tunnel books

teaching foreground, middle ground, and background

In this 8th grade art project, students create multi-dimensional drawings, bound together by an accordion made from poster board. Students will receive demonstrations and/or small workshops on how to use watercolor pencils for their drawings, xacto knives to cut out a portion of the background of each layer, and hot glue guns to glue the watercolor paper to the accordion backing. Aside from the artistic and tactile skills developed, students will gain a better understanding of composition, having to use negative space strategically so that all parts of the drawing can be seen when overlapping. They will begin to think about narratives that can be explored through foreground, middleground, and background elements.

As with most projects, I start off showing the students a powerpoint outlining all of the steps of the project with examples of the final product. This powerpoint is shared to Canvas (or Google Drive - whichever the district prefers to utilize) so that students can look back at the individual steps if need be or if they are absent during instruction. After reviewing the sum of the project, students take to their sketchbooks and sketch out some ideas for their tunnel book. To brainstorm for this, I ask them to think about a story that they will be telling through their drawing, and that they need to consider elements in the foreground, middle, and background. I do not ask them to cut out parts yet - this confuses them. Instead, they need to come up with a drawing that could be separated into four grounds. I check their drawings to make sure they will translate ok into a tunnel book and this is their exit ticket into the next step. I work with the students individually if needed to show them how they could break their composition down into layers.

Once students have a solid tunnel book idea in their sketchbook, I have them start building their "accordion", which holds the tunnel book together. To accomplish this, they are given two strips of 8"x12" poster board. They use a metal ruler to put hard creases in it, flipping it over to switch direction each time so that a zigzag fold is created. Then I give them the four sheets of watercolor paper and demonstrate how the watercolor paper will slide into the creases of the posterboard. They can hold it in place periodically when making their project to test that it works before gluing it. They begin drawing their scene out on the four sheets of watercolor paper. I tell them it has to have four layers (including the background), and the first three must have a cutout in them so that you can see to the layers below.

After they draw each layer in regular pencil, they use an xacto knife to cut out a portion of the background and hold it on top of the next layer so that they can see what is visible of it. If it works, they can move onto the next layer, and so on, until they have all four drawn in pencil with a portion of the background cut out. It is important that they do NOT cut out any of the background in their final layer or there will be a hole that goes all the way through their project.

Next, they use a fine-tipped black pen to outline their drawings on top of their pencil. This gives a cleaner look. Once the black pen has dried, they will color in their drawings with watercolor pencil. They will then add water (using brushes) to activate the watercolor. These sheets need to be dried on a drying rack between classes.

All layers will need to be pressed underneath something heavy to flatten the pages back out before binding them. This is best to do on a Friday when we ordinarily switch gears and do a sketchbook assignment, so that they are sufficiently flattened over the weekend. To attach the layers to the accordion, students will use hot glue, which is the sturdiest option and dries the fastest. If they are unable to use hot glue, tacky glue can be used if the pages are held in place with paper clips until cured. They can also use a thin, clear tape - but this option looks a bit messy.