As an art major, I have had lots of experience making paper
and practicing print making techniques. In fact, one time I even tried to make
paper out of meat simply because a print maker said that you need fibers from
plant matter in order to make paper.
I learned that he is correct…for now.
In an effort to try and actually incorporate some of these
multimodal literacies into my own curriculum, I have decided to see if I can incorporate
some traditional book-making techniques with new modes of book making.
Bookemon:
This website started with lots of promise, and ultimately
ended up breaking my heart. It does have some cool features, like you can
convert PDF and DOC files into books with relative ease. The price is fairly
reasonable, depending on what you want, and the templates are fairly customizable.
The downside is that you can only purchase bound books, which means that it
could be cool if you already have all of your book finished, images scanned,
and completely formatted. However, my efforts are focused on trying to find a
program that will do all of this for me, as I would like to print them and bind
them myself. So, while this program would be cool for having your kids make a
high-quality end product, it does little in the realm of teaching them about
how to make a book.
Sigh…back to the drawing board.
I'm glad you checked this out, Rich, even if it didn't work out. (How did trying to make paper out of meat work out?)
ReplyDeleteMeat paper was not as successful as I had anticipated. I was told outright by a professional paper maker that it was impossible from the get-go, but I figured that that opinion was based on very limited data, i.e., I assumed I was one of a very limited selection of assholes who would ever consider the idea. I consulted a few of the professors in the biology department about how I could potentially do it, looked up various paper-making techniques, built some equipment….the result wielded something that was more like poisonous beef jerky.
ReplyDeleteHowever, I have not given up. I think that maybe I can build stretchers if I can make a composite out of animal bones. Then I can burn some of the softer material and combine it with rendered fat to make an oil-based charcoal. I could use stretched hide as a canvas, meaning that I could potentially make an entire art piece out of an animal. I have no particular reason for wanting to achieve this…