I put the finishing touches on my Sketchbook Project pages yesterday. I am pleased with how it’s all come together. It was a good place to explore new ideas around paper cutting and collage, and the whole thing has inspired new work. That’s exactly what a sketchbook is for.

The theme I chose to work with was Thread and Surface. My original intention was to sew thread throughout the book once the paper cuts and collage were finished but I decided it wasn’t necessary. The thread is the less literal part of the theme, while I definitely played around with the surface of the pages, by cutting parts away and layering them with papers. There are threads of the same shape used in each pair of paper cuts and collage to tie the compositions together.

I chose to do a text-based paper cut for the cover using the same blue paper found inside the sketchbook. I started cutting the words freehand, didn’t like the results, then switched to using a font printed on white paper as a template. The results were much tidier.

Each paper cut is paired with a collage, and the two interact in different ways depending on which way you have the page turned. The paper cut either overlays the collage creating an additional surface or it pairs beside it as a diptych.

All of the collages were created with the same materials: security envelopes, book page scraps, a bird, and red paper. There are eight collages and eight paper cuts throughout the book.

I really enjoyed working on this small project. I’m a little sad to be sending it off to Brooklyn after all the hard work, but it’s a good lesson in letting go.