The Art of the Fold

Hedi Kyle was my favorite book artist before I even knew her name. I learned several of her structures early on in my book making career and loved them for their versatility. You can imagine how excited I was when I heard she was writing a book with her daughter Ulla Warchol that I could peruse at my leisure. I was also hoping there would be new structures to try. The book arrived on October 2 and I got busy making samples and experimenting with structures right away. I was enthralled by the easy to follow diagrams and the paper suggestions as well as information on changing dimensions. Below are pictures of samples I made using my stash of papers and book cloth.

Enjoy!

My samples so far from this amazing book!

My variation on the tree fold introduces a long leaf followed by a short one and then a long one. That way half of the leaves (pages) are hidden from view. The possibilities for a book are endless.

The same book open.

The Blizzard Box invented by Bill Hanscom and Hedi Kyle. I also make a square version (in blue).

The Blizzard boxes nested and holding some of my sea glass.

The Star Box is very satisfying to make as Hedi's dimensions give you a perfectly nested box and cover all in one.

Three variations of the School Book Wrapper, 2 with pleats and one without. I used book cloth to make these as it is sturdy and folds nicely around journal inserts.

This structure was new to me and I loved playing with the pop-up. I ended up creating a shape that I could fold into cranes.

I love the simplicity and creativity of this book. The triangle structure is unusual, but it fits so nicely into the covers. I can't wait to use it for an actual artist's book.

Another simple, but effective book structure is this Pocket Accordion with Separate Cover. I had fun coming up with the cat closure.

The Crown Greeting Card is lovely and easy to make.

I have made many Blizzard Books over the years; it was one of the first Hedi Kyle structures I learned. I never thought to create this kind of structure though. Thank goodness for Hedi and this book!

The Telescoping Ziggurat was a new structure to me and I enjoyed folding it and creating two pieces from one structure by cutting the very long strip of paper on the diagonal so that it rises up like a tower.

TInception: or Binding a Tin into a Book

I ordered some beautiful eco-dyed silk noil from Tierney Barden last week and she sent some extra goodies along in the package. One of them was a little yellow tea tin and when I saw it I knew that I wanted to try binding it into a book. I got the idea from Andrea Matus DeMeng in her Propsero's Books class last month. When she was teaching us the coptic stitch she said she had bound a mint tin into a book. I was intrigued and wanted to try it myself.

My daughter Lila saw the first book and joked that I should bind a tin book that fits inside another larger tin and so on, hence the title of this blog and the title of the book she inspired: TInception.

I hope you like the pictures.

-Gina

Mica and Tintype photo cover for my first tea tin bound book.

Coptic stitch is used to sew the signatures and tin together.

Book parts ready to be sewn.

The finished book. I actually resewed this book (not shown) as I made some adjustments on the second one that I wanted to incorporate in this one as well.

Signature on left and tin on right.

Back of the tin and the next signature.

The tin contains some bits Tierney sent me and 3 pamphlet stitched booklets.

Tin contents.

Another signature in the book. I like using vintage papers and photos to give books a sense of time and place.

More book pages/signatures.

TInception; for each book level you descend it becomes an order of magnitude harder to bind! The top level book measures 4 x 2.5 x 1.5 inches.

The bound tin (right).

Book two inside book one. This book measures 2 3/8 x 1 5/8 x 3/4 inches.

The tin bound in book two (right).

Tin book three measures 1 3/8 x 1 3/4 x 1/2 inches. I could only put on a front and back cover before running out of room in the larger tin. It was still the hardest one to bind.

All three books showing their relative sizes.

The 3 little books bound and nestled inside the final tin.

All 3 books showing the photos and mica covers.

The binding of each book.

I used mica and antique writing from autograph books or inscriptions from old books as the back covers. I love the way the natural mica has inclusions that look like ink spots.

Prospero's Books

I recently spent 5 days in Idyllwild, CA at their Art Center taking a class from Andrea Matus DeMeng , intriguingly titled Prospero's Books. We had an ambitious plan to make 4 different books and decorate a wooden box to hold them all in just 4 days! It was a busy and creative time and I didn't finish everything there. I am still not really finished, but here is my version of Prospero's Books so far.

Enjoy!

-Gina

Prospero's Books: The Book of Harsh Geometry, The Book of Mirrors, The Primer of Small Stars, and The Book of Architecture and other Music.

A different arrangement of the books.

The Book of Mirrors, coptic stitched with folded signatures and single sheets bound together.

A page spread in the Book of Mirrors.

The Canadian binding was used for the Book of Architecture and other Music.

A page spread from the same book.

The Primer of Small Stars is of course a small book bound using long stitch.

The case bound Book of Harsh Geometry resonates with me as Geometry was my most difficult class in high school. I barely passed. I also find case binding difficult so they work well together.

Page spread from Harsh Geometry.

The Book of Water, long stitch binding.

I used plastic sheets to create this book's pages as I wanted the contents to look like water.

Sculpting Dyed and Painted Papers

I have been eco-dyeing paper for a few weeks. I also played around with another Leslie Marsh technique which uses paint to print leaves onto black paper. With lots of paper piling up on my work table I decided to turn some of them into a paper sculpture. Here are the results.

Enjoy!

Some of the painted leaf papers. Mom and I used Ranger Dylusions paints and a gel press plate to make these. Roll paint on the leaves, brayer a contrasting color on the gel plate, apply the leaves, place black paper on top and press. This technique is so fun and fast that I made about 20 pages in one sitting. 

I used the painted leaf papers to make the book spine. In my other blog post about this structure I used a single sheet of paper cut and folded to make the spine. Here I used a different sheet for each section then used leftover painted paper as hinges to hold them together.

I used the pale Texoprint paper from week 2 ago for the folded inserts. 

I like the contrast of the dark and light papers.

This is the finished sculpture. I love the shapes and colors and subtle leaf patterns everywhere.