Story Quilts

3rd Grade artists began this unit by reading “Tar Beach” by the author and artist Faith Ringgold. I always share the above clips of Faith reading the book herself and another of her talking about the process of creating the 'Tar Beach' story quilt.

Using Ringgold’s book and artwork as inspiration, they created a drawing that told the story of their favorite memory. As part of the unit, we learned how artists use a foreground, middleground, and background in their designs to add a sense of space to their work. After transferring their drawings onto muslin fabric (which we then taped onto a sheet of chipboard) they used sharpies to add color. Finally, they attached an array of fabric squares to the borders to complete their story quilts.

Student Art