TRYING SOMETHING NEW

LEATHER JOURNALS

BEGINNING 3-D ART

deconstructed leather jackets, pearle cottons, waxed linens & misc. papers

For the past several years I've had the kids learn bookbinding techniques

by making their journals with their tye-dye cottons.

We would quilt the pieces together for the front and back covers,

roll the edges over to bound pieces together,

and then bind their papers inside.

But after watching a youtube video of an artist using a leather cover,

I thought it might be fun to change up the assignment a bit. 

Was it as successful as I had hoped?

Let's take a look.

In this first piece by 8th grader Bhumika Kalaimalai,

I appreciated all the effort she put into embellishing her lovely front cover.

Because I had all different kinds of leather for the kids to choose from,

some pieces were more easily sewn thru than others.

Bhu picked a suede and I know she was able to deal with it pretty well.

Others struggled more with the thicker, tougher leathers.

Here we see senior Inna Sikar's pieced together journal.

I love that she thought to do this,

but it did take her a lot of extra time and effort,

but I felt was so worth it.

Next we see senior Hana Kim's suede journal completely opened up.

Love how she brought her delicate design to both front and back covers.

This was a really playful cover made by junior Kareema Mohamed.

I believe her piece was a bit more challenging to sew thru.

So way to hang in there K.

Junior Kiana Hernandez chose the suede and was able to put in a lot of inticate embroidery.

Senior Ricky Gallardo thought to applique cotton fabric overtop parts of his leather.

I also enjoyed the blanket stitching he brought along the edges.

8th grader Sophia Oporto brought in some of her own leather pieces 

and went all out with these dimensional flowers.

And sweet 8th grader Yusuf Karan created the most interesting closure on his cat journal.

I'm going to try it one more time this year, 

but I'll be giving the students the choice between using leather or their handmade felt pieces.

Or possible a combo of both.

Should be interesting.