Weekend Class

This past weekend, I took another class at The Center for Book Arts. The course was called Short Cuts and was taught by one of the most generous and talented artists that I have met through classes. The class was taught by the amazing paper cut artist--Beatrice Coron. Her paper cuts have recently appeared at MOMA and I fell in love with her work by viewing it up close and personal at Kate's Paperie where she did Halloween Window Displays. Much to my pleasure, she is one of several artists who was chosen this year to provide artwork for Arts for Transit Program. Her poster is currently being featured on several of the subway lines. I purchased her artcard through the Arts for Transit store.

I thoroughly enjoyed her class and will definitely repeat it when it is offered again. The beauty of the class is that there are four components (black and white cutouts, color cutouts, cutouts for stenciling and paper engineering). Beatrice allows students to pick and choose the elements they want to pursue. If a student wishes to delve deeper in one component, Beatrice allows that student to do so. It is that type of learning that I appreciated the most--both as a student and as a teacher.

You see, I hate taking classes in the creative arts. I hate getting compared to what other people are doing. I am not overly creative on the spot. I love to think about what I want to do; I plod along. Other people are much more free-form when it comes to creating and they create some wonderful things that I could never do on the spot. I like to go home and experiment with what I want to do and will usually create some nice projects based on what happened in class.

The two projects that I concentrated on were color cutouts. The assignment was to take inspiration from artwork/pictures that were published and then to turn them into paper cuts. In class, I was working on a Little Mermaid poster from a advertisement for the Broadway musical. In order to perform the colored cutouts, you are required to make several copies of the cutout in different colors. Theoretically, you are supposed to cut out all versions of the cutout simultaneously. I didn't have adequate knife skills to do that so I cut my out in batches of two. I didn't quite finish the poster in class so I am still working on it at home.

The project that I did complete was done at home. I took the advertisement for the Lion King musicals and turned it into a paper cut. It was almost cheating because the advertisement is already very similar to a paper cut. I had to add a few connections for it to work. I prepared two cutouts of the image-one in black and one in grey. I mounted them slightly apart as to create a shadow. I mounted them on yellow orange card stock to mimic the actual poster.

Box with Drawer and Divider

I finished my class yesterday and I am very happy to say that I completed my project. The difficulty with weekend classes is that sometimes there just isn't enough time to finish the project. Usually, I have to finish the project at home because I just don't move as quickly as the instructor anticipates.

For this project, we were required to make a slipcase. The slipcase would surround a drawer. The drawer would have a divided section. Within the divided section would be a lift out tray. Keeping in mind that there were eight students and the time necessary for the glue to dry between components, I was very happy to get my project done.

Step One: Build the slip case. Because the interior would be visible when the drawer was not inside, we had to line boards before assembling the case. Once the individual pieces where glued together, we had to cover the case. I chose a printed paper for the lining and rust colored bookcloth for the exterior of the case.

This is the lining inside the slip case (when the drawer is removed).

Step Two: Making the drawer. I made the drawer with a divider that ran along the entire width of the drawer. I also put two "lifts" so the tray that I would make later could rest evenly across the divider. The drawer is covered with Thai Reversible Unryu Paper. I chose the pink/orange combination. The exterior of the drawer is covered with the orange side. The divider, lifts and paste-ins are the pink side.

The three components of the project. The drawer is located in the back of this photo.

Step Three: Making the Tray. The tray is made to fit in the drawer. I chose mine to run the entire length of the drawer. I covered the drawer with a different decorative paper because there wasn't any more paper that was used for the lining (which was my first choice).

Here is the tray lying of top of the drawer.

Here is the tray fitted inside of the drawer. The orange ribbons are connected to the underside of the tray so that it can be easily lifted out.

Step Four: Fitting the Pieces Together. The last step is to embellish the project. Of course, this seems easier than it really is because most of these steps have already been pre-determined and pre-planned. For me, I decided to use a decorative pull for my drawer. I used a button that I purchased from M & J Trimming.

The drawer pull.

The assembled box.

Overall, I am very pleased with the finished project. Granted, it not perfect but I always have to remind myself that the goal of the class isn't to make a perfect project. The goal of the class is to learn the techniques and to go home with a working model.

I was very pleased with the class and would definitely take another class with this particular instructor. I have also come to realize that I am further along with my box making skills than I realized. I problem-solved many of my own problems in class. I pre-planned my project well--in other words, I pretty much did my project in the correct sequence.

So, I feel that it was a very successful weekend.

Taking Another Class

Well, I am taking another weekend class at The Center for Book Arts in NYC. This class is being taught by Ben Rinehart and is based on his book Creating Books and Boxes. This class will be dedicated to boxes with drawers and dividers.

Dividers in a box are one of the hardest skills to master because there are so many ways to approach the problem. I wanted to take the class because (1) I love making boxes and (2) I wanted to learn how someone else approaches the problem.

An interesting aspect of Ben's method is that he covers the exterior of his boxes in one continuous piece of material. Most people will cover the sides of the box with one piece of material and then paste in a top and bottom piece of material.

One of the most agonizing aspects of taking classes is making artistic decisions on how you want to design your class project. What decorative paper? What covering materials to use? What notions will you use? The problem is that many of these decisions have to be made on the spot. When you are designing at home, you can pick and choose from your own stock. When you are taking classes, you have to pick and choose from what is available on site. I wish teachers would indicate what decorative materials to bring should you want to bring something from home. For example, a 6" x 12 " piece of bookcloth, and a 18" x 23" piece of decorative paper will be sufficient for this project if you want to bring materials from home.

So here are some of the choices I made for my class project. The decorative papers and bookcloth were provided by the Center. The notions I picked up from M & J Trimming during my lunch break. Tomorrow, I will show you how the materials were used.


Decorarive papers and bookcloth


Notions from M & J Trimming