Moving on....a new eco-dyed artist book

At my recent exhibition 'Insight + Onsite', I sold a couple of my artist books.  One of them, 'Fern Gully' was quite dear to my heart, so in order to cope with my 'loss' (a good loss!), I had to make another book to replace it.

Using the same concertina structure of sewn double sided pages, I needed to find some double sided prints in my collection.  I found a concertina book, in the form of a 'snake' book, of eco-dyed backgrounds with monoprinted leaves.  Perfect!

The Eco-dyed snake book being deconstructed with a stanley knife!

I cut up the book (gasp!) then sewed the pages into a concertina strip of card, and attached little wooden beads and hard covers.  As a decorative element for the outside of the spine, I attached a small piece of handmade paper featuring gelatine prints.

Sewing the pages onto the spine using pamphlet stitch
and waxed linen thread

The finished spine

View of the book with covers on.
The covers are box board covered in mulberry paper.

 And to finish, I made a band out of card and a monoprint to slip on when the book is closed.

The finished book, with slip on band.

Sigh... now I feel better!  I named this book 'Underfoot' - it gives me a feeling of dragging my feet through leaf litter in a rainforest.  The purple colour of the spine and the earthy orange colour of the covers remind me of colourful fungi on rotting mossy logs.  Those colours are also reflected in the eco-dyed prints.

I think this book will be a new favourite of mine....until I make the next one (which I'm working on at the moment!).