Fold, Paint, Create: Making a Concertina Art Book for Mixed-Media Fans

1. Introduction: Hello, everyone, and welcome to fold Paint Create, making a concertina art book for mixed media fans. In today's video, I'm excited to show you how to create a beautiful mixed media concertina book. This project is all about experimenting with our art supplies, having fun with some abstract art, and turning it into a unique handmade book. I'm Denise Love, an artist and creative educator, and I'm excited to bring you this fun and creative dive into handmade art journals. We'll paint, fold, and assemble it step by step. So whether you're a seasoned mixed media artist or just looking for a creative project to try, this class is for you. Let's get started. 2. Class Project: Class project, you'll create your own mixed media concertina book using watercolor paper, paint and handmade covers or any materials that you happen to have on hand. Start by painting both sides of your paper with abstract designs and then cut it into strips and fold it into a zig zag concertina format. Assemble your book with coordinating paper covers and a rib enclosure to complete the piece. Whether you use it as an art journal, a collage base or a standalone artwork, this project is fun and a creative way to explore mixed media techniques. Share your finished book in the class gallery. I'd love to see what you create. 3. Supplies: Let's start off by taking a look at the supplies that we're going to need for class. You need a big piece of paper. This can be any paper that you have on hand. I have several large sheets of arches, watercolor paper that 33, the great big ones by 22 or so, they're big. Those would work fine if you've got a big piece of that. For this class project, I'm going to be using a big piece of the Canson Excel paper. And I have a big pad, 18 " by 24 " that lives under the bed in my guest room because it's so big. But it's the exact thing that we need for a project like this. This is just 140 pound cold press paper, and we're going to be using one sheet of paper to make our book and I like it to be a big sheet. You can do this smaller and make little mini concertina books, but I'm going to make a big one, so I'm going to use this sheet of paper or bigger. So you need a piece of paper. You also need some bookboard which is basically a nice heavyweight, um cardboard or press board. But also, if you just happen to have some extra sketch pads or watercolor pads or paper pads, this back page of that pad is perfect and you can just steal the back of that off of your paper pad. And really, you shouldn't throw those away. You should every time you use a thing of paper, just keep that back piece because it's perfect for making your own handmade art books. I keep all the back pages of those. But you could also have bookboard that's what it's called, and it's just a packet of nice thick heavyweight board. You also need a bone folder and I'm going to be using a glue stick. You could use a glue stick. You could use tacky glue. You could use other book glues like the neutral pH adhesive glue. You could do any of that. But for my project, I'm going to be using the glue stick because it's easy. And I like the Oho sticks. You need a bone folder because we're going to be using that to fold paper. I've got a utility knife and a big ruler that I'll be using to cut my paper into strips. I'm going to be using some two inch vet, use a book repair tape to attach my sections together on the backside because it's really, really sticky. You could use masking tape. I probably would avoid painter's tape or artist's tape because those are generally low tech tapes. So if the tape that you have is the blue tape or the purple tape or the white artist tape, those tend to not be very sticky and I feel like after a while, they would start to peel and come up and not hold your book together. So I'm going to be using white bookbinding tape. You could also use a nice quality masking tape. Gaffers tape would probably be fine, or you can do some of the other concertina methods where they actually glue the two sections together. So I'll talk about that a tiny bit as we're going, but I'm going to attach mine with the um the tape. And then I'm also going to be using all of the any art supply that just inspires me. So I'm going to be using some KuratakiGanzi watercolors because I like them. They're kind of a mix between Western watercolors and gouache. They're kind of little more opaque, not quite as translucent, and that's what I love about them, so I'm going to be using those. Also going to personally be using some acrylic inks. I've got the Delawi inks and Amsterdam inks and a variety of colors, and so I might be pulling some of those. You could also pull out any mark making supplies that you have, any paint pins, pasca pins, anything at all that you want to decorate your paper with now is the time. To get out all your supplies and make a big sampler sheet of the different things it's time to play and experiment. If you've got something you've never tried before, and you're like, Oh, just waiting for the perfect project. This is the perfect project. I just want you to start experimenting with all your supplies in a project like this. One other thing, I'm going to be using some handmade paper. I don't know which paper I'm going to use yet for my cover, depends on what colors I paint inside, whatever I'm inspired, which direction I'm inspired to go. But I've got some large handmade papers that I've gotten from **** you could look online on the Blick site and look at handmade papers or visit your local art store and just see what kind of papers they have. That's one option for the cover. I'm going to be using these for my cover. Another option is to paint your cover and decorate it in whatever way you're inspired to do. So you don't have to have a handmade paper. You can cover it with whatever you're inspired to create, but you'll see as we're going what we end up creating. Then also, I'm going to tie my book clothes with a ribbon, so a piece of ribbon would be handy, and it does need to be a little bit longer than this. This is one I had cut short on a book I made for myself. And so, you know, live and learn, but it needs to be a ribbon that's not super thick. This is about a quarter of an inch thick, so it's not so thick that I couldn't tie it in a tie, but you could get creative with your closures. I've got lots of different ways that I close art books now that with buttons and ribbons and fasteners and you can get creative with that, but we're going to be using a ribbon on this project. 4. Painting & Cutting Paper: Other thing I happen to think because I got inspired. I'm going to do I'm going to paint the backside and the front side on some other books that I've done. I did not paint the backside. I just painted the front side. And then I did something fun. Here's the other one, one of the ones I've created. Usually, the concertina book is two sided and comes out kind of like an accordion, but I thought it would be fun on this one to do one sided. And then glue all of the backsides together. So it kind of made a traditional kind of book. So this is another option that you can consider, but it makes the pages nice and thick and yummy and you get all the way to the back and then it closes. So you can see here how I've used the ribbon as a closure, and I only painted on the one side because I attach the other side all glued together. So this is one way we could do it. The other way I was thinking just kind of came to me and I'm thinking, let's do it. Do some type of painting or stenciling or something on the back side. Then when that's dry, flip it over, then paint the front side and then both sides are painted. Keeping in mind that wherever we seam it out, it's going to have a white seam on the back side, but I'm okay with that because I've already planned for it to do that. I think on one side, I'm going to put stencils. Pick a stencil you like. This is a stencil girl stencil and it is um S two oh nine Dub DUBE it's just positive words and I'm liking the thought that the back could be black and white. That also you could add to your supplies. I'm going to go ahead and do that. I've just pulled a piece of paper out. That's the front side. I'm going to flip it over to the backside, and I'm going to try something new. I'm going to be using an ink blending brush and an art crayon to do the stenciling instead of acrylic paint because I think it'll allow me to continue painting on the other side a little quicker. These are fun because I discovered and we could do black paint also. I mean, we might should do black paint now that I think about it, but these dry fast and I was thinking like, could we draw on here and then take our ink blending brush and just smear it around and see what that looks like. Um, so let's try it. We're just going to smear it around and see what our stencil work looks like. So add this to your supplies. I thought about it as soon as I was putting stuff away. I was like, Oh, what if we did this? So many good ideas just start coming to you as you start thinking of stuff. So let's see what that looks like. Oh, my goodness. That's exactly what I want. Okay, so you just kind of roll them up. These are the marabou art crayons. Comes in a little box like this. And they're super fun, and they're like, I like them. As I throw them all on the floor, they're kind of like the temper sticks, which I like. But the temper sticks are, you know, a children's art supply, and they're not meant to last as long as, say, a nicer art supply. So I've been experimenting with some other materials and playing with some other options just to see the ing as well as a temper stick, 'cause temper sticks are fun. So I'm going to continue painting this backside with this stencil, just moving it around. It's just going to be these words over the whole thing, and I'll be right back. All right. I'm down to the very last little section here and I'm just kind of working it. You could color the ink blending brush with the tip of the crayon. I found that works really good. Also, if you have a plastic cutting board, you could scribble this don't use the cutting board for your kitchen anymore after that, though, but you could scrub a little bit of the crayon on the cutting board. I have a plastic watercolor container that's like a cutting board. And I was thinking, I need to go get one of my kitchen cutting boards, but you can put it on that and scrub your brush on it, and it kind of gives you a more even color way rather than coloring the little bit of crayon through the stencil. I've just been experimenting. I haven't had these crayons very long and I thought, This is the perfect kind of project to play and experiment. I was just using a little piece of tape to help me hold the stencil there. And there we go. Now we have the whole thing, and then I just throw this into some water until I'm ready to take it to the sink and I just wash it with my brush cleaner. I've got this stuff called the master's brush cleaner. This is perfect for scrubbing a little bit of soap and washing it with water. These come pretty clean. They're inflending brushes. So with the ink, you generally have the ink stay on there pretty good. Those wash pretty good. So now we're going to let this dry. I wasn't looking for perfect. My goal here was interesting and different and I don't mind any marks that I've got or any differences that I've got because when we have this in a folded up book, I think that's going to look really cool. I've got it on my fingers because I was holding the stencil down. This stuff is water soluble, so we could probably move it around with water a little bit at this point if we wanted to, that's not my goal. I'm just mentioning some properties there. Yeah, I'm going to wash my hands and let it set up for a moment and then we'll flip it over and paint the other side. I'll be right back. A property of those crayons, I should mention, they dry within 24 hours, so it's not going to completely dry the first time you use them. If you get some of these little temper sticks, they dry pretty immediately, but they're not artist quality, so you could have fading throughout the life of the product, more so than most of your art supplies, which is why even though I love them, I hesitate to really use but they would dry immediately. This is going to take 24 hours to really set up and be dry completely. But we're going to keep going and just see what we can get. For the other side, I got my cutting mat under here. For the other side, we're going to paint and play and experiment and fill the sheet with all of our art supplies. I'm going to pick some watercolors a color palette to play in. So I generally like to pick a color pilot from the color cube, and this is the color cube by Sara Renee Clark. I love these because they've got 250 colors per box. And if you just are stuck and you don't know where to go and what's your next color should be or how you could really make a color pilot more sophisticated rather than just picking, say, blue and orange, what else could I pick to go with that blue and orange? Well we could have a blue orange and look here. We could have an ochre, an indigo, and a black. That would make it more sophisticated and fill out the palette a little easier than just two colors, for instance. I do like to pick a color palette and just say, let's go for that. Like this right here. I'm loving this set of colors and I feel like maybe that hot pink cover could be a good cover for that. Yeah, that'd be good. I also reserve the right to put white, black as your neutrals and gold. Those are going to be the ones that I always reserve to go ahead and pick also. So let me pick a color palette and I'll be right back. I've picked a few colors out of my watercolors. This is the 48 piece set in the art nouveau set by Kura take. And even though my goal isn't to get exact exact, it's just to kind of push me into a direction. It's a way to narrow down your choices right at the beginning because sometimes when you have too many choices, you get stuck. Everything's harder. You just can't move forward because you're like, Oh, I don't know where to go with this, and you get stuck. I find that at least starting with a color palette is a good way to push me in that direction. And depending on how sloppy I am, I may or may not push paint on the other side, and I'm not even worried about it. Don't get stressed about the different aspects. You can be for the first one, just play. Then after that, you can be more careful and you can make some decisions and you can get creative. The goal here is to fill the page with color and marks and just be creative and don't get stuck in what things look like. I'm going to start with a layer of watercolor and then mark making on top of that, and then we'll cut stuff up. I've just pulled some colors. I don't quite have this rather gorgeous blue. I've pulled five oh four green gray, which may or may not be the right color, but it got me there. Then I got six oh one grayish blue. Four oh two Mars yellow and four oh three Venetian red. That just at least push me into a color palette, whether it's exact or not. Then black, I'm going to reserve for mark making and some other stuff as we go. I'm just going to wet these colors down and then just start painting. There's no right or wrong way to do this. Got a thing of water over here. I'll be dipping my brush into. The goal is just to fill your page, have fun. Don't worry about. That's a pretty color, actually. Look how pretty that color is. I did not expect that actually. So I'm going to just start laying color down, doing some mark making, maybe making some odd shapes or different marks, and you're going to cut this up and then fold them. So wherever, some of these elements end up is going to be the fun, interesting surprise part of the project, which is what I love. This is my Princeton Neptune, flat wash brush, three quarter inch square wash brush. I love it. I love the Princeton Neptune ones. They seem to hold a lot of water and color, and so it's my favorite ones with these. I'm just going to play and experiment and mark make and see where are we going to end up when we're done? Make shapes, make colors, let the brushes give you some interesting lines and patterns, switch up colors. Don't get hung up on this looks terrible. I've already messed it up. I want you to keep going. And painting and playing, and then trust the process and just have some fun. Enjoy the ugly stage that we get to all paintings have an ugly stage. Just don't even let it bother you. Just play and just say, Where am I going to end up? I don't know, but we're going to like it wherever it is. Perfect chance to try out all your mark making and anything fun that you've been wanting to experiment with or art supply you've been wanting to play with. This is your moment. It's time to shine and make a great big sampler of all the things that you ever wanted to put in your art or play in your art and you just didn't get to. I'm sorry if this paper is a tiny bit bigger than my surface, but the point is, cover the whole sheet. Let's see. We've done the blue and the green. Let's go back with some scary colors. This is scary. Oh, no, I don't want to mess it up. Right there with you. Oh, my goodness. Oh, my gosh. Okay, that colors a little crazy. I don't know if it's the one that I wanted. But let's just do it anyway. Let's just trust this process. I get the coolest pieces of art and things after doing stuff like this because I got brave. One moment of braveness gets you places in your art that you just never even imagine. So I want you to just be brave and go for it. No matter how crazy it is. And I pick crazy color palettes out of this little thing on purpose because the crazier the color palette that I've picked, the more I've loved it when it was done, crazy enough. And sometimes I even look at it the day that I've done it and I'm like, I don't know about this. And I'll come back a couple of days later, and I'm like, Whoa. So cool. Oh, Ar This wanted to drip right here. Let's just do it. Oh, I don't know. I don't know about that color. I don't know about that one. But we're putting it in there. If you got a drip or something that happens and you're like, that was a mistake. I want you to put the color to other places. And that way, it wasn't a mistake. It was a deliberate decision. Not saying it was a good decision, but it would then make it at least deliberate. Let's just school. Let's do that. Now I've got all four of the watercolors in there. I don't have the black in there yet. That's okay. Because I'm feeling like we could pick out some ink colors and do some lines and some drawing. This one is Indigo by Daylor Rownie. The thing with the inks, some of my inks, um Oh, this one works. Some of my inks don't soak up ink, but when you first start the ink, shake them up and squirt out the lid because stuff gets stuck in that dauber. And when you're going, you squirt out a whole jab of ink that you didn't mean to do, it might be a glob that had dried in there for a while. Okay, so if you like to draw and do botanicals and some fun shapes and things like that, now's the time to play with some of those ideas. Oh, I love it. I love Indigo. Let's do some more over here. You can draw with paint pens and you can any kind of pin, really, you can get your microliners if you like to draw stuff. I want you to get creative here. Don't get hung up on what it looks like, fill the space, move around, do different shapes. I want you to make sure too, to be sure to go edge to edge. Don't leave a big gap at the sides or the top or the bottom because that's part of your page and I don't want you to have a big section that you're like, Oh, it looks like I forgot this whole section of paint or whatever because I didn't go edge to edge. So I do try to go ahead and move around and get in there with the different edges and stuff. I'm just looking around my inks here. Saying, what do I got? What do I want to do? Do I want to mark make? Do I want to stop and let this dry and come back and mark make? We can certainly do that. That might be fun because we could come back with some paint pens. I've got some Artis pens that I like. I've got some posca pens that I like. These are acrylic paint pens and so we could continue drawing and mark making with our paint pins. Oh, I like this. That's kind of fun. So yeah, just keep going. But if you've got some things that need to dry, you might let those dry before you start putting your hand on here accidentally. Not sure I'm there yet. I'm looking for, I'm looking for the antelope. Oh. And then, too, experiment with your different brushes. This is a brush that I've used for my medium and stuff, but it stiffens up super cool. And what we can do with brushes like this is we can make a line or something and then come and drag through and let that brush give us some cool mark making. Like, look at that. I love it. I love it. Oh, my gosh, look at that. Oh, that's super cool. Super cool. You can put some ink on another piece of a piece of disposable palette paper. We could put the ink there and run the brush through it and then come back and do some cool mark making. Oh, yeah, good choice. That brush is just stiffened up to the point that I just get super cool marks. I bet I could get some good dots. Okay, that's fun. So play with your different brushes and the marks that maybe you can get out of those. Then when you're done with this project, you're going to have a book that's the coolest thing you ever made, and you're going to be like, Oh my gosh, I made that. Trust the process. How fun as you're doing it. Look how cool that is. I love that. That's super fun. Trust in the process. I don't want you to get hung up on what it looks like or if it's going the way you want it or if it's doing what you wanted to do. I also like mark making with graphite. This Pit Mat graphite is one of my favorite graphite pencils and it's ten B, so it's very a very soft and it's going to give me some good dark marks in there. But we could come through and start doing some mark making with our favorite pencils and pens, with the paint pens and stuff, you can also do it with your graphites. I love that. We could also come in and make really mindful marks if you like dashes or dots, crosses or anything like that. We could start coming in and adding some of those in there. You could also save the fine mark making for after you make the book and then go fill back in the sections that you want to fill in. So as soon as we make the book, it doesn't mean it has to be done. It just means that we got to a point that we were like, oh, let's make the book and then continue adding the aspects that we think it needs because then you could be really deliberate to what each page needs to get it finished. Stuck my hand in some ink. But yeah, I kind of like that idea, too, where we then go back and complete the different pages because we don't know right now what's going to end up on each page. So how do I know whatever I'm doing is going to really complete it out and be the finish that we need? I don't know. So Markma have fun and get to a point where you're like, Okay, I think I need to make the book before I continue on. So we're going to do a little more play and mark making here, and then we'll be ready and we'll let it dry. We're going to mark make some more and let it dry and then we'll be ready to make our book. I want wonkiness and craziness. I'm not holding the pencil way up here where I have a lot of control. I'm holding the pencil way back here where I have less control on purpose. I don't want it to be perfect. If you need some perfection and you like everything to be a little neater as you're working, then hold your pencil a little tighter. Let these areas dry before you continue on with the extras that we're doing here on our piece of paper. It's all about letting go. And having some fun and trusting that process and not getting hung up with things being exactly perfect for me. Okay, so I'm going to keep on keeping on. I'm going to keep adding stuff, thinking I'm going to pull out some tempera paint sticks just because I have them, and I think maybe one of these colors could be good and they'll dry faster. Still looking at my color pallet here. Kind of feel like I want some mark making in something close to that blue. That's not close, but maybe it's close enough. Don't get hung up on exact colors either if you pick a color palette. Let's just pull these out. But little temper sticks are fun. I'm just not loving that they may not last. But we're gonna try some anyway. So I want you to pull all your materials. Let's try that one. It's probably not the right color either, but, you know, then don't get stuck too on exactly the color palette. Don't be afraid to branch out. So now I'm just going to pick some colors out of here. I like these because they dry almost immediately. And you can layer on top of them, and we'll just hope. In the end but our lovely book stands up to the test of time, as long as we would want it to. But I just feel like I want some of this in here. You can do oil pastels and soft pastels, too. Those are some of my favorite mark making tools for stuff like this. But what they are going to do is they have to be finished with a finishing spray, whereas I don't have to finish these with a finishing spray. They're going to dry and be good. And when I'm looking at things that I'm going to make into a book, I tend to want things that don't require the finishing spray. So that's why I'm not leaning towards oil pastels or soft pastels, which I like love love. I feel like this might be too much. Let's do it somewhere, maybe not. Wow, look at that. Okay, I like that. Surprisingly enough. Maybe I'll just turn that into some circles. It's nice as a little adder onto those. That's fun. This has some ink on it. Again, just fun and mark making and play. Nothing specific, anything you've wanted to experiment with, let's do it. Let's experiment with it. Let's see where it goes. I've got some black. Let's just put the black in here. That was a brave move. Brave move there. Oh my gosh. Then you might look at something and think, Oh, no, you did the wrong thing there. But keep in mind, we're going to separate this into different pages, and so when we're done, we're not going to see that big thing I just did, we're going to see other stuff. And it pulls in the black from our color palette, which I like. Oh, that's super fun. This is your time to get crazy. Crazy, crazy? Here's some gold. I like some gold. Let's do some gold. Okay, so hot pink is a fugitive color, it's a fugitive color, no matter what. No matter what. No matter what brand you get, hot pink is a fugitive color. But I'm feeling like maybe I want some splash of pink in here. I don't know why. I'm just going with that flow. I want to just kind of feeling like I just wanted a touch of it in there. And it might not be the right choice, but this is the time to experiment in place. Don't worry about did I make the right choice? Liking it there. But just know, over time, we know that hot pink is a fugitive color, no matter the brand, whatever that pigment is that they do with that, it just does not hold up to the test of time. But I like it. And I put it in here anyway. And we're gonna take a picture of it. That way, when it does fade, we'll know what it originally looked like. Look how fun that is, though. Oh, my gosh. Ah, super fun. Okay. And then once you get to a point where you're like, I don't know. Did I go too far? Do I need to stop? Once you get to a point like this, I do want you to go ahead and stop. We're going to cut this up. We're going to let this dry because some of this ink doesn't dry. So that's the bad thing about acrylic ink, it takes longer to dry. But once it's dry, we're going to cut this up and make our book, and then we can see where we're at. So I'll be back. All right now I've let this dry. And what we want to do is cut this into three long strips equal size. This paper is 18 " wide by I think it said 24. Yeah, 24, it's two feet this way, 18 this way. I'm going to cut it into six inch strips. I'm going to take my ruler and just mark where that 6 " is. And mark where the 12 " is, and then I'm going to come down a little further and do the same thing and then line those up and cut them. And hopefully we'll be right. Don't get hung up and stressed if it's not perfect. It doesn't have to be perfect. Perfect is not the goal. Showing up and creating, that's the goal. I'm just going to line those up. And then take my utility knife here and cut those. And I'm just checking size there. And then all we're going to do, and I've got a metal ruler here with a little bit higher lip and I like that because I'm less likely to cut wood. If it's a wood ruler and I'm less likely to come up onto say my hand. Okay, so my cutting mat is not long enough. I need a new one 'cause I like working on these big pieces of paper. I may need to go get me a bigger cut mat. Had this one for, like, forever since, like, forever, forever. So I'm just gonna line that up again and then finish that out. Here we go. And then I'm gonna cut one more strip, and then we'll be set. And 5. Assembling Book: All right. We got all three of our pieces cut now. You got to think for a moment, which do you want to attach to the cover? For instance, if we look at one of the other ones that I've made, we can see that we're attaching one of the very first page to the cover. In our case on this one, I want this backside to be the backside attached to the cover. One edge of this will be sacrificed for the cover, and then the front side, I want to be the part that I painted and that I created the book from. We have to think that this needs to be folded that way when we're done. So as I'm thinking about it, if I fold it this way, because you're going to have three folds this way and then this way. So if I fold it that way, and this would be back here, obviously. So we're making a double UR andM or if I fold it that way, the wrong side is facing out. This is the side that would attach to my cover. And this would be the inside. So what I wanted to do is if I fold it this way, this side would be sacrificed to the cover. So that's what we are looking for. So you're going to take the good side of the art and you're going to fold it in half. And we're going to just press it down and then that's where we're going to use our bone folder. Depending on what materials that you use on here, you might want a piece of wax paper so that when you're flattening that with the bone folder and you could do it with your hand and you can do it with a spoon. But I'd put a piece of wax paper here so that while you're scrubbing back and forth, flattening that out, you're not scrubbing on the art itself and making anything run. Then once you've got that in half, I want you to fold this side up and again, we'll just press that down and remember those crayons I use take 24 hours to be completely dry and permanent. So definitely need a piece of wax paper for that. And then we'll just flip this over. And just press that down. Again, we're not looking for perfect, but we are looking for good enough, basically. Doesn't have to be exact because I might not have cut everything exact and it's okay. I'm not I don't get stuck on whether everything's perfect perfect. The fact that I created it and we got to a finishing point is a lot to be proud of. Press that down. And then we'll just fold all three of them just like that. We could go ahead and do the other side before we press both of those sides down. If that one's ready. Now we're ready to attach our pieces, but look how good that looks from this side. Where's that side? Oh, my gosh, now I'm getting super excited. And I have an up and down on mine because I used words, and I want the words to be up and down, so I just need to decide which one do I want to sacrifice this front edge to be the cover? Which one looks the best or which one looks the worst? Which one do I want to sacrifice? So I think this one I'm going to sacrifice to a cover. So I want that to be the end. Basically, what we're doing here is we're now going to attach all of these. And I got off on my cutting. I don't worry about that because we could trim that just a tiny bit to make it look like it was supposed to be that way when we get to the end. I just don't get hung up on mistakes or if I didn't get something cut straight. I like wonky, so wonky, it is. And what I'm going to do is I'm going to sacrifice an edge on this backside to the tape. If you wanted to do it without the tape, you know, you could kind of fold one of these one way and fold one the other way, and then sacrifice an edge. So if I had folded these back the other way, let's say I had folded it this way instead, I could have sacrificed one of these edges just like that and glued this page to this page. And then they would have kept going with a glued edge. So that's one way to do it. You could just sacrifice a page and glue it together. And then this one right here would also this page would be glued to this page, and then the book would continue on. So that's one way that you could attach these if you're going to be bothered by the tape on the backside. I thought I would just throw that in. But when you do that, two of these are folded the same way and one of these is folded backwards. So we folded it originally that way to make the blue work, you got to fold it this way where you've got that just opposite of those two. But I'm going to do the tape method. So basically, I'm going to tape all three sections together, end to end to end, and then our fold will keep going. So that's what I'm gonna do. You've got choices there. And then there's also where you can, like, do a tab and glue it to the tab. But I'm just not going to get into all that. I'm going to do this and try to get it kind of centered there. We can see right there where it's in the center and then flip it over. And then I'm just going to line. This is why I like heavy duty like a Gaers tape or a book tape. I'm going to line these up really good. So that we're completely even there. And I can even take my bone folder and a piece of a wax paper, and I can really get that down good. And then I'm just going to take a pair of scissors, or you could use your utility knife if you needed to, but I'm just gonna take a pair of scissors and cut our tape. And this is the one where I've got the edge slightly off, so I could come back with a utility knife and really even up this edge or I can just do it with the scissors. So that at the edge, there's not that gap there. That's how if you do cut them crooked, that's how I fix it. You can get creative there with how you fix it, but just trimming it so that the two sides match, you don't even know it when the book is done. And then it just folds up nicely. But this is what you end up getting on the back side. You get a piece of tape. So if you want to do the two pages glued together, then fold the center one opposite of the way you fold the end ones and you can tape the pages and just sacrifice two of your pages. I don't mind the tape. That's why I already knew I was going to do that, already had it in my plan. And then this is what the backside is looking like. And, too, you could always come back with a black marker, a paint marker, and decorate that. I was kind of thinking that myself. I might decorate that, washy tape that. You can put all kinds of stuff there. You can get real creative. Alright, so now we've got one more of these. I. All right. Once we've got it here, I might give it one extra press. We're ready to make our cover. All right. So this is the page I'm sacrificing, and this is the page I'm sacrificing, and we're ready to make our cover. So we've got the bookboard that we are going to cut into the right size. And basically, what I'm going to do is take my book and give it about a millimeter of space on this side, just a little bit. I don't want the cover to be gigantic. I don't want it to be so much bigger than the whole piece. I want it to be fairly the same size. So I'm going to take my pencil and just kind of mark off the size of the book here, and then take my ruler and I actually have a fun plastic T square because I did drafting in school, and so I like T squares. And I'm basically just going to give myself a straight line all the way down. And that'll kind of give me a chance to line it up and make sure it's lined up right. And then I can kind of see what size that is. Go six and a quarter and six and an eighth. Hm. So really, if I move that line to right here, then they'll be the exact same size, and I don't have to measure it again. If I move it to right beside it, let's see. Let's do that, and then I don't have to measure it again, then it'll just be a smidge. And that way, I'm using the equal parts of that. Then we're just going to cut that with our utility knife. I've tried lining it up with my little T square and using that to cut, but it's so flimsy that I just every time I do it, I mess it up somehow. So the big metal rulers really are easier. Now, this bookboard or the back of the sketchbook, whatever you're using is so thick that you want to run that knife a couple of times. Don't try to force it the first time. Just run it until you get it clear. Alright. Now we've got our books cut, the front, then the back. And you can just check the size and make sure that they're going to be the right size. I like to check and make sure I've got them the way I cut them. So I didn't switch one around, but it should be square. But I like to just double check back too. And this is going to be our front and our back then looking at the colors inside, even though I don't have a lot of pink in here, I'm wanting to use this hot pink. So, you know what? I'm just going to go for it. Doesn't really have to be exacty. But what I'm going to do and I've picked a ribbon. I think I'm going to go for this ribbon, which I have cut. To about let's see, there's 18 ". And so 18 " plus 15 ". So 33 ". So I've cut it to about 33 ", which, if I'm looking at this one, that's about what I cut it at, which made it about one like, almost three wraps of that. And that's what I figured out was long enough because the first ribbon I'd cut for this book was too short. So about three wrap arounds is a good size if you want to keep that in your mind. And then I'm just going to go ahead and use the hot pink, and I'm going to cut it a little bit larger. Then my bookboard doesn't have to be perfect because it's going to be the seam there will be on the inside. So don't get hung up on it being perfect on the inside that we glued down. And then I've got that. And then what I'm going to do is take my glue stick and glue down each of these boards to this. And what you might do too if you forget, like I forget, which side is up and down, just to make sure that you kind of keep them going in the right direction. Okay, that was the right direction, I believe. We're going to totally forget. But once you get them going the right direction, you might just draw on it so that later, you'll know that was the right way. When we glue it on our book, you won't see that. But just having that on there will help you keep it going. I'm going to glue one of these down to the paper. I'm going to glue both of these down to the paper. Just a nice layer of glue on there. You can use any glue that you've got, yes paste, that PVA glue, any glue sticks are fine, gluing them down. I want to still see the arrow I just drew, keep that where you can see it. And in the center, doesn't have to be exact. Then I'm going to go back to the first one, and I'm going to cut out a little area here, in a slight Y shape and giving myself about a millimeter or two right here at the corner because I'm going to fold these over and that's going to give me a nice corner without shorting myself, hopefully. We'll see. Sometimes I do it and sometimes I short myself. All then once you get your four corners cut, let's just go ahead and do both of them. It doesn't have to be perfect. Don't get hung up on perfect there, because we're gonna it'll show up on the inside. And the outside will be perfect. I like perfect, but I don't mind if it's on the outside. Then I'm just going to glue each flap and I'm going to pull it from the two sides and then the two ends because if you're using a paper that's likely to shift, this will at least shift it all in the correct direction rather than pull it as you're going around your piece. Again, this will be on the inside, not even trying to get it to go edge to edge. I'm okay with it being at least mostly stuck down because we're going to stick the whole thing down and then it'll be nice and secure. Okay. And then now I still know. See, there's the front. Perfect. And the bi doesn't matter. Um. And I can still see my arrow so I can get it going in the right direction. You don't want any big globs of glue stuck out there because it'll make a lump on a lump under your paper. So try to get any globs out. Okay. Then you see that arrow will keep you kind of going right and there we go. Perfect. Now, I just got to make sure we're ready to stick our first one down. Generally, what I do for this because I don't know exactly where it's going to land over here is I'll just take a piece of wax paper just in case I get any glue on the outside of this and I'll just put it right here. I'll put the glue on this side because that's what we're going to be gluing down to our cover there. That's the side I decided to sacrifice. And I just cover the whole thing really good. And now we are ready to put that down. I'm trying to This is the way it's going to go. So I'm trying to get as far over here as I can without being over and then it's centered in between the center because I'll have just a millimeter or so of space. So I'm kind of looking at it from this side, usually. If I open that out of my way, I can see exactly where I'm putting it down. You can see I'm putting it down right there, where I've got it centered on both sides. I got about as much on this side open as that side. And then I'm just going to go ahead and press that down, and then I can open this back up. And if we need to protect it with a piece of paper, we can, preferably not the one with the glue all over it, which I am definitely likely to do. Then just take your bone folder and smooth that down. And then when we're all done, you can see we have a nice edge there, nice even edge all around, and right there, so we can see how pretty that is. Then we're going to do the same thing for the other one. Again, I'm going to glue this piece. Let me get this in here just to protect the underside because sometimes you just get a of glue that sticks on the side of the paper and I just don't want that to stick down. Then whatever art supply that I've used here, this is glue friendly. Once it's dry, if you're using an oil pastel there, that's probably not glue friendly. Keep in mind what art supplies that you're using, maybe use glue friendly ones and I got that going up, so hopefully I did the other one going up. I don't know. You might have saw that and thought, we're just looking, wait, before we do that, this is the back and I want the ribbon. Before I get this glued down on the back side, we want the ribbon. Determine whatever side is the bike for you. Then right across the middle of this, glue this ribbon in as close to center as you can. Alright, so you got to do that first. You can't forget that or you won't have a ribbon on your thing. Okay, now we're ready to kind of line this up. Visually kind of get it centered and kind of straight there. Hopefully I got the right amount of space compared to the front. And then I'm going to take my wax paper and smooth down again with my bone folder. And yes, we have the piece of ribbon in the center of that, but that's okay. I might have gone the wrong direction with the ribbon now that I see that. Be creative with your ribbon. I got one running in one direction on the other book and this one run in the other direction. Ah. That's okay. Yes, I do. I have it going the other direction. But look at this. Now we can tie it off here. So be creative. It's okay. If you get one going one way and one going the other way, it just kind of adds interest to your piece. So, like this one goes side to side. And this one goes up to down. And then as we open our book, look what we have created, and you can see now how all the different elements that we created add interesting things on each piece. So let's just look at these. I'm cracking up on my ribbon. But it doesn't matter. I mean, good point of that, and I'm glad now that I did that is it doesn't matter, really, which way that ribbon goes, 'cause when you go to tie it shut, it doesn't matter if it's up or down or side to side. That's funny. Here's a side to side one. I'm going to crack myself up now. I love that I got the pink cover because it pulls the pink that we've got going through here. Then we can look at each page and evaluate, does this page need some more, and we can then come back and work on these pages to give them some finishing elements and complete them if we think that each page needs a little bit more. Then the fun thing about these is Ah, now we have a backside. And the backside is super fun. And we can come back and we can decorate the center with some washi tape or with some designs, drawings, doodles. But I like it because I use tape that was the same color as what I decided to do back there, which you could certainly do. If you do some wild and crazy thing in the back, pick a color of tape that would complement that. Um so I love that. Both sides now have cool stuff. How cool is that? And a fun closure. Just kind of crack myself up with my little ribbon there. But look how fun that is. So whether you do it side to side or top to bottom, don't get discouraged and think you did it the wrong way because look how cool that is. Alright, I hope you had fun with this project. I can't wait to see your projects that you do with something like this. This I'm definitely going to continue making more of these. It's so much fun. I love this. I love looking through these. These make me happy. So I hope you enjoy making one of these concertina books, and I'll see you guys next time. 6. Final thoughts: I hope you had as much fun creating this mixed menia concertina book as I did. This project is a wonderful way to experiment with abstract art, layering and bookmaking while giving you a beautiful interactive piece to continue working in or display. Remember, there are no rules. Just play, explore, and enjoy the process. I'd love to see what you create, so be sure to share your finished book and thank you for joining me in this class. Happy Creating.