Alice in Wonderland Accordion Book

Alice Book - Cover

This is my final project for the Foundational Hand class. Our project is to interpret a book or a story, write a few pages out in Foundational Hand, and bind the pages into an accordion book.

I chose Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland because I’ve always loved the book, especially with the original illustrations by Sir John Tenniel, published inĀ 1865. Since Foundational Hand was developed by Edward Johnston at the end of the 19th century, I thought it would be a good fit!

The book itself is covered in a chocolate brown fabric with an Alice in Wonderland themed print, purchased on Etsy. I had some sky blue velvet ribbon around that I thought was also very “Alice.”

Alice Book - Title Page

The title page of the book. The illustrations are printed on 9″ x 12″ Canson Watercolor paper and written on with a Brause .75mm nib in gouache, then the pages were cut to 7″ x 10, folded in half, and assembled into an accordion book.

Alice Book - Accordion Shape

I picked twelve of my favorite illustrations from the book (there are 20+ total) and found lines in the story to match. I actually set aside one evening and did all twelve panels in one sitting because I was enjoying writing in Foundational Hand so much. I struggled with it a lot in the beginning, so I wrote the twelve lines over and over. With more practice, it felt much eaiser to write on the final panels.

Alice Book - Inside Pages

I also had the different colors mixed in palettes so I was writing at a good rhythm. I was really surprised I didn’t make any mistakes – perhaps because I was concentrating so much!

Alice Book - Back Cover

Here is the back cover with the colophon. It came out a little darker than I wanted – can you see Dinah the Cat playing with a ball of yarn?

This was such a fun project – I really enjoyed creating my first accordion book!