Experiments with Collage & Book Arts

This series of projects was completed at a one week workshop led by Holly Dean, held at Loyalist College (Port Hope campus). Holly is an inspiring individual, artist and teacher. From day one she encouraged experimentation, play and working outside our comfort zone. Holly introduced and demonstrated a range of collage techniques and during the course we experimented with assembling three book structures. There was also lots of inspiration from the other workshop participants - a very creative and fun group of people to spend time with. All in all, we had a great week and we came away with a range of samples, and inspiration to explore the techniques and mediums further. It's a departure from some of my more traditional book binding work and I had a lot of fun with this new series of work. More to come!

A Coptic binding with hand painted and collaged outer and inner covers. The signatures have a hand painted sleeve that wraps around each signature which can be seen from both the exposed spine and when opening the book.

An accordion structure, hand painted with acrylic paints and collage elements. The cover has a relief detail.

An accordion book, hand painted with acrylic paints. Part of the black and white grunge series. And a single signature book hand painted - part of the color series.

A small single signature blank book, hand painted with acrylic paints. Part of the black and white grunge series.

Another Coptic binding showing the outside covers, inside detail and painted sleeves.