The Sketch Journal includes using a small sketchbook for your own creative ideas. Something you can easily carry with you everywhere you go. You could even use your smart phone, IPad or other technological device.  An exciting alternative is to find an old smaller children’s book or favorite old novel and turn it into an altered book.  In this section of your homework portfolio you are to find images that you really enjoy looking at and creating.  It should be the source of inspiration for your art work and creative interests.  It can take any form which is most interesting to you.   It can include:  poetry, videos, cartooning, collaging, drawing, painting, computer graphics, etc.  The sky is the limit.  You will be marked 4 times per term for your creative ideas.  At the end of the first four months per term this art work will be marked. Approximately 1 to 5  pictures, etc. should be created each week.  That number is flexible.  It is a good idea to begin doing lots of quick drawing and  images because as the term becomes busy you have less time to be creative.

     Altered books have been defined as “any book, old or new that has been recycled by creative means into a work of art”. Altering an old book by turning it into a work of art is a way of saving it and giving it new life.

IDEAS - Unlike creating art on a blank piece of paper, doing an altered book gives you a chance to have a relationship with your art.  Rather than you directing what goes on the page, let the book direct you.  Use the book’s title. chapter titles, individual words, sentences, or phrases within the book to inspire your art. Some books may even have illustrations that you can develop, incorporate or use as a starting point.

MATERIALS - Use any and all kinds of materials in your altered book - ink pens, markers, pencil crayons, glue, acrylic paint, rubber stamps, scissors, pictures cut from magazines and newspapers, collaged and painted papers, napkins, etc. Don’t try to alter all the pages in the book.  Glue some of the pages together, fold some of them over and cut out holes in some of them.  Pages can also be added with tape and string.

HOW TO BEGIN - Look at an interesting page.  Try to isolate a sentence, a phrase, the title, or even a word on the page by painting or drawing all over the whole page except the words you have chosen.  Then let those words inspire you to add to the page, or any page after that.  Stamp, collage, draw, anything you like.  Pages can also be stenciled. Enjoy, be free and experimental!

Evaluation - Design (extending the elements and principles of design) - /5

Creativity (originality, risk-taking and experimentation) - /5

Effort (worked hard to extend your initial ideas) - /5

Skill (use of a variety of drawing and painting methods)  - /5

Overall development of the entire altered book - /5