Friday 18 July 2014

constructing a book


Hi again. I certainly didn't mean to be away so long. So much to take me away from here, including the hurricane damage we incurred after Arthur passed through with winds much higher than forecast- in fact 100kmh higher. Luckily we only lost electric power for 6 hours and then a couple of shorter periods during the course of the day compared to some folks who had to endure many days of outage.

the morning before the storm

the morning after: a huge branch fallen from one of our ash trees

 Between the heat that followed and the days spent cleaning up after the storm, another week went by before I made it back into the studio.  All the while I was thinking about a book I've been wanting to make. What materials would I use? How big would it be? What would its theme be? Would there be words? A story? How does one make a cover? Finally the day came. It was a Tuesday afternoon:

I chose a piece of encyclopedia endpaper and wrapped it around 3 pages of an old book that I folded to make a signature, my one signature book. I sewed it up.

I had previously torn the page edges; that's the look I was going for.

Then I cut the covers and spine from a pizza box and masking taped them together
I have since learned that I didn't leave enough room between the spine and the covers to allow for closing the book properly. Ah, well, a beginner's project.

I cut some vintage ledger paper to wrap the covers and spine in,
 mitered the edges of the paper and glued it onto my cover

whoops! It was see-through. Not the look I was going for.

and how did this happen? The endpapers don't cover the inside of the cardboard covers.

I cut them down

I refitted the book covers with a new (old) brown opaque paper,
using the bone folder to crisp up the edges that I was about to glue.

This paper was not so obedient to stay put, so I clamped the edges down while the glue dried.

I occupied myself during this drying stage by gessoing my pages,
 picking out phrases that appealed to me.
 I also began to draw the owls that I intended to glue into the book.

Now it was time to glue the signature into the book 
by attaching the back of the endpapers to the inside covers. 


Oh darn. Short again. I cut a new strip of endpaper to add to the right edge. Hopefully it won't be too noticeable. (Maybe I shouldn't have told you, Ha ha) 
The fact is I don't really mind as I'm going for a deconstructed look. I love the look of old things. 
(How convenient for me that it is the natural course of a beginner's work.)

In my next post, I will give you a progress report- with pictures- of how the book is coming along.

I hope you are having a pleasant summer (or winter for that matter) and that you will join me next time.

peace

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