Book Art Project part 2

This is part two of my book sculpture project. You can read about how I started it here.

After misting the pages to fan them out, the time came to cut into the book.  It's surprisingly easy to slice out parts of pages - once you get over the horror of defacing a book.  I wanted the cut out part to resemble a cave, so I did a square cut out, leaving rock projections from the ceiling and not being that carful about the cuts on the sides. I did try to keep the bottom level, as I wanted figures to be able to stand there once the project was finished.

Each knife cut went through about 10 pages, and to get good dimension you want to do the same cut a few times before going to something a bit different.

The next step was gluing the pages. I held the book so it fanned in a way that looked good and gave some space for the figures to stand, then used a paint brush to brush a heavy coat of white school glue over the pages. I used a heat gun to help the glue dry faster, being careful not to hold it too close to the pages (as they'll burn/brown if you do). I did this to the top and bottom, leaving the sides free.