Creating an Ever-Folding Book with La Scarlatte

I've enjoyed watching artist Pauline Teunissen, who calls herself La Scarlatte, on her Substack and YouTube, where she demonstrates a design for a multi-page illustration she calls an ever-folding book.  

Above is the front page of my ever-folding book.  I had some pumpkins leftover from a drawing class I taught, and added rose hips and chestnuts to the still life.  In the mornings at the breakfast table, I'd sketch as the light came in through the windows.

With three sheets of paper, each folded in quarters, there are a lot of different views in this one book.  Below is a page where I added a blue shadow behind the pumpkin stem, then decided I didn't like the look of it, and turned it into a blue bottle.

Mistakes can lead to "happy accidents" as Bob Ross would say, and I love the effect of the blue glass against the orange pumpkin.

Flipping another couple of pages, I added this turkey feather in a blue jar.

I found it tricky to make each page make sense in the context of the other pages, so I ended up repeating the large pumpkin in most of the pages.

But this gave me the opportunity to create variations, like using the blue from the bottle and jar to create shadows on the orange pumpkin in the bottom right panel.  I like the way using that blue in three places connects the pieces of the composition.

Another page flip, and I added an animal to the story to liven things up a bit.  I found a photo of a little Carolina Wren on Pixabay, and added her to the scene.

Pixabay is a source of copyright free photos you can use to make art from.

And a final flip shows my favorite drawing of the little pumpkin.  The light coming in the windows the morning I drew this was bright enough to make lovely shadows.  I had so much fun drawing this little pumpkin!

I enjoyed the challenge of creating a new composition with each flip of the page, and liked drawing on different colored papers.  I didn't plan the drawings out, really.  It was more like a puzzle to be solved the moment I turned to a fresh view.

You can find instructions for making an ever-folding book by joining La Scarlatte's Substack here:

https://lascarlatte.substack.com/

You can see her ever-folding book on her YouTube channel here: 

https://youtu.be/WS7lG5Qxnpk?si=MgE0kx2SEll32zM0

I hope you'll give this a try!

Happy Creating!

More Burnishing with Colored Pencils

Artists often work in a series, coming up with an idea, then tinkering with different versions of the idea.  This allows them to experiment freely without concern for making any one iteration "perfect" or even "pretty."

My burnishing practice led me to experiment a bit more.  I wanted to reduce the heaviness of the heart outline and explore breaking the boundary of the inner heart and the outer space with squiggly lines.

I used a larger, sturdier piece of paper this time -- tan, 184 pound, mixed media paper.

Here's the progression of the project from start to finish.

After laying in a variety of pinks, magenta, crimson, scarlet and a dash of lavender within the heart, I began burnishing, pressing down hard on the colored pencil and creating a rich area of color. 

Above is burnishing with a magenta pencil.  Each step mixes the colors and tips the balance in the favor of the last color layered on.

I wanted to connect the interior of the heart with the outer space with these energy lines.  Eventually, I added active lines to the interior of the heart, too.

White colored pencil added over the layers of magenta, crimson, scarlet and pink brightened these areas to create a highlight, and made the heart more round and plump.

Burnishing with a white pencil blends the colors below as it lightens them.

If I continue with this series, I would like to experiment with making the interior swirls and swoops more pronounced.

I hope you take time to experiment with burnishing.  Just playing around can lead to more ideas for projects, and pretty soon you're on your way to creating