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July 13, 2008

Pic-tchas (Or What I Did This Summer)

Okay. Here are the book pix I've been teasing you with.

Let's look at those from another angle:

Okay, maybe one more:

As you can see, we accomplished a great deal in one week. And I have to say, as lovely as it is knowing that I made these books, it was even lovelier to pull them out of the bag last night and have Dave say, "You made these books?" Seriously. It was thrilling to have my sense of accomplishment validated like that.

Single-Signature Cloth Bound

As a comparison, a book I made last summer:

Above is the journal I took with me to Chicago & Idyllwild. Contrasted with this, the first cloth bound book I ever made, created this week:

Um. The term utilitarian comes to mind for the first one, while the second one is definitely "elegant." I squealed as I finished gluing that second book, my first "real" book, as far as I'm concerned, and then, as I held it in my hands, all I felt was disbelief and wonder. Because I made that. All evening long, I kept picking it up and turning it over, feeling it to be sure it was both mine and real.

For those who are interested, that's a cloth bound single signature book with a butterfly/pamplet stitch. The older book has a coptic binding. Which I taught myself to do. Out of instructions in a book.

Accordion Book

The first larger book we worked on (we made several origami books and a single sheet folded book) was an accordion book. It was a great way to learn about hinges (I ended up with mine on the wrong side, as you'll be able to tell in the photographs), and also a really good opportunity to explore image transfers and to really start to consider the "wholeness" of a book, since you must take the entire accordion into consideration. Because it's the only book with a more or less "complete" interior, I decided to go with a bunch of thumbnails to tell the entire story. You can click on any one of them to enlarge it.

Not the most precious work of art ever created, but not bad for a first try, I think. Though I do wish the insides had turned out as pretty as the outside.

I used some of the paste paper I made the first afternoon to bind the covers, and was really happy I'd sort of randomly grabbed the peach ribbon as I was packing for the trip, because it was the perfect choice to fasten the book closed.

A note about paste paper and other painted images: they look completely different in bits. The paper I used for the cover had some major flaws in it in the form of oil pastel scribbles that I tried to make look like flames. Only, they look cool when it's just a couple of stripes like you can see on the back cover. That also became clear in the painted books we made on Thursday and Friday.

Next up, Japanese stab binding.

While working on this book, I played with a couple of things I hadn't on the accordian book. I couldn't get the image transfers to really work in that book (note to self: acetone image transfers don't like acrylic paint), so I used this book to really explore that technique, using both straight acetone and also using a blender pen. This was the very best thing I did, so it of course became the front page of the book. Isn't she gorgeous?

The other thing I tried, since stab bindings can be done with single sheets, rather than folding signatures, is an insert. I included a deckle edged bit of the same paper I used for the cover. It's kind of a nice surprise as you flip through the book, but that was hard to photograph, so here's the best shot I got of it. It's that pink stripe with the rough edge. I think it's page six of the book.

Painted Books

The last books we worked on are called "Painted Books," the reasoning behind which will become obvious. We began by painting (see??!?) large sheets of really nice watercolor paper on both sides. We had acrylic paints, but some people worked in ink. I opted to also use some Pearl Ex on mine. (I am now a big fan of the Pearl Ex.) I ended up having enough paper to do two books, though I haven't finished the cover on the second. It's bound, it's just not finished. Since I bound it on Friday morning, I was worried that it wouldn't be dry enough to take with me if I finished the covers. However, I included both books so you can see how different the insides of one painted book can be.

All I did, by the way, for the above two shots, was turn the pages.

These books are really funky (in a fun way, not an ew! way). The covers look slightly unfinished. The pages are coated in paint. But they're interesting to look at and extremely pleasant to hold. The bulk of them reminds me of a children's book, and with the paints and the thick paper pages, they kind of have that feel as well. You can do anything you want to with them, they're great for sticking things in. They may become my scrapbook of choice for important trips from now on. Simply because I can say so much with paint and color that I can't say with just writing.

So that's my week in one not-so-brief entry. Now I have to clean up the house (I never did get around to vacuuming before I left, and Dave didn't get around to it while I was gone, so the place is looking a bit shabby) and order supplies. (I have a wish list now of tools, papers, bookcloths and threads.) I have two "big"--in terms of project intensity, not size--books that I really want to get started on, but to do them the way I want to do them requires that I spend some time playing with the techniques. When I do the real things, I want to be sure they are as beautiful and perfect as I can possibly make them. (Given that one is going to be a wedding present, I don't think that's too much to expect.)

Posted by sally at July 13, 2008 10:01 AM

Comments

Posted by: Heather K at July 13, 2008 09:38 PM

Posted by: Vicki at July 19, 2008 03:00 PM

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