Category Archives: Thing a Day

Handmade Books and Recycled Plastic Bag Art

Taking part in Thing A Day has really allowed me to lose some inhibitions and explore creating art using other media than just watercolours.  I’m now combining watercolours with ink, cardboard, collage, plastic bags, envelopes and creating handmade books.  It’s so exciting to think up ideas on how to use these recycled materials.  Here are the ones that I most enjoyed creating:

 

I created the above mini book by using some left over blue card for the cover and a brown envelope which I cut up to make the pages.  The plant on the front of the books is some cut pieces from the same brown envelope.

I had a little helper to create the above book!  My five year old son helped me to do all the glueing, including wrapping the cardboard cover in left over wrapping paper and pasting the typewritten paper together to make the pages.

The above illustration was fun because I used a cut piece of blue plastic bag for the dancer’s skirt.  I glued the skirt down first and then created the illustration around it.

To see more pictures of the handmade book from different angles see my flickr here.

Latest Things for Thing A Day 2009

Here are my latest creations for Thing A Day.  I’m not quite up to date yet but I’m really enjoying just letting my imagination run loose.  I’m experimenting like I’ve never done before by doing a collage, making a mini book, drawing on cardboard and I’ve got more ideas too.  I’m having lots of fun.  So anyway, here are the pics of my latest Things: