Artists' Books With Sarah Grace Dye - March & April 2026
A Three Part Online Course With Sarah Grace Dye
Three live online demonstrations: Tuesdays 31st March, 14th March, & 28th March 4-6pm BST
Join live or watch the recording.
Artists books are a fantastic way to use up all sorts of scraps of materials you may have left over from previous projects. We can utilise paper, fabric, ink, paint, packaging, plant materials, ephemera almost anything! Through these three sessions you will be equipped with the basic knowledge of several different book making techniques. These simple structures can then be played and experimented with to create a very broad range of artists books.
Throughout the sessions you will be introduced to a broad range of ideas and see lots of examples of these principles in use. These book structures can be used to tell stories, collect samples, act as a portfolio, be used as scrap books, create original notebooks or sketchbooks for your work and really they can become whatever your imagination can dream up.
Session One - Concertina Books
Concertina books are the first and most basic structure we will look at. It is so versatile and can keep growing as you have work to add, there doesn’t have to be any end to a concertina structure.
Session Two - Paper Folding
Session two will build on the knowledge from session one. This session will teach you a number of folds that can create books in their own right or can be used as elements to add into a pre made concertina structure.
Session Three - Stitching For Book Arts
These are basic techniques that you can use for many things. As with the folding structures these stitched structures can be books on their own or be added as segments into a pre prepared concertina structure.
HANDOUTS: You will receive a Pdf booklet before each session with detailed diagrams so you can follow along as well as seeing the teaching demonstrations. These will also help you recreate these structures long into the future!
LEARNING COMMUNITY: We have made a What’s App Group for course members to connect with each-other and share work.
Sign up before the 31st March 2026 to access the recordings until the 28th July
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Session One - Concertina Books
You will learn how to:
• Fold paper correctly to create a perfect fold.
• How to join paper together to create a longer concertina.
• How to create pockets
• How to create different covers
• How to layer a concertina book
• How to create pop ups
• How to create windows
• How to use a concertina structure as a book spine
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Session Two - Paper Folding
We will explore:
• A triangle flower fold• A square flower fold
• A Turkish map fold
• A Hungarian map fold
• The many uses for each of the above
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Session Three - Stitching For Book Arts
You will learn about:
• Saddle stitch
• Pamphlet stitch
• Japanese stab binding
• The many variations and uses for these stitches.
Sarah Grace Dye
Sarah Grace Dye is a visual artist who loves to find a use for and beauty in the ephemera of the everyday. Working with these objects has become like an alchemic practice enabling a transformation to take place. She believes learning to use the materials that surround us is important and her ethos dictates that it is important to waste nothing, that everything has a purpose and unique attributes to be examined, explored, elevated and a new purpose discovered. In essence, to search out beauty and hope in everything. The resulting alchemic objects are to be celebrated, shared and treasured.
Sarah is a collector and uses papermaking, natural dye and ink making, drawing, cyanotype, stitch and origami to create work, often within book structures, that amalgamates these together to produce small and perfectly formed keepsakes that echo the essence of the materials and story they communicate.
Sarah is a firm believer that everyone has the capacity to be creative and she is keen, wherever possible, to provide the catalyst for that to be realised. Her belief in the freedom to play and discover ones own marks is central and she is constantly developing this area within her own practice.
