Upcycled Book Workshop with Teens

 

I was honored to teach a book sculpture workshop to teens at Barrington Public Library in Barrington, RI earlier in the spring. I had 13 enthusiastic students (all girls) who really enjoyed folding book pages and creating book sculptures out of old books. I brought in papers and other materials for them to cut and glue onto their creations. It was a really fun workshop, but I don't need to say much more. Just take a look at their creations!

 The members of 19 on Paper artist group are celebrating our 35th anniversary with an exhibit at Bristol Art Museum, Bristol, RI. A selection of past members with be exhibiting with us. Exhibit opens Sunday November 12, if in the area please join us for the opening reception Sunday, November 19, 2-4 pm.

Included below are three of my works in the exhibit. The Invitation is a colored pencil drawing of stacked tea cups with inspirational sayings on the tea bags. Fly Fish Round Up is an altered book sculpture featuring a fly fishing book with embellishments. Shell Swirl is a colored pencil drawing of a variety of shells in a circular pattern.

Altered Book Workshop

I taught a really fun altered book workshop at Warwick Center for the Arts in Warwick, Rhode Island.  Students brought books and ideas to the workshop and I helped them create a piece of art from an old book. There was lots of cutting and gluing all day! We also had visitors in the Art Center to look at the Altered Paper, Prints and Books exhibit that coincided with the workshop.

 

Sailing the Seas Book Sculpture

I have an Ocean Racing & Offshore Yachts book that someone gave me and had an idea to recreate a similar book sculpture I created a few years ago. I hand colored that other book sculpture with watercolors and later wished I had let it remain the natural whites of the pages. I created this piece with sculptures cut and folded from the pages in this book. Wow! It really is fun when I get going and good use for old books and old plastic drinking straws so they don't end up in the ocean!

I am part of an Altered Paper, Prints and Books exhibit that opens June 23rd, 2021 at Warwick Center for the Arts, Warwick, Rhode Island. The exhibit runs through July 24th with an opening reception on July 1st, 6:00 - 7:30 pm. Here are a few of my altered books.

 

A Book Sculpture Inspired by Autumn

I created this book sculpture from an old medical book that someone gave me. The pages are cut and made into a half flower vase glued onto the binding. I created the piece using decorative paper, an orange paste paper I had leftover and hand watercolored book pages. I watercolor the pages first before cutting and folding them into the flower and leaf shapes. 

I keep all kinds of scraps of paper and book pages for use in future creations, I have a big bin of all kinds of materials to use! The butterflies came from a butterfly book that I created awhile ago and kept the remainder of the pages. 

I really have fun with these book sculptures. This particular sculpture took me several days as I will cut and place shapes on the vase before gluing so I can view and contemplate if I want changes as I go. In between book sculptures I work on my colored pencil drawings. After sitting and drawing for several hours, I find it relaxing to cut and create something three dimensional! 

 

Book Sculptures: Fold • Cut • Glue

Here are a few old books that I have been creating into book sculptures. The first is a book about fresh and salt water fishes. I cut out many of the fish illustrations before I folded pages. 

The fold pattern for this book is to alternate: 1.) page folded in half vertically with 2.) page in which corners are folded inward from the edge to form a triangle. Keep folding these two patterns until the whole book has been folded. Below is my sample book to demonstrate.

I glued decorative paper to the end pages of the book, then positioned and glued on my fish. For glue, I used a glue stick for fish on the end pages, white craft glue and a glue gun for other areas. I also added some fishing line, lures and bobbers for embellishments. 

I had been thinking about a circus tent of a a book and finally found this fun circus book in which to create it. I liked the end pages so I didn't have to cover them with paper. I cut out many of the illustrations to use and glue back on. The pattern for folding is to fold down the tops of each page to form a triangle creating the point. To make the entrance, I folded some of the middle pages inward. I created red flags out of paper and added a gold ribbon to hang the flags. I really like the way this one came out!

I had found an aquarium book with colorful fish and corals so I wanted to make a book that appeared to be an aquarium. First I glued all of the ends of the pages with gel medium and when the glue was dry and the pages glued into a "block" I could hollow out the insides with a utility knife. This is not easy and takes a while to do. Your hands will tire quickly! Next I glued turquoise Lokta paper to the backgrounds and started adding in fish. 

 Here I have added black handmade paper with gold flecks running through it (I'm not sure of the name) and glued more fish on top of the black paper and coming out of the cut pages inside.

Spring to Life

I created this book sculpture using one of my dad's old engineering books from college in the late 1940s or early 1950s. I had saved several of old books that belonged to my parents that didn't seem to be classics and have given them another life by creating book sculptures out of them.

I cut a template for my flower vase/base and then cut sections of book pages with a utility knife (see below, template on the right). This can be a tedious procedure and take a while, I needed to use about 3 paperbacks for this vase, I could not use the pages from the engineering book because they were too thin. I tore them out and saved for another project.

I used marbelized paper I had previously created for the end pages and put together paper flowers cut and folded from other book pages, some previously colored with watercolor paint. I construct a variety of different flowers and some curly leaf shapes to compliment them.

November Book Sculpture

My husband recently had a knee replacement surgery so that meant I was also homebound and had to be attentive for more than a week. I had a difficult time focusing on drawing with colored pencil so I decided to create a few book sculptures with my available time instead.

I had seen a picture on the internet of a similar turkey book sculpture and decided to try my own in honor of upcomingThanksgiving. I took a small book I had purchased somewhere and began folding all of the pages in triangles. Afterward I added tail feathers, long semi-circles folded in half and glued between the folded pages. the head were two book pages folded together and cut into a head and neck shape. I colored only the eye and 'gobble'.

I was invited to a ladies' night party and I presented the hostess with this book sculpture as a gift. She really loved it and is going to put it on her table for her Thanksgiving dinner. On a side note - my friend and hostess' husband is experimenting with cutting books for me with his power tools. This will open up a whole new creative process, I am thinking up ideas for cut book sculptures! So much fun in between my drawing projects.

Three New Folded Books

Here are three new folded books that I created last week. I'm teaching an altered book workshop at Providence Art Club in a few weeks so I decided to sit down, fold a few more books and write down all the instructions for my students. 

I will credit Johwey Redington's website for the instructional videos to create these three sculptures. Click on the link and you can see the different folded books on her website. I added my own ideas to the books I created. The Yin-Yang book (middle) was a colorful book containing some maps and map images on the inside covers. I tore out a few pages so I would have just enough to fold so the end inside cover illustrations would show. 

I did the same for the last book here with the red end pages, I tore out a few pages so the red would show at either end.

Altered & Handmade Book Talk Tomorrow

Everyone is invited to my book talk tomorrow Monday June 17 at 3 pm at the Providence Art Club, 11 Thomas Street, Providence, Rhode Island. It is free and open to the public. I will be talking about my process of altering used books and turning them into book sculptures. I will also be talking about my handmade books that incorporate mediums such as colored pencil, watercolor, printmaking and collage into the illustrated pages. I will also be showing a PowerPoint presentation of my works and examples of other artists' works to show just what can be done with the art of books!