Art: Asian Theme Chunky Book Pages

Art: Asian Theme Chunky Book Pages

March 2007 Kailua Hawaii

Four of fifteen chunky book pages made for an Asian Theme Chunky Book project.

Chunky books are made page by page by individual artists.  A page is created using the same methods found in a variety of art processes, painting and drawing among them.  Each artist makes one page for each book that will be created.  Some techniques may utilize mass produced elements, which the artist assembles individually in new and unique ways on a page. Chunky books are one of a kind even though each page an artist creates may be similar.  In this way chunky books recall a time prior to the printing press and the advent of mass production.  

One of the requirements of a chunky book is that artists embellish each page they create by attaching something to it.  These additional pieces are referred to as attachments or embellishments. Attachments make each page a little thick and chunky, which is why a Chunky Book is chunky.

The standard size of a chunky book page is four by four inches, including the binding margin. Chunky book pages require about half an inch of binding margin for common binding methods such as rings and combs.

Each chunky book page has a front and a back side just as a page in a regular book might be considered to have a front and a back side to it.  The four pages shown below are the front side of my chunky book page for an Asian Theme Chunky Book project.

The symbol on the attachment piece for this project is my version of the Kanji symbol Ki, which means tree.  I created my Kanji Ki symbol using drawing and painting tools in a graphics software program and then made a stencil cutout of the symbol in a clear plastic sheet.  Colored pencils were used in transferring the symbol to each piece of paper that then became an attachment for the front of my chunky pages.

Below, on the reverse side or back of my chunky pages I created a bonsai image by drawing and painting directly on each page with ink and watercolor.

Watercolor papers, colored pencils, ink, watercolor and grommets were used for this chunky book project.

Each of my pages will go into a separate chunky book along with the pages of about a dozen other local artists in Hawaii.

This Asian Theme Chunky Book project is all local.  Many chunky book projects take place through the mail with contributors from around the world and with many different themes.  The World Wide Web is often used for contact and communication, which is why many chunky book pages include an email address.  Each artist who contributes to a chunky book project usually receives one chunky book in return with pages in it from all of the artists who participated in creating that particular chunky book.