Maybe you are a book lover like I am? I received a Kindle for a gift a couple years
ago and it took me awhile to try it out, I was afraid to give up all of the
things about books that I love. I love
the covers, the way they smell, the satisfaction from turning the page, the way
they look in a library or on a shelf.
When I began reading things on my Kindle it made the reading easier, but
I still missed the appearance and smell of my books. I have become fascinated with repurposing
books and creating them into art! One of
my more recent projects was this Book Autopsy.
Supplies
Book (a book that contains a lot of pictures that would be good for layering, but thick enough to display a shadow box effect.)
Exacto knife or box knife
Glue
Scissors
Pencil
Step One
For this project you will need a hardbound book with a lot
of pictures that is fairly thick.
Finding the perfect book for this project is the most challenging
part. I chose to use a children’s copy
of Moby Dick because the images had strong lines and I liked that they were
black and white, also there were several good images to choose from.
Step Two
After selecting your book begin going through the pages
looking for images you think would be good to cut out. When you find these images go ahead and tear
out the entire page. You will find that
because you will be adding the images back in, the thickness of the book will
remain adequate. Keep in mind that you
can only fit so many images into your shell, so don’t be overzealous, but do be
a little generous. Once you have torn
out the pages, cut out your images and place them in a pile.
Step Three
With your images set aside, open the front cover of your
book. Draw an outline of the whole that
you want to cut out for the inside.
Remember to leave room on each side so that you have a place to glue
your pictures to. I suggest leaving at
least a half an inch. You don’t want
your gutters so shallow that the pages rip.
Step Four
Very carefully begin tracing along the penciled lines with
your exacto knife or box cuter. Remove a
few layers at a time and continue until you have eliminated the middle of all
of the pages. You can leave a few in the
back depending on how thick your book is and what you want as your main
backdrop.
Step Five
After you have cut out all of the inside pages trace a box
with your pencil on the inside of the front cover. You are going to use this as your guideline
for the front frame. I made my front
frame smaller than my pages so that the pages didn’t show from the
outside.
Step Six
Once you have cut out the cover begin arranging your images
inside places pages between them to create a layered effect. Keep in mind that it is fun to have images
coming out of the side and tops of the pages as well.
Step Seven
Once you have decided the way you want your images to look,
glue them into place.
