Wednesday, June 20, 2012

Drum Leaf Binding

While I was decorating pages for the accordion books, I used my pan pastels, versamark and poppy stamp and decorated a second sheet of printmaking paper.  I got my dimensions mixed up when I was cutting the paper, though.  I decided that I would not make the resulting pages into an accordion book, but rather try out a drum leaf binding.

This involved pasting the leaves of the pages together around their perimeter.  When the cover was added, the first and last pages where glued in, leaving 1 cm space at the spine.  This allowed the spine to open fully, without putting pressure on the glued pages.  This is similar to the way in which a cover is attached to a child's board book.

Here is my drum leaf binding.





Saturday, June 16, 2012

Some New Books

I've been working on some new books lately.  My art journaling group meets once a month and we take turns introducing a new technique or binding form.  Jan VanFleet hosted in June and showed us an interesting way to create pages for an accordion book.

We were given a 30" x 22" sheet of Stonehenge Printmaking paper, which we decorated randomly with acrylic inks, paints or our own choice of medium.  Masking tape was used to save spaces on the pages for text.  By placing the masking tape randomly before we used our inks, we ended up with a unique and interesting placement for the text when our pages were cut up and pasted together.

I made three of these books.  For my first effort I used pan pastels, versamark and a poppy stamp to decorate my pages.  I used mulberry paper to decorate the cover of the book.

Here are some pictures of that experiment:



I used a Maya Angelou poem for my text.

For my next effort I decided to use a different closure for my book.  The original example used ribbons tied in bows on both sides of the cover.  I decided to go for a more traditional look:


I have an old belt made from those suede loops and they make useful closures.  I glued the ribbon inside the back cover and it loops around to close in front.  I decorated these pages with acrylic inks and used masking tape  (my picture seems to have disappeared)  It it very vibrant.  In fact, it looked much better once the pages had been cut down to size than it did in its 30" x 22" size.  I was really thinking (this is a mess, I wonder what I'll do with it)



This is a paste paper cover.  I made this paper more than a year ago and finally found a use for it.  I didn't use masking tape on the interior pages and the ink was so bright that I needed to create my text on separate cardstock and then add it to the book.  This helped to tone down the colour.



I used a large button as my closure and simply wrapped the ribbon around it, to secure the book.

Monday, May 28, 2012

1776 Field Journal

At the end of May, I attended a workshop given by Marlene Pomeroy at her studio in Kitchener.  We were going to recreate a historical binding from 1776.  Marlene had seen this binding in a museum and took the time to study its construction and create a prototype.

The binding uses accordion fold guards for the text blocks and for the fold out map inserts.  The original book contained maps for the troops in 1776. It was a field guide that was issued by the army.

Here is the result of my labours with Marlene:


The book is sewn over cords and has a leather spine and corners.  I used one of her decorative papers (that I thought looked appropriate to the history of the book) to cover the book board.

We used Arches text wove in a cream colour for the text block and the map fold outs.


This foldout was attached to the accordion guard and was folded both horizontally and vertically.  The fold dimensions were staggered so that the folds would not create undue width at the spine of the book.



We just sewed the endpaper to the text block instead of doing a traditional hinged tip in.  My endpaper choice was weak and the thread tore the paper at the top and bottom.  You can see a bit of this at the top of this picture.  Upon reflection, I should have reinforced the fold before sewing to prevent this.  The endpaper on the text block is 1/4" wider than the page and folds over the first page of the text block in the French tip in manner.  It is secured with glue only on the vertical edge of the paper.

This was a two day workshop and even though Marlene had pre-cut the text blocks and map pages, we spent two full days putting the book together.

The leather that I was given was a bit dry and cracked when pasted to the spine.  Luckily, that was at the rear of the book and just gave it a distressed quality that was suitable for this kind of book.

Wednesday, April 11, 2012

Fabulous Steampunk Video

Here is a fabulous video from YouTube regarding the real definition of steampunk.  I loved it and wanted to share.


congratulations to the author of this video -- well done!!

Sunday, March 25, 2012

A.R.T. Lesson 10

This time our challenge was the Guest book.  Once again we were working with a single sheet of paper.  The initial folds were straight forward and following the directions for the cuts was easy enough.  It got a bit complicated after that point.  Once the cuts were made refolding the single sheet required a bit of dexterity and another picture in the book would have been nice.  We were lucky here that our workshop leaders Janice and Pam took pictures along the way and posted them in our gallery.  That gave use and extra reference point.

Anyway, here is the finished product.  I punched two small holes in the accordion spine and used a ribbon to keep the accordion together.  I used some of my definition stamps as content for this book. 

As always, content is the hardest part of the book creation.  I usually find that content drives the style of the book and in this workshop we are working with the style first and the content second.  We are being exposed to a wide variety of styles and without this challenge I don't think that I would be systematically working my way through all that this book has to offer.

Thank you, Janice and Pam.





Saturday, March 24, 2012

A.R.T. Lesson 9

The House Book was a two part structure.  The original structure, the "house" portion, was made from a rectangle of card stock.  I used green card stock choosing to go with a play on words to create my "greenhouse".  I used some wrought iron stamps on the exterior of my "greenhouse" to try and give it a glass and iron effect. 

The second part of the book structure was the signature that was added to each of the "door" openings in the house.  In keeping with my greenhouse motif I used handmade paper with plant inclusions.  We used the previously practised Shorts book as the signature.  I used botanical stamps to decorate these pages.


Friday, March 23, 2012

A.R.T. Lesson 8

Once again with the Artists of the Round Table, our challenge from Alisa Golden's Book "Making Handmade Books:100+ Bindings, Structures and Forms" involved creating a book from a single sheet of paper.  This time the books was called a T Cut book.  This was because the several of the folds were cut in a T shape and then the paper was folded into book form.


I wasn't terribly creative with my decoration on this one.  The number of pages brought to mind a counting book so I brought out my stamps and used a number set and a small image set from a calendar stamp set that I have to create this mini counting book.  My great niece was pleased with the result.

The second book was called a Room book because the resulting book looks like a room when it is open. 



I used some Laurel Burch stamps and coloured them in with markers.  The book collapses in at the sides to fold flat.

Sunday, February 26, 2012

Bookmaking Adventures February Challenge -- Accordion Books

I've already posted my accordion book for the February adventure.  A challenge was posted on the board  - use an unusual or unexpected page shape for your accordion book.

I looked around my workroom and saw a package of cardboard feet hanging on my wall.  They have been there for a while.  I don't know what my intention was when I got them.  They must have been a bargain bin find because I can't say that I find them an indispensable item.  But they are and unusual page shape.

It was also around this time that I had been blog hopping and ended up, quite by accident and I'm sure I couldn't duplicate the sequence of events again, at a blog called Real Yogis Say '%@"!'  I did not make up that title.  Yogi Amber, in her March 31, 2011 post, wrote an original poem called "Until You Walk in My Shoes" that was truly inspiring.  It was about making judgements about people and then learning their stories. 

I had to take a bit of creative license with her work since I had feet not shoes and not all of the verses had the feel that I needed but for the most part it was a perfect fit.(no pun intended).  So ....   Until You Walk in My Shoes became    Until You Walk in My Life  and my feet became multi coloured or multi ethnic because the words crossed all ethnic and cultural borders.

I used alcohol inks to add colour and jump rings to connect the pages.













Saturday, February 25, 2012

A.R.T. Lesson 7

We had a week break which gave us some time to catch up on our lessons in the 100 Handmade Books Workshop in the Artists of the Round Table Group.  This week's lesson involved making a venetian blind book and a brush book.

For the venetian blind book I chose to illustrate mine with two images.  I used a dark image for one side of my blind and a complementary white image that could be seen when you viewed the blind from the other direction.





For the Brush book, I used text weight, deckle edged paper.  For content I used two ee cummings poems  - and began them one on each side so that they met in the middle, which seemed in keeping with ee cummings style.  You would read one poem, then flip the book over and read the other.




The small band of paper at the end, secures the book together.  It is a simple structure but was quite effective for the poetry.

Wednesday, February 15, 2012

Adventures in Bookbinding - Accordion Book

As part of the adventure this month, we looked at tutorial videos for the making of accordion books.  I found one example that used envelopes as the pages of the accordion.  I adapted the method of attaching the envelopes together to leave a pocket at each fold, both front and back.  This will make a perfect vehicle for displaying tags.








A.R.T Lesson 6

In this lesson, we tackled a "snake" book and one called a "twist" book.

The snake book is very similar to the pants book of a previous lesson.  In this example, the page is folded into thirds and then into quarters to make 12 sections instead of eight.

I used ee cummings, Poem 42, as text for the booklet.  The striped paper adds to the whimsy of the poem's structure.


The twist book uses two complementary papers that are folded together to make a twisting effect, that shows off the paper.  I used dramatic paper and didn't add text or illustrations to this book.


Tuesday, February 7, 2012

A.R.T. Lesson 5

The project for Lesson 5 was the Storybook Theatre.  This is a composite structure made up of the theatre section and two "pants" books which are concealed in the curtains of the theatre.

This required three sheets of paper - one for the theatre and one each for the pants books.

I used the directions and dimensions provided by the workshop leaders (not those in Alisa Golden's book) so my book is smaller than that described in handbook.

I used a paper napkin to decorate the front and interior of the theatre portion of the book.  I used text and rubber stamped images to decorate the "pants" books.

Here is a picture of the front of the theatre with the "curtains" closed.

This shows the curtains opened.




These photos show the pants books.






i had the paper and napkin in my stash so I kept my Use It Up pledge for this assignment.

Wednesday, February 1, 2012

Pledge to Use It Up

I came across the Pledge to Use It Up in 2012 when I was checking my yahoo groups and browsing the blogs of various members.  One member was trying to complete a challenge and substituting what she had on hand because she was involved with this pledge.  She also posted pictures of her workspaces.  Yes, several of them, because they had managed to sprout in various corners of her house as one became too full to work in.

There can come a time when you have too much in your stash and you forget exactly what you do have or you don't take the time to go through every basket or box because you want it now and you don't know exactly where the item is.

I went through a workshop overhall before Christmas and my items are now all grouped together and my memory is still somewhat refreshed but I am at risk of letting it get back to its former size and mess.  What I need to do is
Use It Up
use my supplies, not hoard them or save them for something special that never seems to come along.  Take the time to look through my supplies before I start a project or challenge to see what I have on hand rather than fly by the seat of my pants and try to find the right piece at the last minute.

I'm involved in several challenges this year for bookbinding and I have the basic paper that I need.  I am going to apply this Use It Up in2012 challenge to the creation of those books.  Replacing consumable products like glue or items that you've run out of and can't find an alternative for is allowed.  (Good thing,  I don't have enough glue for an entire year). 

So far, more by inertia, than intent, my challenges have been completed using materials on hand. 

You can check out the button on the side for more details.

Sunday, January 29, 2012

A.R.T. Lesson 4

For this lesson, we are working on another "Pants" book or simple accordion with tunnel.  Once again it is made from a single sheet of paper.  The folding of the sections is a bit different and so is the opening of the book.  In this example, half the book is a tunnel which sits on a page from the book.  It's hard to describe so here is a picture of the finished product.


The first page of my tunnel has a door.  This picture shows the door closed and you can see that it is sitting on the text area of the book.  My theme is on "Time and Families".


This is what the front cover of my book looks like.  I used hinge stickers and alcohol inks to decorate the cover.


In this picture you can see the three opening of the tunnel.


Here you can see the back page of the tunnel.

This shows the last opening of the tunnel.

The text area spells out TIME and says "Time draws families closer, makes memories stronger, allows hurts to fade and blessings to grow."

Later ammendment:

I kept on playing with the tunnel book idea and decided to vary the windows that I used in the tunnel.  In keeping with my "Twinkle, twinkle, little star" theme, I used star and moon cutouts.





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