by Steve | Jul 7, 2012 | Recently Bound |
This year the 4th of July fell on on Wednesday which as you might imagine left an awkward space in the middle of the week. Binding some books seemed like a good way to fill the space so I grabbed a package of Fabriano Artistico and began tearing it down. Beyond the mid-week lull, the other factor driving me was that my small Mesquite Journal only had two pages left in it. It’s a small journal, about 4 3/4″ X 3″ and I made it from the branch of a mesquite tree that a storm took down. Over the time I’ve been working in this journal I’ve really gotten to like the size so I wanted another one the same size. Here’s a shot of the Mesquite Journal i you haven’t seen it.
5 1/2″ X 8 1/2″ is also a favorite size so after a few quick calculations six sheets yielded enough for three books. One 5 1/2″ X 8 1/2″, one 4 3/4″ X 3″ and a micro-book 1 1/2″ X 2 7/8″. The first book out of the three completed was the one I intend to replace the Mesquite one with. The covers are walnut burl. Like the mesquite journal, I inlaid the cover with a contrasting wood, in this case fiddleback maple. Here it is.
More to come.
by Steve | Oct 14, 2011 | Notebooks, Recently Bound |
I’ve been working on wrapping up my trades so I can pack them up and ship them to Port Townsend. Today, I completed all of the Emergency Journaling Kits. I made 20 of these to give away so I’m afraid I’m going to have to be a little selective about who gets them. Here’s a shot of them as they’re about to get packed up.
A couple of people have asked what’s inside so here’s a detail shot of the contents. Each kit contains 10 sheets of Fabriano Artistico, a 0.3 Micron pen, a micropalette with Daniel Smith watercolors and a small paintbrush for the watercolors.
by Steve | Sep 10, 2011 | Recently Bound |
Not much explanation needed… I’ve been casing in the book blocks I made and they’re just about done. These are the first four that have been completed.
by Steve | Mar 24, 2011 | Polymer Clay, Recently Bound |
Not too long ago I heard a story on NPR about the ways in which science fiction has predictive of the future. One of the movies they talked about in the story was Forbidden Planet, a movie I hadn’t actually seen its entirety until recently. The story was the only excuse I needed to watch the movie again, it was also a way to honor Leslie Nielsen who died back in November.
A couple of days after the movie an idea for a new book started to form and after tinkering a bit with some polymer clay, The Book of Altaria was born. The book block consists of eight, three page signatures which are sewn to a leather spine with 4-ply waxed Irish linen. The image in the “view screen” is a picture of Anne Francis who played Altaria i the movie.
The book really isn’t a direct interpretation of anything that was in the movie but just another lamentation on decay and post apocalyptic artifacts.
by Steve | Jan 2, 2011 | Polymer Clay, Recently Bound |
Since I had all my polymer clay tools out to make the covers for my Small Jade Scrap Book, I decided to continue working with the clay and make a few other covers for my scrap books. Next up was a book block that measured 3″ X 4 “. These scraps were 140 Lb. Fabriano Artistico so I limited the signatures to 3 pages, when you’re working at a small scale like this adding too many pages will make your book impossible to close.
I ended up with 10 signatures and decided to continue down the simulated stone road and whipped up a batch of polymer clay turquoise for the covers. In this particular technique you chop the clay up in a food processor and then re-integrate it into sheets. I had some concerns about the integrity of the covers over the long haul, so the interior of the covers are just a sheet of solid black polymer clay.
The binding itself is straight forward. The signatures are and sewn to the leather spine with 4-ply Irish Linen. I liked the color variations in the turquoise, so to emphasize that, I used three different colors of blue thread for the sewing.
by Steve | Jan 1, 2011 | Recently Bound |
Over the holidays I decided I was going to tidy up and I began by cleaning out the bin where I keep my paper. I had a healthy pile of scraps and given that I use Fabriano Artistico for almost all of my journals I wasn’t about to throw any of it out. I sorted the scraps by weight and size, and then tore them down into into book blocks. When the carnage was over, I had 13 book blocks ranging from very small to what I would consider pocket size. I began binding them a few days ago and first out of the gate was this small Faux Jade book with skulls and bone chips. The covers were created from polymer clay using a faux jade technique. I applied some polymer clay “bone chips” along the fore edge just to make it a little more interesting visually. Frankly, I used these techniques because I had scrap polymer clay laying around and wanted to clean up the clay bin too.
The book block is 90 Lb. Fabriano Artistico sewn to a leather spine with 4-ply Irish Linen thread. This is small book and the dimensions are approximately 3″ X 3″ Here’s what it looks like:
