Odd Bird Haiku Mini Book

Sometimes people wonder about the creative process behind art, and the path of discovery the creation takes. There is no one right way to do this, but it is important to begin. One discovery leads to another and creative problems are solved in fits and starts.

In my case, I wanted to make a little art book. I took 3 pieces of watercolor paper and folded them in half (but not in the middle). I rounded the edges in strange and interesting shapes (as per the idea in Carla Sondheim's book on Drawing). But then what? I had a lovely stack of pages.

At that point I deviated from her directions to assemble the booklet and then add art. I find painting much easier before surfaces are fastened together.

So first, using watercolors, I painted each piece on one side, let it dry, then painted it on the other. I stack the pages together in various ways until I found one to my liking. And to speed up the process, I made two booklets at the same time (like doubling a cooking recipe).

Once completely dry, I used a big needle and some embroidery floss to sew the booklets together.

I kept eyeballing one of my bird stamps in the bin across the room. I thought to myself,'that is a really odd bird'. And into my mind jumped that expression, "She's a really odd bird." And that gave me the inspiration for the Haiku for the book, a mini-story for my mini-book. So I got the bin, but only one of my bird stamps was in it. I had to go hunting for the other ones, but found them in another of my hand-carved eraser stamp boxes. To carve your own stamps see my hub here: Hand-carved stamps.

Here is the Haiku I wrote to go with the mini art book:

Odd Little Bird

Some people would say

She was a really odd bird

No cage could hold her.

This isn't a tutorial per se, but I do hope it inspires you to do creative things with your poetry and art. I thought I'd show some work-in-progress photos. At this point I've finished most of the stamping, embossed the images, and outlined the decorated edges with a silver metallic marker. It's a shame the photos can't show the shine and glitter of the embossing powder. Truly, the photos don't do them justice. Also they feel raised to the touch, and it is a pleasure to hold each small book, like a little treasure.

Next I'm going to stamp over the words that I wrote in with pencil, and then I'll erase the pencil marks. And I still have to come up with the title for the front page.

The word 'Haiku' is already stamped and embossed so you can see what the letter's look like. It would be difficult for me to carve letters that small, so the letters are from a retail stamp source.

I 'signed' the back cover with a thumbprint and then embossed it. Embossing powder is melted on with a heat gun designed for that purpose.

As soon as I have a table to work on, I'll add the rest of the letters and then show you all the end results.