One Long Strip, One Rolling Story: Building an Orihon Sketchbook for Sequential Drawing

Most sketchbooks ask you to draw one page at a time. You finish a spread, flip the page, and start fresh. That rhythm is useful, but it can also make every drawing feel like a separate audition. An orihon sketchbook—the Japanese accordion fold—offers a different deal: one long sheet, folded back and forth, so every panel is connected to the one before and after it. Suddenly you’re not making a stack of pictures. You’re making a sequence.

Why a Long Sheet Changes the Way You Draw

When your paper is bound on one edge, the page edge acts like a wall. You can ignore what came before. With an accordion sketchbook, the wall disappears. A mark near the right side of one panel can leak into the next. A color you used in the morning can echo in the afternoon. That continuity is the whole point.

Illustrators often talk about pacing—how long a viewer lingers, where the eye travels, when a scene breathes. An orihon gives you a physical version of that idea. You can stretch a quiet moment across three panels, or compress a busy street into one. You can hide a small detail in a fold and reward someone who opens the book all the way. Even if you never show the sketchbook to another person, drawing on a continuous strip trains you to think in beats instead of single frames.

The format also makes revision less precious. In a bound book, a bad drawing is stuck on its page. On a long strip, a weak panel can become a transition, a texture break, or a place to test a color before the next big scene. You stop treating every square inch as a final statement.

Make One This Weekend

You don’t need specialty bookbinding supplies. A sturdy roll of mixed-media paper, a glue stick or PVA, two pieces of book board or heavy chipboard, and a bone folder will get you there. A ruler and a craft knife help, but a steady hand and a scoring tool—even the back of a spoon—can do the job.

Here’s the simple version.

1. Cut one long strip. Start with a piece of paper about 6 inches tall and as long as you can manage—48 to 60 inches is a good first run. If your paper comes in sheets, tape or glue shorter pieces end-to-end with a small overlap, then burnish the seam flat. Let it dry completely before folding.
2. Score and fold. Decide your panel width—4 to 6 inches is comfortable. Measure along the strip and score every panel line. Fold alternating mountain and valley creases so the strip collapses like an accordion. Press each fold with a bone folder or spoon to get crisp edges.
3. Make covers. Cut two boards slightly larger than one panel. Cover them with decorative paper or cloth, folding the edges neatly to the inside. Glue one board to each end of the strip, making sure the accordion opens freely and the covers meet when the book is closed.
4. Add a closure. A simple ribbon, elastic band, or paper wrap keeps the book tidy in a bag. Nothing fancy required.

The first one will probably be a little crooked. That’s fine. A handmade orihon is supposed to feel like an object, not a factory product. Slight unevenness in the folds can even help the book stand up on a table like a little folding screen.

Filling the Strip: Three Ways to Pace a Page

Once the glue dries, the real fun starts. Here are three prompts that work well for US artists who want to test the format without overplanning.

The Single-Afternoon Café Scene

Pick a local café, diner, or coffee shop and give yourself one long strip. Panel one: the wide view—tables, windows, light. Panel two: a closer detail—a cup, a hand, a napkin. Panel three: a tiny moment you noticed—someone laughing, a dog outside, the barista’s tattoo. Panel four: the view again, but changed. Maybe the light has shifted or a chair is empty. The strip becomes a small narrative of attention.

The Weeklong Visual Diary

Divide the strip into seven sections, but don’t draw one picture per day. Instead, let each day bleed into the next. Monday’s color palette can show up in Wednesday’s margin. A shape from Thursday can repeat on Sunday. At the end of the week, unfold the whole thing and look for accidental rhymes. This is where the accordion format shines: your week starts to look like a week, not seven unrelated postcards.

The Walk-the-Block Sequence

Choose a route you know well—around your block, through a farmers market, across a park. Draw it as a continuous journey. Use the folds as turns in the path. When you reach a fold, change your drawing tool or switch from line to shape. The physical structure keeps you moving, and the finished strip reads like a walk instead of a map.

Sharing and Revising Without Tearing Pages Out

A bound sketchbook is private by default. An orihon is a bit of a performer. You can stand it up on a shelf, open it across a table, or let someone unfold it section by section. That makes it a great low-pressure way to share work-in-progress with friends or on social media. You can photograph the whole strip flat, or shoot a short video of it opening like a fan.

And because nothing is bound on a spine, you can also revise more freely. If a panel bothers you, glue a smaller piece of paper over it and redraw. Add a flap. Collage a scrap of wrapping paper into the scene. The book tolerates interruptions because it was built from interruptions—every fold is a gentle break.

A Small Object With a Long Memory

An orihon sketchbook won’t make you a better illustrator overnight. But it will change the questions you ask while drawing: What comes next? How long should this moment last? Where does the eye rest? Those questions are the quiet engine of visual storytelling, and they’re easier to practice when your paper literally unfolds in front of you.

Start with one strip. Keep the materials cheap, the folds imperfect, and the expectations loose. A single long sheet can hold a whole afternoon, a week, or a walk around the block—and it will remember the order you lived it in.