New Skillshare Class

I have a new class about bookmaking on Skillshare.com. Use the discount code below to enroll and you will also receive full access to the site and all the classes for only $.99 for 3 months. My class includes 12 short videos that walk you through the steps to make and decorate a small book. You can include your own message and artwork. Great for a small gift or special greeting.

I've been thinking for awhile about offering an online video class about bookmaking. Skillshare.com has a program for new teachers so I enrolled and designed my own class. Of course along the way, I had to learn new things about my iPhone, about editing on Quicktime, about creating slideshows with voiceover, and now about marketing. A steep learning curve for a month's time. But I had fun.

I now have my first video class up on Skillshare.com, and hopefully more classes to come.  Skillshare is a site with hundreds of video classes including ones about computer skills, cooking, arts and crafts, DIY, photography and running a small business.

Here is the discount code:  http://skl.sh/2gWL06Z

Here are a few samples of some books that I made.

 My new class

  Valentines greeting

 Birthday wishes

There's also a Bonus lesson about how to make a little pouch to match your book.

 Book pouch

Pop-up Workshop

I recently gave a pop-up book workshop at the Arlington MA library. There were only 4 children (ages 8-10ish) but we had a great time together leaning how to make "on-the-fold" pop-ups, and then combining them to make a small 4x4" book. Here are a few photos of their pages:

And here is how we created the books. Look under the DIY tab to find instruction sheet that you can download.

Using 4x8" drawing paper (grain short) we folded each paper in half and added a pop-up cut along the fold and illustrated the pages. Each child made 4 pages. We then folded two sheets of 4x16" copy paper into 4-fold accordions. Each pop-up page was glued into a valley of the accordion with glue-stick (being careful not to get glue on the pop-up in the center). The 2 accordion were glued together. 

I had prepared covers with a 1/4" double-fold spine, and strips of double-stick tape alongside the spine and each edge. These were decorated with a title and images. The cover was wrapped around the double-accordion pages and edges squared. Center tapes were removed first, then tapes at the edges. Hope these photos will help. It's hard to describe with words.

Here below, you can see two pages tucked into a four-fold accordion.

And here is the other 4-fold accordion. Glue was applied

along the edges of each page, but not in the middle.

Here is the cover, prepared with spine folds and double-stick tape. 

Four folds are scored into the center to create a spine, similar to the spine of a board book.

Palm Leaf Poetry Books--a classroom project

I've already written about the squash-fold hanging poetry books here and here and here. Those were done in a joint project with 2nd and 6th grade classrooms (working in mixed-age pairs). Here's another classroom project I did with the same pair of teachers, two years earlier. Again, it was part of their poetry writing unit. I wrote about it briefly once before, but am updating it to include instructions.

Based on the palm-leaf books of SE Asia, our hanging books had 4 "pages" with mat-board covers top and bottom. We first discussed possible layouts of text and illustrations, and then made draft pages on copy paper sheets in pencil. Second grade students used pages with lines for their text; sixth graders used blank pages. Books were woven together with waxed linen thread leaving a long tail with a button at the top, both for hanging and to wrap around the folded pages when closed. Pages were made from white tag board; covers were cut from colored mat-board. All covers and pages were cut and pre-punched at my local printers. Labels were designed by the students, usually a title on one cover, their name on the other.

Want to try this project in your own classroom? Download instructions, draft sheets and printing sheets here.

Here are some examples of students' books:

Here is a hand-out I made that shows possible layouts of text and illustration.

Museum Book Instructions

Someone recently asked me to share instructions for making the Museum Book. Click here to download my new instruction sheet. The book has 4 "galleries", each telling part of the story. The floor of each gallery folds up. A ribbon-tie can be added under each cover so the book can be tied closed, or open. I also added pop-up figures on the sides.

You can also see a photo of me learning how to use a Guatemalan back strap loom, like the one in my book.

More Journal Pages

Finished the next page in my prayer journal: watercolor, ink, acrya gouache

Travel Books

Tomorrow morning (Sat) I'll be driving out to Chelmsford MA public library to teach a children's bookmaking workshop. We'll be making a 4x4" rubber-band book and decorating them like world citizen passports or travel journals. We'll also make a diamond pouch to hold our books. Then we'll write and illustrate stories about a trip we took, real or imaginary.

Here are some traveling books that I have made...

Sweet Journey--an artists book with see-thru windows, wheels that turn,

a magnet-closure in the bumper, 

and a glove compartment that opens to reveal a mini-book.

Memories about childhood trips to Canada to visit my grandparents.

Car book open 

 Spread with my dad napping in the back of our station wagon while mom drives

Dashboard, with mini-accordion book hidden in the glove compartment (set into back cover)

Fold-out suitcase book with 4 pockets for mini-books, letters etc.

A "museum book" with 4 galleries and pop-ups 

that tell a story about weaving in Guatemala.

Mama is making tortillas for breakfast

museum book folds up

Simple car book -- cut and folded from one sheet of paper.

spread from an illustrated story book about my trip to Guatemala

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Below are drawings from my travel journals to Guatemala...

fountain in restaurant

church

woman weaving on back-strap loom

study of textile art

map of Panajachel, town where I stayed

Paisley

A little fun with Paisley. Acrylic paint. Fold out page from mini-book.

Journal Pages

I took a brief online video class with Valerie Sjodin about cutting and embellishing edges of fold-out journal pages. I've been having fun and experimenting, learning about using acrylic paints, designing some prayer pages, and sharing artwork with other students in a special facebook group. It's my first experience with an online class and I'm enjoying it. I'll be sharing some of my learnings with the participants at Spirit of Children conference in August at Green Acre.

So far I've been working in two handmade journals. Here are some shots of a page from the larger journal (8x10") using watercolor paper, acrylic paint and rapidograph pens. This journal is not sewn together yet--it was easier that way to work on the pages. So this is the left half of a two-page spread. The singing bird on the left will fold under the stronghold page. The text is from the prayer for humanity.

In the smaller journal, I used different watercolor paper and tried watercolor paints. This journal is 8x5.75". Here is the cover.

And here is my first fold-out page with a quote from 'Abdu'l-Baha. The trees on the right fold under the fountain page.