The first project that we did for Imagine8 was to illustrate what our hands mean to us. Recently I decided to attach the prototype into one of my composition journals. I chose a spread with background colors that look somewhat like land and water. I found a NASA photo of North and South America which I tweaked into an oval with the help of my computer. (I discovered by trial & error that it needed to be an oval when flat, to look like a sphere in 3-D.) Then I printed it out in the center of a piece of cardstock and folded it in half. Next I traced my hand by placing the pinkie side right on the fold. Then I cut narrow strips across the image of the Earth from the fold to where the color stopped. Working one at the time, these strips were folded back at the outline on both sides and then popped out in the opposite direction from the hand fold. The outline of the hand was cut while folded and a second set traced onto another piece of cardstock. These were delicately tinted by rubbing soft pastel dust onto them. After coloring a blue oval in the center of the second set of hands, the separate hands were glued together, keeping the "earth" free of glue. I got the idea for how to make this work from the directions for a mummy's tomb in the book "The Usborne Book of Pop-Ups."
The 10 large words on the fingers are feelings that are heightened because of my hands, while the smaller lettering is a sampling of things my hands allow me to do. These say: "hug a loved one, ink a rubber stamp, make beautiful letters, drive a car, surf the web, knead bread dough, wield a paintbrush, comfort a friend, plant a garden, bind a book, pat a back, turn pages in a manuscript, stitch with needle and thread." A hand has always been a significant symbol for me, as it is my maiden name. Perhaps you've noted that in the names of my blogs.
One of the photos shows the hands in a "closed" position, while the other is how it looks when "open."
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