Book of the Spirit workshop

Last Sunday I attended this great workshop at The Art Complex. It was a lovely fall day and a great way to enjoy a little nature and a little creativity.

We started out listening to the artist explain her works on her Spirit Books. She has created over 30 of these artist books over a 13 year period. It was interesting hearing about her process.

The first step in the class was to go outside and pick up natural items to use in our books. I brought back leaves, sticks, seed pods, pine cones and tree bark. We then learned how to make the pages of the book using handmade paper called daphne paper.It was really neat using handmade paper. The texture was so different from regular papers and there were lots of fibers etc from the plants that made interesting patterns. After putting together the pages of the books, we then used the natural materials we gathered along with rubber stamps, beads, shells and other craft materials to adorn the pages.

I have more to add to my book. That is one of my favorite things about classes like this...the enjoyment isn't over when the class is.

I have some birch bark I am planning on using to make a cover for the book. I will probably do that last as the bark can be fragile. I am curious to see how the book will change as the leaves etc dry and age.

Looking forward to my next class coming up on Nov 2nd. In that class we will be taking an old book and altering it. Much fun.

Here are photos of the pages I did so far.