Day 8, January 30th - Wave Action Flip Book

Today's book is a little flip book. You probably all made at least one of these as kids. You draw or print a picture on the pages of a book, making it just slightly different on each page, then flip the pages to make the image appear to move. Actually, it's exactly what movies do--take thousands of still photos of action at a high rate of frames per second, then show them fast so the images blend into one another.

This book is called "Wave Action." It has approx. 60 pages, each with a wavy line. When you flip the pages, the line seems to undulate. I began by drawing a wavy line onto some card stock and cut it out. I then used that as a sort of template to draw the wavy line onto a page. Then I moved the template 1/16th" to the right to draw it on the next page. Then moved it to the right again for the next page and so on. I then took the whole stack of pages, in order, and used padding compound to glue the left edge to make it like a glued notepad. I made a cover out of tagboard and covered it with some decorative Japanese masking tape and glued the book block inside.

I wish I had video to show you the neat wave action when you flip the pages. I want to make more of these books, but with much more sophisticated drawings inside for more complex movement.

The book measures 3 1/4" x 2 1/2"x 3/8" thick.