Practice books are so much fun. A place to play and experiment. In art, as in so many things, it's taking a small simple idea and playing with it to find what you can do with it. In cooking, it often is playing with ingredients. Taking a simple dish and adding a little spice, some herbs, changing the type of oil - making it your own dish. You seldom wear a simple black dress without adding your special touches to make it look even better.
The X cut in a book is something that can be tinkered with. Not only with what you can put in front of it, or behind it - but also what about changing the angles of the cuts? How about layering several cuts through several pages. I like to make the first window, then move the cutting mat to behind the next page, and looking through the window, make another X cut - only smaller than the first. When you open the cuts and fold them back - You have a double framed window. You can continue this on down through successive pages before you put your image behind them. This can be very effective.
If you choose to leave the flaps on your windows, you may want to find our own ways to hold them in place. Glue, staples, stitches, brads? Glue dots? Some of the papers are strong enough to roll them back - while others are brittle and break. You will have to work with the inherent properties of your book. Each paper is a little different.
You can tip in a different paper behind a window and cut through it, and when it folds back a printed or colored paper will show through. And if you glue your pages together, the inserted paper will not be visible except where you want it to be.
Play with what will show through the windows. Slip different things behind it and see what appeals to you. A face? An eye? A gun pointing at you? A heart? A cupcake? A frog? A tree? A poem? Something funny? Something sweet? Something nostalgic? Something surprising or scary? If you were making a book of the alphabet - you could put in a single letter. Or something to represent the letter. An A. Or an Apple?
Normally a window has two sides to look through - but you have control over this window. If you do not want to have the window work backwards and forwards, you can glue the page down - either direction. That way the page with the window and what's behind it will show - while the opposite page does not need to have an image or focal point lined up with the window.
If you have any questions please post in the comments section. And if you want to share what you've done, post a link to where we can see it.
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