Popping In
with Robert Sabuda

By Patricia J. Murphy ~ Photos by Cat Cutillo

Maybe it has happened to you. You pick up a book, turn the first few pages, and something magical happens. You are transported to another place or time. When Robert Sabuda was eight years old, he flipped through a book in his dentist’s office and was transported to another dimension— the three-dimensional world of pop-ups.

The book was heavier, thicker— unlike any book he had ever seen. It took his breath away.

“When I opened it, I was shocked and delighted when something leapt right off the page,” says Sabuda. “I forgot all about the dentist.” But he never forgot about pop-ups.

Robert’s family and friends began to give him pop-up books for gifts. He took them apart and put them back together to see how they worked. Using discarded file folders from his mother’s workplace, Robert began making his own pop-up books and giving them as gifts.

Bend, Fold, Cut. . . .
With each pop-up creation, Robert sharpened his pop-up engineering skills. He learned which of his bending, folding, cutting, gluing, and taping techniques worked, and which didn’t. He found which paper, glue, and tape worked best. And he discovered the value of failing.

“With each failure,” Sabuda says, “I learned a better solution, one that I wouldn’t have ever imagined.”

In middle school, he designed classroom bulletin boards for his teachers. These large-scale projects let him experiment further with paper.

“I learned how to use a paper’s shape and to turn it into whatever I wanted it to be.”

Clearly, Sabuda was on to something special. One of his high-school art teachers, Mrs. Lucas, took a special interest in his abilities.

“She taught me how to draw, paint, and make prints,” says Sabuda.

Mrs. Lucas also helped him apply to the Pratt Institute, a well-regarded art school in New York City.

Inspiration in the Mail
At the Pratt Institute, Sabuda trained to become a graphic designer. He took classes on color, collage, sculpture, and printmaking. His sculpture studies allowed him to continue his exploration of three-dimensional art.

During his third year at Pratt, Sabuda took a summer internship at a publishing company. He learned how children’s books are created, and realized what he wanted to do. As part of his job, he opened packages containing the original artwork of children’s book illustrators such as Barbara Cooney and James Marshall.

“I decided there and then that I wanted to be a children’s book illustrator,” Sabuda says. “It was something that made my heart beat faster!”

After college, jobs designing packages and coloring books started him on his way. The rest is pop-up history. If his designs excite the child inside him, Sabuda feels that kids who pick up his books will be just as excited. “When it works,” he says, “it’s something short of a miracle.”

Pop-up Step by Step
By Robert Sabuda
1. Copy the butterfly-wing shapes onto heavy paper. 2. Press along the dotted lines with a paper clip to “score” the tabs. Cut out the wing shapes, then color both sides. 3. Cut a 3 1/4'' by 5 1/2'' rectangle from heavy paper. Draw a dotted line down the middle and score the dotted line. Draw and label tabs A and B, as shown. 4. Glue the back of tab A to the card as shown. Let it dry. 5. Slide the B half of the butterfly into the A half. Keep the antenna of the B half in front. 6. Glue the back of tab B to the card as shown. Let it dry. 7. Carefully close the card.           Then pop-up! Get templates to replace pop-up steps 1 and 3.