Back in January I did the Strathmore Online Workshop with Traci Bautista. I started this artist’s book during lesson one of Doodles Unleashed. Although doodling isn’t altogether my thing, when I doodle I usually do swirls of some sort. This time I decided on spirals. I had bought a sheet of beautiful green spiral paper and I wanted to use it to inspire an artist’s book. You can see the paper and my first steps in this post.
I divided one large sheet of mixed media paper into three long strips and worked on each of those consecutively. The steps I used in decorating the pages went like this:
- Spray paper through stencils or around objects using watercolour
- Paint acrylic spirals
- Swirl on a bit of pink watercolour
- Many doodlings with Prismacolour pencils in greens yellows and pinks
- More doodling with black ink with a pen and nib.
At this point I cut my three long strips into six shorter strips & my page spreads were done. After a visit to the art shop I decided to use a deep yellow paper to join them all at the foredge . That done, I was able to bind the whole thing into its intended shape – a concertina book with hard covers. Then I got to the fun part. I had decided to add some yellow pop-ups to make the borders. However when they were on I decided it needs MORE. So I added also pink and green spiral pop-ups.
It’s very busy, but it’s cheerful and it’s fun. Very different to the sort of well-researched book with a story that I usually do. Watch for more books with pop-ups. I’m investigating them. I’ve got a wonderful book that I’m working through pop-up by pop-up.
