Some book art pieces require a minimum of design, but a lot of production time. I already know how to make them, and I know there won’t be too many engineering surprises along the way.
Other pieces require me to get the book out of my head and into a tangible object I can test for flaws and outright failures. While my final pieces are usually built with leather, fabric, wood, and lots of glass beads, my physical models are cardstock paper and foamcore board, acrylic paint, tape, and chalk. Easier to see and manipulate, less time to put together, and lots cheaper to build.
Here are two old maquettes, or preliminary models, of books that I’ve had in design-stage since 2009. I’ll complete them for my 2014 catalog. The models look butt ugly, and I suspect only I can see their potential. They’ll be a good contrast for later.
Model-building is also a lesson to artisans just starting out with complex projects. It’s okay to take time, to mess up and start over. It’s okay to realize you don’t have the skill level or vision to achieve something – yet. That one little ‘yet’ gives you permission to learn and practice, and come back to the dream later.
This strategy also works in writing. 
‘Night Flight’ will be approximately 10″ x 5″ x 2″ closed. Open, it will become a pop-up book with two different night-time cityscapes in dark blue linen and silk, the lamplit neighborhoods accented by orange and crystal beads. Stars or airplanes in the form of glittering crystal beads will cross the between ground, mountain, and sky, anchored on nearly invisible dark blue polyester threads. I’m toying with the original prose I will embroider on one section of the book. Not sure yet what it will be, but I’m aiming for a short paragraph about night-time aerial views of big cities.
Here is a somewhat blurry view of the partially completed panels for this section of the book. Layers of applique batik cotton make up the mountain and sunset, and the ground is dark blue damask embroidered with beads and cotton thread.
‘Night in Mountains’ will be a tunnel book with free-swinging pages, approximately 7″ x 6″ x 2″ closed, and 7″ x 6″ x 18″ open. I haven’t made a tunnel book yet, where the pierced pages reveal a 3D view once the book is fully open. I spent a long time designing the left-side hinges, which is one reason why they are not shown here. Translating the paper model to black and gray silk is going to be…interesting, but I think my skills are finally up to the challenge. The hidden embroidered text will be a first-hand account of a Colorado mountain drive I took in the early eighties. Like most of my books, this one will drip with glass bead and tassel accents when the basic structure is completed. 
I think the background mountain scene will be something like this, which was the ‘Midnight’ page from Book of Hours, circa 2002. 