Pop Up Imagination

Consider this the post where I talk a little about pop up cards.

I love pop up anything and collect alot of pop up books. Not only as reference for my own Crankbunny work but mainly just to enjoy! I've never being formally trained in paper engineering, I look up to Robert Sabuda and Matthew Reinhart. Each of them are pop up gods and they've brought back the art form in many fresh new ways. I love love love how all their enthusiasm for the 'pop up arts' spills out with each page turn. Each book seems to get bigger and more complicated and amazing. They sometimes teach classes at Pratt Institute and run their business in NYC with a gazillion little paper cutter gnomes running about (ok, its a small staff of gnomes).

Here is a wonderful movie I recently found of both of them going through a recently finished Fairies pop up book (it's awesome - see I'm loving fairies now!) and also holding one of my favorite books that they did with Tomie DePaola called "Brava, Strega Nona!".

Inside the Pop-Up Studio from paul b on Vimeo.
The fairy book is called "Encyclopedia Mythologica: Fairies and Magical Creatures"

There's also a wonderful interview / article that Babble did on them.
Excerpt from Robert: "....that's why pop-ups I think have survived and are really being embraced because it's magic without electricity. You know what I mean? When you turn the page of one of our books, you think, "Oh my god. How is that even possible?" and it's between two boards that make a book and that's a rare thing in our lives today to feel, very rare...."
Here's a link to it -- click here --! I highly recommend reading it.

Also here are some pictures from : Brava, Strega Nona!: A Heartwarming Pop-Up Book







Their studio also has a blog which is fun to read - http://popupstudionyc.blogspot.com/
Most of their staff write the blog posts, so its interesting to see their work as it progresses on projects and also their outside interests too! It's not all about pop up people - it's about imagination!



In this video both of them describe their process and how their work has evolved. What I love most is when they start talking about the interactive experience behind the pop up book. How again, its almost magical yet so simple, and there's no electronics involved.

Flying Monkeys before Fairies

There is something painfully wonderful about starting your day before the rest of the world wakes up. I, for one, get a bunch more work done and have somehow an amazing amount of energy to run around like a wacked headless chicken in my office all day (but those spanish genes summon up a small siesta around noon or so...). Was that chicken metaphor too grotesque? Alright, my Russell Brand knob gets turn back down to the usual 2.4!

I'm not particularly fond or hateful of fairies. Maybe it's a cultural thing, but more likely its a case of "haven't gotten around to it -- I'm still noseying around with vovelles". BUT - in the bookstore a month back or so, I ran into this amazing popup book about Fairies and was blown away! (Apparently the publisher has a few out! Woo!)



How to Find Flower Fairies by Cicely Mary Barker

It's so detailed and intensely illustrated that I had to STOP working on my top secret flying monkey puppet to take a few pictures! They went to town with this series. Love the hidden little areas and use of paper depth.





Looking forward to sitting down with this book and getting all the juicy popup bits in also.

Feel free to also view the amazon.com pictures for the book - which show some of the other pages. I listed the other books in this Cicely Mary Barker series too which all seem to have the "Look Inside" feature to wet your appetite.

How to Find Flower Fairies
Flower Fairies Magical Moonlight Feast
Return to Fairyopolis (Flower Fairies)
Fairyopolis: A Flower Fairies Journal
Flower Fairies Paper Dolls - Paper dolls!

Pop Up Cookbook?!

The only reason I know how to make pancakes correctly is because of Kenny Shopsin and his book "Eat Me". Until then I was shy and sort of fumbly about it, but I didn't get the book because I wanted to learn how to make freekin pancakes.



See I love NYC alot but honesty I pretty much live here cause of the food and Shopsins is sort of a dietary(triplecorinary)staple here. It's a family restaurant that's changed locations a few times and run by Kenny Shopsin n famila (the 1st and 2nd was featured in the documentary 'I Like Killing Flies' - check your Netflix people!). It's got rules, set ways that are irrationally flexible, amazing food, most people hate it or love it and you can leave if you don't like it... ahhh "the city".

Anyway - Kenny Shopsin put out a cookbook/instructional about his thoughts on food, certain main ingredients, life, and some of menu items in his restaurant. Just a few cause the menu has about 400 items (or something ridiculous like that) and he changes them alot. One of his daughters designed the book (she's an amazing graphic designer) - and KUDOS to her for doing a pop-up book cover and not something boring and plain.

So it's not entirely a pop-up book about recipes with foods and spoons spilling out all over and out the pages (ala Reinhart & Sabuda...seriously though...not a bad idea -Hear that pitch out boyz!) - but the cover is and that counts!



**If you are wondering what that other book is - that's Shadow Puppets & Shadow Play by David Currell which I highly recommend also. See! There's something puppet related too! Be sure to check out the "Look Inside" feature on amazon to get a little noisy inside the book.

Fantastic and tactile!

Paper Puppet Palooza is showing its lovely face all over the real "non" internerd world. Fantastic and tactile! Since I don't really leave my nest because of all that animation and those shop orders that gotta be done (ok that's a lie) - it was nice to see PPP on the shelves. At Barnes n Noble no less! (in florida, seen n captured photologically by my dad hehe)

Only more proof that the book is available for immediate gratification purposes at your local chain bookstore!

People have also been saying lovely things about the writing and instructions found in Paper Puppet Palooza. Dropping science like Galileo dropped the orange - lets kick it!

"...love this book! Out standing art work and ideas. Very good templates and instructions. Easy to follow and a good jump off place for your own ideas. Great for movable figures to use on cards, altered work, stages, etc and just about any thing you can think up. I scaned the templates on my computer and printed out on heavy paper rather then cut up my book..."
- Very smart and handy in Deerfield, IL

"...Crankbunny's off-beat sense of humor shows on every page of this book. That alone makes it worth purchasing, but the instructions and illustrations are also very clear and clever. Turns out, paper puppet making isn't all that difficult or expensive, but newbies will benefit from the confidence and encouragement this book provides...."
- Totally got it VB.

Feel free to flip through some of the book with Amazon's "Look Inside" feature or Barnes n Nobles "See Inside".

Tony Sarg and his marionettes

Ofcourse somehow neurotic norma (who is a seperate entirely split personality living in my brain... long story, no way of making it short) added into my delicious list an entry about a Tony Sarg book that can be read on google books. For free. How fantastic.

This book is very fun and nerdy to read if you are into anything that deals with puppetry mechanics. And ofcourse I am. I am not a huge fan of actual real marionettes - but I do know how they work and how they are tied (which is one the reason I'm not a fan of them.... all those strings knotting up at a blink of an eye really freek me out). I am a firm believer you can learn alot from things you don't like. Probably alot more than things you do like.

Anyhoozal, Tony himself (read more about him here) included alot of his own secrets in this book.

The Tony Sarg Marionette Book
By Frederick John McIsaac, Anne Stoddard
Published by B.W. Huebsch, inc., 1921
Original from the University of California
Digitized Nov 30, 2007 57 pages

who makes me laugh...

Eugene Mirman makes me laugh - and his new damn amazing book is out "The Will to Whatevs: A Guide to Modern Life".


If you'd like to know more about the book - visit these sites for some enterTERIANment. Ok, don't know why that spelling mistake was so emphasized... I just rolled with it in a wrong way. It's late people.
Harpers book stuff.... and Eugene's site....

I am a fan and whenever he puts together shows in nyc, they are hysterical and fun and thankfully missing that whole "laugh factory" 80s comedy club element that tends to freek me out.

**His book release party was a hoot at the bellhouse in brooklyn. This picture right here... sums it up. (Yes that is Kristen Schaal doing her one woman show as a dirty mattress on the street)



That is certifiably fun material right there.

New animated trailer for da'Palooza!

Check out the new animated trailer!



The trailer is a peak into the life of Paul Palooza - the explorer and self-proclaimed puppetologist who is the center character of the new book Paper Puppet Palooza.

Paper Puppet Palooza!

New Paper Puppet book! It is out!



Paper Puppet Palooza is a storybook how-to on making paper puppets and incorporating paper puppet techniques into your own existing work. It is a book for artists, craft ladies, hobbiests, teachers, animators, parents, youngsters, puppeteers, rainy day victims and those who are just into curious creative exploration. The main character in the book - Paul “Peppo” Palooza - guides the reader through each of the step-by-step illustrated projects with a cast of other imaginative paper puppet characters.

For more info or to buy the book visit the book's website - http://www.paperpuppetpalooza.com

Also! To welcome the release of Paper Puppet Palooza by Crankbunny / Norma V Toraya - a limited edition signed dustcover print has been created for the book. This full color large poster print is 11 inch (h) by 26 inch (w), signed, limited to 250.





Click here to purchase this version of the book or/and limited edition print in the Crankbunny store.

"a trilogy in five parts"

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is a top top TOP ultimate book favorite. It sums up everything or atleast 80% of what/how/where/why things are the way they are or can be. It makes no sense, and thats ok. See how reassuring that feels.

Anybamhoozal - they put out a nice version of the book.



"Thickly padded leather binding, silk ribbon sewn in as a placeholder, nice leather smell like a car interior. The pages are very thin, like the paper used to make bibles."

So sexy. recommend