What is a tree book? It’s what it sounds like, a book that looks kind of like a tree. But, it’s not any book it’s a very unique book filled with memories of this unique year. I’ll cover the process from start to end. Let’s get started!!

We began on March 15th and displayed our art at the Frank Art Gallery on May 15th. Ms. Gignoux (a local artist) helped us.

Step 1, Screenprinting:

Screen printing uses a similar approach to t-shirt printing, you put a piece of tough cardboard and print word onto it. Since we were making a tree book, we printed the traits of a tree. Some words we used were grand, tall, and simply tree.

Step 2, Paper folding:

We received two large blue papers which would serve as the foundation for our books. Step 2 was to fold this into a shape that would serve as a sturdy foundation.

Step 3, Akua ink:

This is a technique in which you take a leaf, paint on a pad, put the leaf on the pad, and press a paper. Before you know it, you have a beautiful leaf imprint on your paper

Step 4, Collage:

Perhaps the most important stage in which we collage by adding scrap paper. After all, we don’t want any ugly white popping out of this colorful piece of art! We painted and ripped maps, dictionaries entries, and tourist guides.

Step 5, Pockets:

Next, we put tiny envelopes filled with memories of this weird year. I built pockets for another reason too, I built them to resemble branches from a tree. I also put a polaroid photo of myself, with a mask of course!

Step 6, Salute to my roots:

Salute to my roots was a writing piece we wrote to put in our envelope. We had to write about somebody we were descended from or had a profound impact on our life. We did this for two reasons:

1. In a normal year, we would have made “hero” books. Books about our real-life heroes. In case you haven’t noticed, this is anything but a normal year. This brings us to our second point.
2. We decided to make a tree book. However, we also wanted to pay homage to a unique person in our lives. That’s why we decided to call our writing piece salute to my roots

Step 7, Life List:

A life list is just another name for a bucket list; a list of things you want to do in your life.

Step 9, When this over:

Ironically we made this on the brink of COVID vaccine for my age group. It’s basically just like the life list, except it’s more short-term and intended for stuff we want to do as soon as COVID “ends”.

Step 10, My Wish:

We were inspired by Katherine Applegate’s wishtree and wrote a wish on our tree book.

Step 11, The book Wishtree:

This is a book where a wishtree named Red, is about to be cut down because of someone engraving an Islamophobic message on it’s trunk.

Step 12, the Frank Art Gallery:

The FRANK art gallery is a gallery in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. Local artist Peg Gignoux helped us to exhibit our art there. We got to see other tree books, other exhibits at the galley, and the hero books made by last years 6th graders (you probably remember that last year at this time, COVID just started and everybody was in a state of panic)

That’s it! The picture above is the result of our two-month endeavor. If you made a tree book, tell me how it went! If you didn’t yet make it, let me know if this interested you!! Thanks for reading!