Every December our print group cut up either failed or excess prints produced during the year and swap with each other to create small concertina books.
Our group is full of very experienced printmakers, most of whom specialize in specific printing techniques, which makes it an excellent place to continue learning and sharing skills. We have individuals who excel in lino-cutting, monoprinting & monotypes, solar plate etching, zinc and copper etching and collagraphs (my area).
So swapping print scraps brings a range of techniques into a unified whole and provides a reminder of some of the processes we each undertook over the preceding 4 terms.
It also provides a way to rescue those images each of us felt didn’t really work. It’s astounding how something that was obviously a ‘failure’ – to the artist who produced it – transforms into a small piece of wonderful art when cropped, rotated, and a new point of focal interest is chosen. Colour plays a big part as well, of course.
This year I made hard covers for my book, pictured above, from some abstract painting I did a while ago. Below is the completed front and back concertina.
TactualTextiles 
Stunning as usual Claire.
And a novice’s question…. are they on regular white cardstock? And is it one long piece folded or individual ones stuck together?
Helen, the concertina is made from a single length of BFK Rives 250gsm printmaking paper (76cm long) folded into 7 pieces, with hard covers adhered to both ends, leaving 12 sections (6 front and back) which I’ve used to display the prints.
Great idea to repurpose prints!
Thanks Daylene, it seems such a waste to have drawers full of excess prints so this works well for us.