Learning Paper Engineering

12/10/2015

Paper engineering slider and parallel pop-up

WIP Fold-out book project ©Cherry Jeffs - Witch page: 2015

I never had many pop-up books as a kid, so making my own pop-ups now is definitely a case of childhood reclaimed!

I love the excitement of opening a flap and seeing something hidden pop out. Or pulling a tab and seeing something move!

This slow project is all about familiarising myself with book-making techniques and paper engineering (the posh name for pop-up books!) and discovering how I can integrate them into my own mixed-media process to create artist’s books.

I want my artist’s books to be an opportunity for you, the viewer, to have an interactive experience with my artwork that takes you back to the excitement and play of childhood.

Two pop-up techniques and accordion spine

I learned two new paper engineering techniques on this page:

Slider mechanism - which I used for the the tab on left to pull the witch across the moon
Multiple layers pop-up - which I used to make the houses and small hillock pop up when the flap is opened downwards.

Accordion pleat spine and other pages of fold-out book

Fold-out book project in progress ©Cherry Jeffs 2015 - present. Accordion pleat spine (top left) and other pages in various stages of progress.

I also learned a new technique for making an accordion book spine to hold various weights of paper.

Normally this spine is constructed so that the pages are contained within the folds of the accordion. I want to find a way to make it work with my pages glued to the outside of the accordion pleats.

I love to learn new things so I’m excited by all the different book-binding techniques there are to learn, to say nothing of more pop-ups, origami folds and and book-construction methods!