Stretching

It is Tuesday and time to write a 'Slice of Life." 
Thank you  Two Writing Teachers for creating this supportive community
of teacher-writers!

When my granddaughters (ages 5 and 3) visit, we draw and paint. I keep a small table well-stocked and ‘at the ready,’ with a variety of markers, colored pencils, and drawing paper. Painting together is a little bit more of a production – we do this at the craft table in my basement, near to the utility sink for rinsing all those brushes and wiping up messes. 

We go through a lot of paper. Paper, paper, paper, we simply cannot have enough paper around here. I am always looking for ways to make it stretch. I am a scavenger, on the lookout for ‘extras’ – scrap paper at the back side of cards, or cutting blank sections of business mail and other papers, and tearing out the pages at the end of old notebooks and notepads. We like to draw and paint on cardboard boxes, too. A real favorite has been the large rolls of ‘painter’s paper,’ leftover from our home remodeling. We can cover tables with this and draw to our heart’s content. 

Just the other day, my poetry writing with Ethical ELA led to a wonderful way to stretch my paper supplies. An inspiration by Amber Harrison introduced me to a fanciful new world: ‘zines.’ I don’t know that I have ever heard of this word before, and I went down a real rabbit hole learning more about these.

The biggest thrill for my granddaughters and their drawing: one sheet of paper can be folded into eight rectangles, and with one simple cut, a small book is created. Yes!! I had to show this to the girls!! As I imagined, they were delighted – busily working on these small pages, creating their own books. They created smaller designs due to the more limited space, and they began to think about their art as storytelling. Wonderful! 

I created my first zine as the girls worked on theirs. What whimsical books these can be! I am reminded of the limits and focus of writing into a specific poetry form – I am whittling my thoughts to fit a particular framework. For this first zine, I wrote some silly wordplay we repeat often around here, whenever I can’t remember the word for something…might as well laugh about it. Here’s what my zine layout looks like, unfolded:

Here is my zine ‘poetry’ in a more straightforward fashion – 

Whatsis? 
by Nana, AKA Maureen

What’s this called again?
That’s a something-or-other.
A thingamajig.

What did you say?
A doohickey.

What’s a doohickey? 
A whatchamacallit. 
A gubbins.

What?!
A gizmo.
A thingamabob. 
A widget.

A doodad. 
A thingy.
A so-and-so.

Say what?!

Leave it be, so be it, 
I don’t know

The girls laughed when I read this little book to them, capturing our family joke. I am going to play around with this zine idea some more. Next up, I’m creating a zine of healing thoughts to share with a friend who is having surgery next week – just to let her know I am thinking of her. 

It is always good to be stretched in new ways – and always good to stretch my paper supplies, too!

See you Friday, at the 17th Annual Slice of Life Story Challenge!

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