Stef Mitchell’s nature inspired books

I’ve been working on the haiku for my 2016 calendar this week. Since many of them are about the natural world, as inspiration, over the next several weeks, I’ll be posting nature inspired books. First up is Stef Mitchell, a book artist in York, England. She says

[My] work explores an ongoing relationship with the landscape — exploring walking through the landscape on foot, recording walks, documenting set aside, field edges and the effects of weather patterns on plant growth through printmaking…Monoprints are made using plant material directly. The plant ink and paper having equal say in the process.

I especially like how this one folds out. See more on her blog and Etsy shop.

Stef Mitchell

Stef Mitchell

Hungarian Map Fold

Yesterday I posted a picture of a book that I thought used several turkish map folds. But they aren’t. According to several people on my facebook page, it’s called an hungarian map fold. Since the picture I posted showed the opened fold, it was straight-forward to see how he’d made it. It’s sort of the turkish fold rotated. I made several and glued them together…. (directions for making the fold are here.)

Connected Hungarian Map Fold

But the best discovery is that they fit together very nicely. This picture shows 4 folds nested together. I made them out of square sheets that are 2″, 3″, 4″ and 5″.

Nested hungarian map folds

Several years ago I posted a picture of this lovely book by Katherine Glover called Green Salad. I’ve wondered how it was made, but haven’t spent much time thinking about it. The nested hungarian map fold might be it.