Copper Pop Ups

Here's the beginning of a sketch, the type from which I create my etchings. There are hundreds of them here at home and in my studio. This particular one just happens to be drawn on a sheet of paper lying next to my compter. Hence its appearance here before you.

This particular drawing is abot six or seven inches tall. I've got drawings ranging from an inch to probably 12 inches in this particular style. It occurred to me today that I could take some of these drawings and cut out around them in copper, etch them, and stand them up, like parts of a paper pop up book or card.

I've been playing around with the idea of trying to find a way to illustrate my poetry. When I started looking at it again recently, I realize a great deal of it is very similiar in flavor to my drawings. I've taken some of it and written it on pieces of copper and brass that I've etched and made into jewelry. More recently, I've wanted to prepare some entries for the Small Image Show and a local book arts show that is coming up in February, or at least the deadline is. I've been toying around with creating a book of copper pages somehow.

And I've been toying arond with making three-dimensional structures that I could enamel. That has led me to look at paper craft of various sorts. I spent more time today looking at origami which I don't think is going to work. But I've always been intrigued with pop up books. Some of them are amazing feats of engineering. In fact, those folks who create them are called paper engineers. So I spent the entire afternoon studying primarily one book on pop up books and cards. It was then that I came up with the idea of making little cut out "forests" that are etched and stand up like paper cut outs. In the beginning, I'll start with just little cutouts. When I'm a little more familiar with the techniques, I'll try a copper book and incorporate some text into cutouts.

Before I left the bookstore this afternoon, I went to the children's section and looked at the pop up books. Some of them are amazing. Even though they are for children, they are quite fragile and highly detailed. They're really works of art. And of course, just because I'm interested in creating them out of copper, it doesn't mean I can't work with paper as well.

I like the idea of a pop up or accordian folded book because it can be stood up on display and everyone can see it. A regular book is hard to display because it's closed or open to only one spot at a time. That's one problem I've had with book arts all along, displaying the work.