Selene Fisher: Whimsical Little Houses All in a Row

Workshop Description

Are you charmed by the repeating shapes you see in lines of hillside houses? Are you intrigued by urban sketching? We’ll explore new neighborhoods by constructing our own little wonky row houses bound into a quirky accordion book.

The class will begin by building a model using different sewn edge binding styles (baseball stitch and wire-edge) and assorted house figures.

Once this is mastered, the rest of the class will be spent building the streets of each student’s choice using die cuts, rubber stamps, paint and ink, and colorful papers.

Each student will end up with one or more row house accordions.

Materials/Equipment to be Provided by Students

• Knife
• Cutting mat
• Ruler
• Pencil
• Eraser
• Scissors
• Bonefolder
• PVA and brush
• Awl
• Binding needles
• Scraper or old room key card
• Markmaking tools of student’s choice (e.g., stencils, stamps, inkpads, paint, pens, etc.)
• Acrylic gel medium and brush
• Fineline black pen (like Pigma Micron)
• If students have these (useful, but not required):
  • Wire cutters (diagonals)
  • Jewelry-sized duck-billed or needle-nose pliers
  • Japanese hole punch, or ¹/₁₆″ or ⅛ ″ hole punch
  • Colorful collage paper (gelli prints, napkins, decorative tissue, etc.)

See Materials Glossary for definitions and images

Materials/Equipment to be Provided by Instructor

• Mat board pieces
• Watercolor paper
• Edge wire and cutters
• Hole punches
• Binding thread and needles
• Colorful collage paper (gelli prints, napkins, decorative tissue, etc.)

Instructor Biography

Over the years Selene Fisher has dabbled in different art genres, but when she discovered book arts, she knew she’d found her home. She loves “messing around” with paper and the book form (not that an artist book necessarily needs to employ either). Selene delights in alternative book forms, bright colors, and poetry. She enjoys using images to create stories and finding surprises around the corner. She prints with letterpress, rubber stamps, and gelli plates, and likes art to be fun. She also tunes up typewriters.