Making books (summer school) - 6

At the end of the course I had half a dozen books about crayons, colours of crayons -
Among the crayons that I borrowed from the playgroup box was one in a wrapper - I copied it, actual size, to make a stamp, using both sides of an eraser, then had to figure out how to use it. Writing is tricky - it can so easily be backwards or upside-down -The end products include these two books in their slipcovers -
The larger one, the first I made, consists of a single section with alternate pages coloured with the wax crayons. The colours weren't as intense as I would have liked, but ironing the pages at least got rid of the flakes of coloured wax that otherwise would have smudged everywhere -
The story behind this book is that when you have a new box of crayons at the start of the school year, some colours are very appealing and get used first, or get used most - the nice bright ones, in my experience - and by the time the school year ends the crayons are well-used but some colours are hardly used, usually purples and browns and other dull colours.
So as you go through the book, the crayons get fewer (and if I'd had other colours, the colours would have got duller) - until only the least favourite is left. (Orange was the closest I had to brown.)
I wasn't happy with the obviousness of the alternating coloured pages, and soon thought of how to overcome this - a zigzag book. But first some more playing around with stamps and colours. Scoring the paper before colouring it leaves white lines ... could be useful ...
Making the zigzag book involved colouring alternate pages that would be hidden, just about, when the book was bound -Some of the colours show through the cutouts; others are stamped on (mixing colours from stamp pads) -
Again, the number of crayons gets fewer as you go further through the book -
The blizzard book structure opened further possibilities. This one is 10cm tall and has the crayons printed on, and cut through, cartridge. (You can see how the covers tuck into the spine.)

Between the plain pages are others that have been coloured with watercolour pencils, also from the bargain bin that yielded the glorious yellow bookcloth -
The back of the yellow inserted page, for instance, is coloured fuchsia - you can see it reflecting on the subsequent white page.

The other fuchsia page is on a separate sheet, with a different colour on the other side. You can see how they fit into the spine -
Unless you plan ahead you may find the spine showing through the cut-outs -
Two books use tracing paper - both are a double version of the cut-through (origami) book. I like how you can see the different layers -and the double-doors format is ok, but the other structure is a bit awkward -
This one uses different types of mark making/colouring -
I put the crayons any old where; if they had been carefully placed, the overlapping of the layers could have worked in an interesting way. Something for next time!

One of the smallest books, and the last one I made at the workshop, is my favourite. Each page is very simple, and the story is of the colours of crayons -the crayon colours are cut-throughs -
and inside are different kinds of mark-making -
When you hold it like an "ordinary" book, the pages feel a bit floppy and then fall out, inviting you to look "inside", and you discover the other story, that of the marks.

Another of the blizzard spines, one of the larger ones, has folded pages of tracing paper that hold my "notes" and experiments, and also the stencils used for cutting
I loved working with the bright colours - and reminiscing about the joys of new boxes of crayons at the start of the school year. Was the golden yellow in the 16-crayon box of Crayolas, or did you have to splurge for the 32-crayon box to get it? And wasn't it great when you could get silver and gold ... were those in the 64-crayon extravaganza box?

Next step is to buy some Crayolas and see if their colours are more intense, and perhaps to play with scale.