Feathers Folder

I made this little file folder for a friend who produces beautiful bird art.  Some of these tiny feathers, collected over a number of years, have finally found their way into one of my projects.

Wallpaper lining, painted and printed with acrylics
(approx. 4.5" x 4") .....

.... with four internal pockets

A selection of tiny feathers encased in paper and cellophane  packets

Sketchbook challenge continued ...

Adding more to pages already started.

This spread utilises past sketches, scanned and enlarged to fit within the paint-scraped border.  On the right I have used a fine liner pen to reinforce the inkjet print.  Underneath the tracing paper insert on the left, I have collaged a piece of cover paper from my original handmade book to mimic the colour of the snakeshead fritillaries.

A saved Austrian Christmas card image has been added here and I have used pencil (and imagination) to extend the scene.

Sketchbook and online courses

I have been slow in adding work to my blog this month.  This has been partly because I have been taking a bit of a break after completing the daily Inktober challenge; in addition, I have been working on this year's Christmas card design which is not ready to be revealed yet.

I have also signed up for a short, online sketchbook challenge run by Laura Kemshall - eight videos throughout November (which can be followed at your own pace).  The course is very reasonably priced at £12 - if you are interested, follow this link.

I thought this would be an ideal opportunity to use the beautiful sketchbook my friend Pat made.  The first assignment was to "break the ice" and get rid of some of the blank pages by randomly adding some found papers, etc. - a couple of mine are shown below.  Now to catch up with the second session.

Faux leather cover with embroidered insert - 9" x 6.5"
(handmade by Pat Kitching)

Foam printed paper collage and stitch

Tartan ribbon - machine stitched

Paste paper collage and stitch

Part of a lino print

Another course being released later this month is by Este MacLeod - this will be free, but you need to sign up to her Newsletter (at the bottom on her home page) to receive details.

Happy sketching!

The fishbone fold book

I have been meaning to have a go at the fishbone fold book as shown in Hedi Kyle's book "The Art of the Fold", but found the diagrams rather daunting.  However, I came across this video by Paula Beardell Krieg which made it look a little easier.

My piece of painted paper was a bit stiff when it came to making the narrow folds (Paula makes it look so effortless to get everything even), but I was quite pleased with the final result.  I didn't try the second version with added pockets.

Care Mail and handmade books

Our local council is asking for notes or cards which can be forwarded to care home residents to help cheer them up during this lengthy period of isolation.

As well as some of my printed cards, I am sending a couple of artists' booklets.

This one is a little wild - a while ago, I had the urge to completely fill an A3 sheet of black paper with my handmade floral foam stamps, then wasn't sure what to do with it.  Hopefully it will brighten someone's day.

Cover - 4" x 6"

Gesso, acrylic and metallic ink

The other was a prototype for my garden pop-up book (final version here) - this just needed some coloured pencil added to the pen illustrations to finish it off.

You can find my cutting guide for the booklet in this post.

3" x 5" folded from one sheet of A4 paper

A little lino concertina book

The results of my recent lino printing session.  This black paper has a mind of its own - or perhaps it is just influenced by the curves of the design!

Glued spine book

This one is from quite some time ago but I have posted it on the Crafting Handmade Books Facebook page in response to April's challenge - " to use something that's been in your craft closet for more than ONE YEAR!"

Certainly when I made this book most of the papers and sketches, etc. were at least that old.

A friend had made me a a small watercolour book with a glued spine, plus instructions on how to make it. I had quite a few strips of painted papers left over from a longstanding project and decided to use them to test out this construction. I also added some discarded lino and foam prints, tiny sketchbook doodles, pockets and papercasts. The finished book measures approx. 5” x 4”.

I have had to cut the video (below) by half a dozen pages
as the file was bigger than allowed on the blog

Piano hinge book

I finally managed to attempt the September challenge of the Facebook group "Crafting Handmade Books".  This was the piano hinge book on page 142 of The Art of the Fold.

I cut down some pages from an old atlas to use for this and, as the pages were rather wide, I folded them in at the fore edge - this compensates for the thickness of the spine.

Atlas pages and bamboo skewers
Finished size approx. 6.5" x 8"

Lino printing workshop

Early on in my efforts with relief printing, I attended a local course on the three colour lino print process.  My initial attempt wasn't very good and my clown ended up looking rather sinister, but rather than waste time cutting a new block I concentrated on getting to grips with the different cutting and inking stages, as well as exploring the varying ways the same print could be used.

My prints weren't good enough to be used for anything other than reference so I decided to write up some notes from the weekend and chose 18 slightly differing images, all bound into a Japanese style album. It has become a handy little reference book - I am sure I would have forgotten most of it otherwise.

This has been added to the Bookbinding page, where you can see other examples of my artists' books.

A selection of some of the prints

I cut out and removed the clown and balloons from the brown
paper and glued the background over the print on the painted mulberry paper*.
 (Unfortunately, this was not a good print, but I liked the
effect of using the two different papers in one image.)

The clown cut from the brown paper (above) was collaged onto
 this print on cream paper

More artists' books

Tidying up my studio, I found a shoe box with some more of my earlier book making efforts.  So I have added a few more pictures to my Bookbinding Gallery page.

Triangular Valentine

Folded pocket book update

The pink and green booklet in my previous post has been transformed into a teeny, tiny album for a new great granddaughter.  A band of toning paper covers the spine and one of my paper flowers has been added to the front.  A couple of photos of mother and baby have been popped into the pockets to start it off.

Folded pocket book

A friend sent me a link to this book structure and suggested I try it out.

I must admit I was a bit confused by photograph no. 7 in the instructions and my first attempt was a bit sloppy.  However, I was using A4 paper so altered the top fold measurement (see Item 4) to 30 mm instead of 1.5".  Also, photos 7 and 8 show fairly widely cut out triangles, so I reduced the width of mine to make for a neater fit when the pages are slotted together.

Centre slot to be cut out of half the pages

Triangles at head and tail to be cut out of the other half of the pages

Thick paper would be difficult to manipulate and I only used three pages - 2 with triangles cut from top and bottom, one with the centre slot.  This made a book measuring 3" x 3.5", with 12 triangular pockets and 6 hidden pockets,

This was my second attempt, just using plain paper so I could check out my revised measurements.  As a cover I wrapped a bit of coloured paper round the whole structure, slotting it into the front and back pockets, finishing off by sticking a band of paper along the bottom edge.

For my third attempt, I sponged colour on both sides of the paper, but haven't worried about a cover as yet.

Bookmarks and an Altered Book

Following my participation in the Bookmarks Project (details here), I now have a set over 50 individual bookmarks from the 15th year of this challenge.  These have been languishing in an envelope in my "in-tray" since August last year and I have been wondering how to display them.  I came up with the idea of an altered book to house them, together with a niche for the original blocks I used to print my own contribution of 100 bookmarks.

I went in search of an appropriate book in the sales shelves of our local library and found one of the right size for 40p.  I was hoping to find one with a title relating to "books" or "reading", but no luck there.

Using about 120 pages at the end of the book, I cut out an area to contain the lino blocks, glued these together using plenty of gel medium around the page edges and the cut edges.  The whole of this area was then stuck to the back cover, with a piece of painted tissue between the two.

I still have 260 or so pages out of which I will fold and decorate pockets for the bookmarks.  Intervening pages will be cut out so that the book doesn't become too bulky.  Since deciding on this book I have found out that it would have been better to choose one with a stitched spine, rather than a glued one - the former would have allowed the cleaner removal of superfluous pages from the middle of each signature.  Let's hope this one holds together OK with all my alterations.

The novel is about slave-catchers in New York in the 1840's and each chapter commences with a related quote from that era - I aim to retain those pages unchanged.

The cut-out is just under half an inch deep

Just enough room for the lino blocks

A start on the folded pockets

Mini Collage Book

I have finally completed my mini collage book. I didn't start off with any particular theme in mind, except that I used pages from a paperback printed in a Far Eastern language as the base for each collage.

To recap: the book measures 4” x 5”, using black paper with a glued spine. The covers have been collaged with book pages, teabag paper, leaves, printed tissue, gesso and a postage stamp. A printed paper band acts as a closure.

The 17 collages measure 3” x 4” and utilise the small sample pads of paper sent to me by Hahnemuhle. These were coated with gesso on both sides then collaged with book pages, printed tissue, teabag paper, stamps and tiny sketches, with varying additions of paint, ink, pencil, texture paste, fabric and thread. Instead of gluing the collages into the book, I used transparent photo corners which worked quite well.

The final four collages

The completed book

See also -

The start: 

In progress:

Mini collage book

Four more mini collages to add to the collection:

I have made a small glued spine book for these and, rather than stick the collages to the pages, I have used photo corners. The book measures approx. 4" x 5" and due to the thickness of the inserts I made a paper band to keep it closed.  To date there 13 collages and I still have four more pages to fill.

Collaged front and back covers  

Front cover and paper band closure

Inside view

See also

The start:
https://paperpaintandprint.blogspot.co.uk/2017/03/mini-collage.html

The finish:
https://paperpaintandprint.blogspot.co.uk/2017/05/mini-collage-book_28.html

Cricklade artist's book (2)

I have finally put this book together (12 pages in total).  (See previous post.) The image on the front cover was a paper cast made from one of my lino cuts and therefore the book needed to be in portrait format.  However, most of my sketches needed to be in landscape format, so I decided to alternate between landscape orientated images and portrait aligned text.

Cover 4" x 6"

Pages 2 and 3

Pages 4 and 5