Pop Ups

For my last visit to the local school for my volunteer work in their after school program, i showed the girls how to make pop ups in their altered books. I have always used models cut out of magazines for this - because the folds are more obvious that way. Still, pop ups can be confusing and there are many different ways to do it. I'll tell you about two of them.
Take a magazine image of a person. Trim the top half - like from the elbows up and over the head. Leave the bottom intact. The wider the image the easier this will be - so leave a border as needed. Fold the model in half lengthwise - like right through the face.Then fold the top half of the body at the waist, so that it is perpendicular to the fold. Think about bending to pick something up, it really helps! then unfold and refold everything the opposite way - so that the folds are really bent.

Then hold the model in your hands. this is the tricky part. You need to fold the lower half of her in and the top half out. use your fingers to pop the head along the diagonal lines.

Smooth her flat. Apply glue to one side of the back, i do the right side. Put the folded edge into the gutter of the book and press the glued side firmly. Then apply glue to the other back (now on top) - and just CLOSE the book. The pop up should be properly placed, and the model should POP up when you open the book. Another example!
Note: this type of pop up will go completeley flat when you open the book all the way. so another method to keep some degree of elevation, is to "split" the legs so that they can be separated. You can split anywhere - it doesn't have to be along the fold. it just has to be split right up to the point of the v folds.This will force the top half to stay "popped". You can see how it works - before you glue it into the book. The trick here is the glue the folded model into the book - by putting the POINT deep into the gutter of the book. NOT the whole folded edge.glue it lightly at first to test it. Then apply more glue and close the book .
See how splitting the bottom half of the image keeps the head popped up?

Circus Circus

The latest altered book pages i completed were in Shelley's book titled "Circus". It is a wonderfully colourful book, filled with whimsical illustrations and fabulous collage. This was the last swap of the season for my group, sadly one member was absent - so i did not get my own book back today, we'll have to swap by mail.
For Shelley's book i wanted to do something interactive, i mean afterall - the circus is so chock full of excitement. My first spread was a Circus Train. This was a very labour intensive spread - but fun to do. First i used sky paper at the top of the page, and a gravel-y looking paper for the bottom. Then i cut out 8 little colourful houses and hand drew windows and doors and shingles and a chimney. Very charming and naif.

Next i had to construct the circus cars to hold the animals. I used some playful scrapbook paper and cut out a simple shape. Added wheels form another paper that sort of looks like rubber. Some of these papers came from a 12x12 pack that included many "realistic" pages.

Next i had to find the animals. What better source than the stack of National Geographic magazines on the floor of my studio. The pickings were slim. I found a good tiger, and the head of a rhino, but for the most part the scale was off. I found all these on google images instead.

For the cages i thought about cutting out black card stock, but my knife skills are not great. So how about using a black sharpie? When the three pens i tried had all dried up, i decided to print some basic gates on transparency paper. Glued to the train cars, the animals look right at home. Please i am not condoning the caging of wild anumals! This is merely a historical look at circus trains from the early part of the 20th century.

A bit of gold dimensional paint and some wooden boards for the train tracks - and we're done.

For the second spread, i found a cute illustration of a circus dog show. This was even more hard work that the train! I wanted to make some of the elements move, so i printed out two copies of the picture and cut out three of the dogs and the ball. I figured the best way to make it all work was to do a pop up. it took a while to figure out where to make the folds so that everything would be visible and still allow the mechanisms to move. The ball and the dog on it have brads to allow them to rotate. Two other dogs have red gingham pull-tabs that allow the dogs to either "jump" through the hoop, or "jump" over the barrel.

I made good use of another one of those "realistic" papers - i cut all the edges of the hay to make it look fluffy. Or spikey, whatever real hay looks like. A couple of pieces of eyelash yarn glued to the bottom of the pages reinforces the three dimensional qualities.

The background is done with strips of red and blue stars and dots, with a strand of gold stars like garland across the tent.

This was a really fun altered book to work in. And it was great meeting with the group today. We'll start up again in January. Anyone want to join us?