Frances Dowell website:
On March 15th me, and the entire 6th grade got to start working with Peg Gignoux! Peg is a local artist, and she helped us create all of our tree books! I am so happy that we got to work with her because I got to try lots of different art techniques, and I even got to be in an art gallery!
We first started out by screen printing, we got our hands on some poems about trees, and we screen printed them onto different paper. I had the best time doing this and it was really satisfying for me! After that we got to the actual folding part of our books, this was a bit harder, but it pretty much created the entire foundation of the book! Akua ink was by far my favorite part of the process, we gathered greenery and flowers from school or our houses, and then we were able to get them on paper with lots of pretty colors!! Then we started collaging, this was fun because I got to take lots of the images from the dictionary and put them on my tree book, I have spiders, trees, dogs, farm animals, and birds all over my book from collaging! Before anything else, we added some pockets for our writing pieces! After we had done this our books all looked really pretty, and we started the writing part. I wrote my ‘Salute to my Roots’ writing next, I wrote about my former nanny, Hillary. I had a great time writing this because I knew that I would be able to use memories in my writing. After that we started by reading a poem called “When this is Over” I loved having an example and I wrote my own poem about what I would do when the pandemic is over!! Then we wrote our wishes, I have a lot and I wrote them all down, and tucked them away in the pockets of my tree book. Last, but not least, we have started reading the book “Wishtree” by Katherina Applegate, by the time I’ve posted it, we will have probably finished it! I already love the book, and I am so excited to read more.
At the gallery I shared my Tree Book with my former nanny, my mom, my dad, and my brother; they all loved it! In conclusion, I had an amazing experience with this Tree Book!