Wednesday 2 April 2008

Unpacking the Found Papers Book

... presented as post-hoc rationalisations, these thoughts here in fact came well before yesterday's post. Well - thoughts? Hm, not quite - some hand, brain, eye coordinations which led to some sustained exercises in general craftiness...

[some spillover from the day seems to be going on: writing conference papers is what I've been doing over the past few days, and it looks as if academic practice translates into blog posts, my apologies: this is distinctly wafty... as in fact the paper still is... but bear with me]

A book format such as the loosely, with a string, strung together palm leaf booklet [talked about here] seemed much better than merely a two-dimensional canvas for the found papers.

The string acquired some beads - paper beads, made out of some of the found papers too.
I came across paper beads first on etsy. They are so simple to make and can be customised into different shapes, but more importantly colour-coordinated sooo easily: just use the same found papers, coloured papers, and hey presto: there's your perfect accompaniment.

Paperbeads

An instruction for the beads is here. They are cut strips of paper, rolled tiedly together on a skewer or similar, then fixed with glue/ gloss medium to acquire some strength. And that's it.

The cover is some left over postcards, covered in more found papers - some of the yellow envelopes I got from Australia are perfect - there's some stamping, some addressing and general texture. Again, glued on with decoupage medium, covered with decoupage medium and thoroughly dried it's pretty sturdy and looks generally undestructable (though that's deceptive I suppose).

Inside cover with title

Title and signature go inside the cover. It's rather conventional, as far as collage titles go, but good nonetheless: This one is called Moin Olle: Sondervig. Slupsk - Taken from some text on the collage, and the two most outlying place names from the map on the back.

Half the postcard format is perfect for a good cover of the booklet.

This observation leads to the final, most important (?), point on the format... but that'll take a bit longer, so it'll have to wait til tomorrow...

5 comments:

Yellow said...

This is excellent. Will you be drawing in it, or just keeping it as is for it's own visual querkyness?
Could I contribute towards your found paper, or have you enough already?
I do love the corner hinging. How are the papers then attached to the cover? I can't wait for you to post.

Gesa said...

:) - No, not to be messed with once sealed - well, unless to play with the format.
Yes - of course, send me some recycling - have sent you email about it, and looking forward to it!

littlemithi said...

Wow ... this sure looks like its coming together.

Yellow said...

Gesa, I couldn't wait so there's an envelope of stuff in the post for you right now. I think I got a bit carried away, but you could always compost what you don't want.

Gesa said...

Thanks, Mithi... it surely is :)
LOL, yellow... well - you wouldn't be the first one getting carried away... looking forward to see what you've sent.