following on from the tutorial prep, I had a few questions to research into and having looked at a few different websites (I found some useful information on National Geographic again) I did two mindmaps; Looking into the biggest issues for the environment, it’s pretty clear that the main things to focus on here is plastic pollution, deforestation and the effect on the environment that both have and what we can do to help. Combined with what would happen if nature went on strike or completely died out because it sure wouldn’t be good! Tree/plant planting would be a good activity…  Looking into movies such The Lorax and Wall-e would be useful, being directed towards children, communicating messages of environmentalism. I’m sure there are other movies as well, I just don’t know of any others, yet.

National Geographic seems like it could be a good place to gain some inspiration in terms of environmentalism related activities and quizzes and whatnot, especially as it is successful and therefore should be quite a reliable source to gain inspo from.   https://www.natgeokids.com/uk/competition/find-out-your-clean-air-personality-and-win-a-gardening-starter-kit/  This quiz is kind of what I'm tying to look at - everyday life things; I took the quiz to see what kinds of questions were included; This is a great little quiz! All about everyday life and things you wouldn’t necessarily think about naturally which is a really good place to start, especially for the younger ages. It was interesting to see how it was set up - multiple choice, almost of which would/could be acceptable answers, to make it that bit easier and to give even MORE inspiration and ideas. I also like the imagery with each question, which is something I could do in an illustrative manner to make the quest...