Handmade Book ‘An Autumn Scrapbook’

In November we went on a guided mushroom walk at Polesden Lacey led by a fungi expert and identified many mushrooms in the ancient woodland there. The walk inspired me to draw some of the mushrooms in pen and ink. An artist I follow makes handmade books and I decided to mount the drawings along with illustrations of other autumn subjects in my own handmade book. The project took almost 3 months to complete. The book is made from thin card and the drawings are mounted on thick Lokta paper which is made from the bark of the Lokta bush in the Himalayas and gives a textured autumnal background to the drawings. The colourful leaves were painted and cut out from thinner lokta paper which gives them a natural quality. The cover is made from oil board.
The book can be opened like a concertina to display all the images together or used as a traditional book.

I hope you enjoy watching the video of the book: please click on this link.