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.

A.R.T, Adventures in Bookbinding Lesson 3

For Lesson 3 we created another Xbook, but this time we did the variation with pockets.  I still have to come up with the appropriate content for this one but here is the structure.

The pocket is about 1.5".

I used scraps of my cover stock and a complimentary paper for the tag inserts.

The next structure is called the "Pants" book.  It is made from a single sheet of paper but unlike the Xbook, the fold is cut for three of the four sections.

This makes a longer book.  For a variation, you can sew a signature into the centre fold of the book.  I haven't done that yet but I'm thinking about it.

Non-Adhesive Interwoven/Interlocking Structures

This past weekend I completed part two of a two day workshop sponsored by the Southwestern Ontario chapter of CBBAG.  The workshop instructor, Jan Taylor, guided us through three new structures and helped us to adapt one for our own project.

We tackled a Buttonhole Binding (which was the one that I used for my personal project), a book with an interlocking cover and and accordion style book whose cover was interwoven to the end pages.
For the buttonhole book, we created nine signatures that were sewn to the cover using a buttonhole stitch at the top and bottom of the spine.  The mid portion of the spine was cut away to show the signatures.  Already I can see a lot of decorating possibilities for this one.  We used a heavy weight paper for the cover.  The cover was the same height as the text block and the length of the cover was 2x the width of the text block + the width of the spine + the width of fold-ins on both the front and back cover.  The width of the fold –ins was left to our own discretion.

The accordion style book used a long strip of text wove paper 6” x 30”.   This was divided into 8 equal sections.  We used two colours of paper for the cover.  Each cover was 2x the width of the text block + 2x .5” fold for spine + the width of a fold –in for the cover. The folded spine sections  for the front and back covers were divided into 7 equal sections.   Every other section was folded back to be used to attach the text paper to the cover.  I used aqua and brown for my cover paper.  On the aqua cover, the 2nd, 4th, and 6th sections were folded back to be used to attach the text.  On the brown cover, the 1st, 3rd, 5th and 7th section would be used to attach the text paper.  The remaining sections of the spine fold were woven together using a piece of tyveck to form a checkerboard like spine.  This weaving together of the spine and the woven of attachment of the cover to the text paper, was challenging.  In end, I used my micro spatula like a bodkin to pull the tyveck through the folded sections. 

The sewn text block of the third book used tyveck strips as the tapes.  These were coloured and decorated using Derwent Inktense Watercolour pencils.  Tyveck absorbed the colour well and provided strength to the structure.  Slots were cut into the cover and the tyveck strips were woven through to attach the cover and the decorative strip of handmade paper that was placed over the spine area of the book.  Another decorated strip of tyveck was used as the strap to keep the cover closed.  It slipped into a space between the strip of handmade paper and the other two tyveck tapes and effectively held the book closed. 

No adhesive was used for any of these structures.

My personal project was covering a book of poetry for a friend.  I had a richly textured paper for the cover and I was looking for an interesting binding.  I chose the buttonhole binding and then added hardward to the cover for the book label.

Adventures in Bookbinding

I belong to a subgroup of the the Millande Art Community ning group, called "Hinges".  It's a group of people interested in Artist books and bookbinding.  For 2012, this group has started a challenge called "Adventures in Bookbinding".  Every month we are going to explore a new form of Artist book or binding structure.  We all submitted ideas to the moderators of the group and these have been organized and we are now on our way.

Our first book type is called a Squash book.  I made one a while back on a Nature theme and I'm using that as my example.  I used 12 x 12" cardstock with 6.25 x 6.25" cardboard covers.

I used wallpaper border to decorate my cover.  I also embossed a copper tag for the title.

When opened, it looks like this:

I used mulberry paper, photos, wallpaper cutouts, stamped quotes and handwritten quotes to decorate the interior of the book.

I also added a small foldout on the last square of the book.  It is behind the tree frog photo.



Here is a link to a youtube video tutorial for making Squash books: Part 1 , Part 2

Here is a link to pdf directions:  Squash book.pdf

Artists of the Round Table

For 2012 I've set myself a challenge -- I'm taking part in an online workshop on Alisa Golden's "Making Handmade Books:  100+ Bindings, Structures and Forms" with other members of the Artists of the Round Table Yahoo Group. 

I love the book and have looked at it from cover to cover, but without some encouragement I know I won't try more than just a few of the examples.  This workshop is going to challenge me to work my way through the book (with guided lessons from our fearless workshop leaders) and post pictures of my progress.

Each lesson is comprised of a reading assignment and activity and is designed to take several hours during our week.  Progress photos are posted in a group gallery.

Lesson 1 involved getting materials together.  Here is my preparation photo:

Lesson 2 involved reading and creating two simple books.  The X book and the Shorts book.  Each book is made from a single sheet of 8.5 x 11" paper.

Here is my X book:

I used the poem "Moss" by Brian Guernsey for my text.  I found a photo of moss covered stones and played with it in Photoshop Elements 9 to give it a translucent look.  I took the text of the poem and placed it on the various sections of the page that would later become the pages of my book.  I tried to make it borderless printing, but somehow that option seemed to disappear when I tried to print.  (I'll have to work on that in the future).  I used alcohol inks to intensify the greens of the moss and to try to blend in the border around the edges of the book.

When folded into book form, it looks like this:

My second book is the Shorts book.  Again, it is made from a single piece of 8.5 x 11" paper.  I used card stock that had a pattern printed on one side.  I folded the paper so that the pattern would appear on the front and back covers of the book.

I then used stamps, masks and stencils to decorate the book pages.  I chose the variation that glued the bottom of the interior pages together, making a pocket for a tag.

When you turn the page, you see this:

I used a silk leaf as the tab for my tag.  It slides into the pocket made between the two page sections so that only a portion of the leaf shows.

This is only week 2 but I'm enjoying myself immensely.  Hopefully life won't get so hectic (winter is cold and flu season around here) that I can't stay on track.