Idea: Make a Tiny Accordion Book!

Please consider becoming an annual subscriber! As a thank you for keeping this creative ecosystem 🪸 going, your support instantly unlocks 🔓 extra goodies like the 10-part Creative Gazette and the new Curious Tangents.

The finished size will be the height and width of a single folded section. Known as accordion, concertina, or zig zag.

Folded, the paper forms a zig zag ◢◣◢◣◢◣◢◣◢◣ and when you exhibit the book you can simply flip to change the perspective.

You can fill an accordion with miniature collages, loose swooshes of watercolor, doodles, mandalas, paint swatches, even ink experiments.

At this point I have no idea how many small accordion books I’ve made!

Usually I fold the paper first, work on individual sections, and then fold again and press under some heavy books. Washi works great as a hinge and is another way to add color & pattern!

You can keep closed with a binder clip or sew jute or a ribbon on one side to tie closed. One time I had a bunch of long, narrow watercolor paper scraps from another project and I painted with ink and then simply folded.

It is a folded form of book described as “free-standing structure made of paper or other thin material whose construction or structure relies primarily on folding.”

For a frame of reference other book structures/forms (think of this as the physical form or layout, sort of) include codex or flag book. Codex is a traditional book structure with folded signatures bound together. Other binding methods (think of this as how it is held together) include the pamphlet stitch, perfect stitch, or japanese stab binding.

1. Tiny accordion books inspiration & eye candy

2. National Museum of Women in the Arts online exhibition The Book as Art

3. How to make an accordion book 🎥 oldie but goodie (albeit very long) tutorial shows how to make a version with watercolor paper and another with index cards & washi tape.

4. Opening Artists Books OAB (University of Utah) defines artist’s book as “an art object that integrates image, text, graphic design, structure, materiality, haptic experience, and/or sensory engagement to communicate a maker’s or makers’ intention(s). We’ve identified the term visual books, borrowed from Keith Smith, to describe the broader category of work that also might be called book art. If pushed to define visual books, we’d feel somewhat comfortable describing them as published work that requires some type of graphic element to articulate an idea.” See the OAB page on accordion books. Their description is “A continuous piece of paper (either a single sheet or joined sheets) which is folded back and forth into equal increments resembling an accordion.”

5. Internet Archive: Bookbinding and the Conservation of Books: A Dictionary of Descriptive Terminology

Found a very early accordion from 2011 (I don’t know why but I’m always curious to find the earliest versions). The base is a manilla folder, neon mandalas drawn on both sides in Sakura Gelly Roll Moonlight pens.

Let me know what you make!
❌⭕️❌⭕️
Tammy

PS. If the newsletter is no longer your thing, no worries, you can unsubscribe at the link below.