The Hocus Pocus Spell Book (The Manual of Witchcraft and Alchemy)

I love making Halloween decor as well as wall art so I decided to make this piece as both! This is extremely simpple to make and was done with a wooden canvas, air dry clay, paint and string.

Air dry clay

Acrylic paint

Hot glue

Chalk

String

Wooden canvas

I started by painting my wooden canvas black, it wasn't necessary but it is a step I usually do no matter what I'm making. Having the dark surface to work on made it very easy to use chalk to sketch out all the parts of the book and where I wanted to lay down clay. Using chalk makes it extremely easy to wipe away and redo guidelines.

For the linework I sketched out where the "stitching" on the book would be going as well as the lock, eye, snakes and binding would be.

I rolled out little worm like shapes and laid them down along my guidelines. Once I was happy with the placement I smoothed down the edged on either side to not only secure them to the wood but leave a slightly more raised line down the middle. Once the clay lines were secure I used a palette knife to slightly cut down the center and used the back of a paint brush to indent where my "stitching" will be going. The overall result from this process it to make it look like the patchwork leather on the spell book and where parts would be more or less raised. We are adding texture and dimension. I now added the rest of the detail I wanted to be made of out clay. I put down an eye, the lock and all the other little details that really make this book unique in it's own way.

Let everything dry at minimum overnight.

The paint job is what makes this piece. I once again painted the entire thing black, I used mostly colour washes so having a dark base worked well with what I was doing. I watered down different batches of browns, greens and orange acrylic paint. I used a soft brush and very messily slopped them over my entire piece. I used siler paint for the "metal" parts of the book and painted the eyeball. I had a lot of fun with the painting, it is by far my favourite step of anything I make. I added shadows and highlights and made sure to paint in the "stitching" holes darker.

For the stitching I used a thing crafting string. It started out brown already but I did darken it up a little but more with another acrylic wash. I cut the sting into small pieces and used hot glue to stick them into the stitching holes.

Once the book was basically done I took a step back and looked for any details I may have missed. This is your chance too add some aging, more shadows and highlights or anything else you please. These techniques can be used to make not only this book but any eerie Halloween prop you can come up with. Have fun!