Mushroom Art Book Stop Motion Animation

I made a series of stop motion videos for three of my mushroom artist books in 2020 for the Vancouver Art Book Fair. The videos give a better sense of the pieces as sculptures.

The Book of Eringi

Eringi (king trumpet mushroom) is probably my favorite mushroom. I love the simple shape plus it’s delicious! This unique concertina-style artist book is made from polymer clay and hand drawn pages. I went through many different drawings for the inner pages before settling on the simple border inspired by the microscopic world.

I was tempted to stop at the maquette stage. I could see the project coming together as I imagined, but I started to worry that I would mess it up and have to start over. This is probably my biggest challenge as an artist.

Size: 80x50x33 mm 
Materials: polymer clay, paper, ink
Finished! The Book of Eringi’s stop motion animation

Pop Out Mushrooms (day)- an Altoid tin mushroom art book

I LOVE Altoid tin art. LOVE it. I wanted to use them somehow in the creation of a book. I covered the outside with polymer clay and made concertina-style inner pages. The folds are not so crisp so when the tin is opened, the mushrooms pop out. The pages took forever to design. I wanted to take some shortcuts and use cut outs from old books, but ultimately I decided to paint the pages with watercolors. Both sides of the page are painted.

Size: 60x42x20 mm 
Materials: polymer clay, paper, ink

A short stop motion animation of Pop Out Mushrooms

Pop Out Night Mushrooms – a glow in the dark version

I really enjoyed making the Pop Out Mushroom piece. Remember I said I LOVE Altoid tin art? Once I saw that I had some glow-in-the-dark polymer clay, I knew what had to happen. The biggest challenge with this piece was working with the glow in the dark paint for the inside pages. It was very difficult to create an even layer of paint. It took many tries before it didn’t look like a gloppy mess in the dark.

Size: 60x42x20 mm 
Materials: polymer clay, paper, ink

Now the Pop Out Night Mushrooms gets its turn!

I’m working on more mushroom art books and zines. I will be adding more posts about making books, but my Book Arts page will form the collection of all my posts. At least that’s the plan for 2022.

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