Inspired by

For Christmas one of my daughters gave me a Paul Johnson Book. 

 I was fascinated by its construction. The pages are made from a single sheet of paper cut to give 8 panels and folded to give 5 pages.

I worked out the cuts needed for each panel

 And played with altering the shapes of the basic rectangles needed to make the folded structure 

 And tried it cutting a piece of gelli printed paper to give three pages

 I wanted to keep the chunky feel of the thick spine that Paul Johnson used but instead of a single folded sheet stuck to the spine with a couple of flaps I didn’t want to use glue and I wanted my panels cut in pairs (so three separate pieces) .

I liked it but decided to change to format to a square

 Looking through the holes in the pages to the sheets behind it put me in mind of a maze or hedge. So I thought about making the cuts spikier. 

 The gelli printed paper is not good at holding a crisp fold over time so I thought I’d experiment with making double sided paste paper in appropriate colours. 

 

 I think they worked. 

 I covered thin card with more paste paper. I would have liked something more substantial but the binding method I concocted needs thin slits cutting into the spine and I thought the thin card might be neater

And I bound the pages. The double spreads wanted to splay open which spoiled the hedge effect I was after so I held them shut with a thin strip of paper slotted over the fore edge.

I have written the words and even managed to get to Hot Bed Press to typeset them. They need living with for a few days before I go back and print them for an edition.I also need to make a whole stash of paste papers.

There’s a lot of work in each of these books so I’m thinking probably an edition of 5