A concertina panorama book – see the archive for other such books and how they’re made.

Each year in July, the Durham Gala is held and is a very popular event.  Originally it was a miners’ gala because this was primarily a holiday for the families of miners of the north east of England, which, in a bygone era, was a massively exploited coalfield.   Nowadays, the Gala is a major attraction for people from miles around and the centrepiece of the event is a huge procession of banners, bands and entertainment through the streets to the riverside playing fields where speeches by dignitaries and invited guests are made and people enjoy the attractions associated with a great day out.

The book shows the procession from the city centre down Silver Street heading towards the playing fields. The buildings are the actual ones in that street, diminishing in size as you look back towards the centre. The inside covers, which act as side panels, show an extended background view with the cathedral, barely visible, on the left, and the multi-storey carpark by the river on the right. The County Hotel has always been a focal point, with dignitaries and their families waving to the passing procession, and political guests making speeches.

The scenes are made from individual panels. The crowds and buildings were drawn out on the panels first. Each section of panels then had to be matched with the others – a task made more difficult by the increasing size of figures coming down the hill from the distant background.
The panels were painted and finally stitched together, before being stitched to the concertina background (Silver Street buildings). the concertina is then stuck to the book covers (views on each side of Silver Street). The ourside of the covers is adorned with a few trinkets to suggest a festival theme.

Rainbow Abbey is a story book made of cut-out panels extending from a central stem. 

As each panel is turned, the story develops and new views of the abbey can be seen. The inside front cover shows the picnic area outside the abbey and the little boy, Jamie, setting off on an adventure as his parents are pre-occupied with other things.  The cut panels are scenes in the abbey ruins, and the back panel is the resolution to the story – Jamie returning to the picnic from where he started. clearly it’s a “don’t try this at home ” story.  Very non-PC, but I know from experience kids love, absolutely love, hearing stories about children undertaking mischievious and highly dangerous, if not impossible, tasks.   I’ve posted the story on the “Stories” page.

These three images show the articulated stem coming out from the spine, and the attached panels.  Although this is a story book for children, it is also a view book, with ever-changing views as you move the panels and stem.

After drawing out a rough plan of the whole scene, the actual panels are made and then individually drawn out and arranged loosely to check  they all match with each other and with the rest of the scene.

A wash is then applied to each panel, and the figures are the first to be painted in detail.  (spoil a figure and you spoil a panel)

A homage to Clarkson Stansfield’s “Trafalgar”.  I wanted to separate out the ships in an open-door book to give a kind of 3D effect.  Stansfield is a north-easterner and was well known for his seascapes.  In fact, he was featured in the film “Turner” about the great artist.

The book is nothing more than an opening double door with the scene inside.

As you can see from the original, it would be impossible to create the details and subtlety of Clarkson’s work, so I didn’t try. It’s a “cartoon” of the painting, not to be taken too seriously.

The washes just show how random you can be about the application of watercolour at the start of a painting. As long as it kills the white of the paper, it does the job. You really don’t have to be too precious about what colour you put where.

As mentioned elsewhere on this page, a concertina-panorama book is a book with a concertina spine, from which sections extend outwards, creating the panorama.  The sections are composed of paper panels sewn together, usually decreasing in height the further out they are.

book cover	cover, concertina & sections
The front cover is stiff greyboard covered in bookcloth.  No illustrations or title but some seasidey-type pebbles.  The back cover is the same, without the pebbles, and the paper concertina links the two.	The inside view shows the two hard covers, with views on each side of the harbour.  The background concertina is the seaside town and the four sections coming from it are all quaysides/piers.  Nothing complicated for my first attempt.
close-up view1	close-up view 2
close-up view 3	front view close-up
background drawing	harbour layout
watercolour wash over drawing	stitching paper panels together

Every now and again, a suggestion that someone makes can really strike a chord and get me thinking. That happened when a friend said the scene would be complete if it had some little boats in it!  Kapow!  That’s just what I did.  Boats made from a paper template or net, with cocktail stick masts, paper sails and tiny woodblock cabins.  Fragile as they were, they needed a box to keep them in, with compartments to separate them and a lid to protect them, complete with emblem.  Too much time on my hands!

John Singer Sargent’s painting, “Gassed” depicts two groups of soldiers in World War One being brought into a field dressing station, surrounded by other victims lying on the ground.  The main group is, for me, full of both heroism and pathos and is an image that has stayed with me for years.

As a tribute to Sargent’s painting, I’ve done my own version. I’ve removed the group of soldiers from the painting and placed it in a different, though typical, Western Front environment – trenches, destroyed village and a wasted landscape of shellholes.

The front and back covers are articulated.  Each of three boards are separated by a piece of wood dowel with holes in them for the cotton thread.  Inserted into the boards are pieces of corrugated cardboard, partly torn and splashed with earthy colours.  For me, this suggests the trenches.  The front board is finished off with a brass plaque paying tribute to Sargent’s work.