Inspirator for Book Artists

I’ve been struggling for inspiration lately. I went on the web to look for ideas for overcoming artists block and found all sorts of drawing and painting exercises. A lot came with a time commitment, a drawing a day type thing, but I know from past experience that these will go the way of keeping a sketchbook, started with enthusiasm and then fizzle.

I also found sites offering packs of cards that have prompt words on , the idea being that you deal out a certain number and work to these. I always work best to a project or brief so these looked like a better fit.

Then I thought a book artist ought to have these prompts in book form. So I’ve spent the past three or four weeks making the ‘Inspirator for Book Artists’

 I wanted to get away from the towering pack of cards and also to try and make it so that I couldn’t cheat and pick out my favourites but I thought it would be useful to be able to put the chosen prompts out together on the table and be able to move them about and rearrange them

I decided to make volvelles (turning discs) to show the chosen words.

For making books I decided that there two categories of words that needed choosing, technical things like text, image, structure also more creative prompts. I also decided I needed a number generator. I thought about using a die but decided that a volvelle worked better , I didn’t need to work out how to incorporate it into the structure.

The first mock up looked like this. The discs slotted into an adapted  crown binding

Unfortunately when I’d made the volvelles out of card and the binding out of canson paper it was too bulky and springy. I rethought and decided on a box structure on its side so that it is displayed and opened as a book.

 

Now it is made I need to use it

I used the ‘rules’ to dial up some words. Now I just have to make it happen