Tree House
A ninety-degree unique pop-up. As it is designed to be seen in the round, like sculpture, my aim was to make it pleasing from whatever angle it is viewed, including from above.
The book is made from Waterford watercolour paper coloured with applied industrial textile dyes and additional pen and ink line work. As each part is a separate unit held together with paper dovetail joints, the whole form can be taken to pieces and rearranged. The sections move about more freely than if they were glued together and so by gently moving the form up and down you can make the branches move as if in a breeze. Having worked out the paper engineering on a rough model, the rest of the task is an improvisation – largely creating the artwork as I go along.
This is one of the several unique pop-up tree houses I have made and is modelled on Thai spirit houses and the large ash tree in our garden. Surprisingly, tree houses do not figure that often in children’s picture books, but I can’t think of a more exciting subject for the paper engineer. As I made this pop-up, I imagined myself living inside it and even speculated on how I would arrange the furniture and where I would sleep! I even thought of my workroom as a tree house elevated several feet above terra firma and nesting in the pear tree next to it.
