On a cold winters evening, a few of us gathered at the Eaglemont Artists Hub to attend a workshop with Karen Neal, and learn about creating a folded artist book.
From the moment I saw these on display I was curious how they were made, and full of ideas for how I could use this as a way of displaying and storing my own work.
The class began with Karen showing some examples of some of her folded artist books, the way they opened and closed, cascading down, and folding back in a perfectly neat pile of folded pages had me hooked from the beginning.
Across 3 hours, we learned about how to fold the pages, and glue them together to create a 3-section folded book with hard covers.
I took along a large pile of cyanotype test pieces, those that I had better versions of or were a test which didn't go as well as hoped. I selected my 10 images to include inside, and two for the covers, and began trimming them to size, placing them on the folded pages before deciding on the final order and feeling ready to glue.
Using the cyanotypes on washi paper, Karen suggested I try gluing them with rice glue, something I've been curious to try. It worked beautifully with the washi, not leaving the thin paper crinkled or curled, and instead gluing it perfectly to the cardboard base of the book.
I'm full if ideas for how I can continue to grow my book binding and artist book learnings, and planning to make a few more matching books to this in future.
Placing the images to decide the final order, and trimming down the angled corner pieces, so they would fold correctly.
All glued and ready to leave to dry before adding the covers.
The final finished piece folded out.