Margaret Beech Workshop - Part 1

On Saturday, April 28, we had a delightful workshop with Margaret Beech. Margaret is from York, England and has been here five times since 2000. This year she came for the Newport Book Arts Festival, returned to Eureka, gave a workshop for all of us and then returned home on May 2nd. 

Margaret is a calligrapher and uses her calligraphy in many of her books. Her signature style is a simple structure in red, black and white with her calligraphy creating drama.  Margaret also works a bit ahead. She decided to save on postage and brought her exchange books for the rest of the year.  It was fun to hear from her about how these were made.

Our workshop started at 9:30 am and continued until 4:00 pm with twenty-seven attending. We had four books to construct: a double-sided flag book, an origami wallet, a double-sided two color cut out maze book and an origami box with a Tato lid. We had plenty of time to not only make the structures but also to have a very social meeting.

Many thanks to our members who arrived early to set up and stay late to take down all of the tables. We can't have meetings without their help. The workshop will be shown in two parts. The second part will be published on approximately May 15.

Margaret Beech at the table with her exchange books
 for the rest of the year.

From left to right, Kay C, Margaret, and Sandy V looking at Margaret's exchange books.

These are a few of the books that some of our members made
 at the Newport Paper and Books Arts Festival.

Double Sided - 2 Color Cut Out Maze Book

Our first book is a maze book made from a single sheet. We started out with a single sheet folded into 16 equal parts. We then folded a second slightly smaller sheet into another 16 parts and cut them out and glued them onto the first sheet.

We put all of our sheets into a press and finished them off in the afternoon.

Everyone had a different method of punching holes.

More and more holes.

Fold it up and this is what the little book looks like with
 different colors peeping through the holes.

Here is our table full of maze books.

Origami Box with Tato "Lid"

This lovely little box was a combination of two different structures. You can start with a "classic origami box" that can be found using that search term on the internet. The top of the box is called a "square origami envelope". Glued together, it is a delightful little structure that was originally done in an exchange book by Mary Elizabeth Nelson that Margaret received.

We will forgo showing you the classic origami box or how the square origami envelope is made. It's best to look at the instructions that can be found online. Instead, here is a look at how this delightful box opens.

 

The classic origami box is the pink base and the square origami envelope is slitted on the bottom and glued to the box. The top of the box is interwoven to hold it closed.

 

When you pull those top pieces apart, you end up with something like a pinwheel and see for the first time the colors on the reverse side of the paper (yellow)

 

Pull out those little pinwheel points and the whole inside of the original origami box shows.

 

Margaret doesn't let a single box be enough. She has nested nine boxes together and it is really quite lovely. Each box is made from paper one-half inch smaller than the previous box and is closed completely before closing the next one.

Here is a table of the little boxes and lids along with some of the flag books we made. On or about May 15 the blog will feature the flag book and "strip tease" wallet from Margaret's workshop.  

Don't forget. On May 15 (approximately) we will feature Part II of the workshop.