Tonight I wrapped up the printing for the covers of my Woodland Gnome Cahiers. I stopped at a Kelly Paper store on the way home and found a stock to use for the book block which gave me the information I needed to put the colophon together. I created another Gocco screen for it and knocked out the last of the printing on the covers.
JournalFest is coming up in October and after going through the confirmation materials, I’ve decide to make some things to trade. Normally, I end up scrambling at the last minute to get things together but this time I wanted to get ahead of the curve and get started. I attend PLAY regularly and normal make a small journal and a matching cahier, they’re always a hit so I’ve decided to make some of them JournalFest. I began by drawing out a Woodland Gnome for the cover and broke out my Gocco. I still have a cache of Gocco supplies and decided it would be the quickest way to get started. Here are a couple of shots of the covers in their first stages.
I began by laying down some blue ink to color the Gnome’s hat.
Once the blue ink was dry, I used a second screen to lay down some black ink.
The front of the covers completed.
Day three was a productive day as everyone worked on their projects, there were a few demos but overall people had their attention focused on finishing up their stuff.
Andrew’s Steampunk Journal looked great. He created it using an old clock spring, some watch parts and Ice Resin. I thought the texture he used on the surface of the clay was very nice and was surprised to find out he used some metal corset boning to create it. Andrew is a fashion designer and apparently, he carries some around with him.
Keeley spent the time working on her creatures. Their faces were so perfect that I assumed that they were made from a mold. But as Keeley talked about the work she told me that’s not the case, each one is individually sculpted. Her material of choice is PaperClay and that that I’ve seen a good example of what you can create with it, I may have to reevaluate it as a creative tool.
At least two polymer clay heart boxes were under construction but I know there were more.
Most people settled into the routine of just making things today or journaling today. Several people who had started polymer clay books yesterday finished them today by completing the baking process and painting them. A few people, myself included continued working with the polymer clay and made boxes that were shaped around organic forms. Some molded forms like a heart out of foil, I used a rock.
Some of the other PLAY participants were admiring my tiny jade book and The Books of the Jade Skulls. They asked about the technique I use to create the faux jade with polymer clay so I set up a demonstration and taught them how to make it. The demonstration left me with a piece of faux jade clay, I thought about making another small pocket book with it but instead I decided to make a box. I covered a rock with a layer of gold clay, then covered the first layer with the faux jade.
Day one of PLAY was all about polymer clay. Tracy Moore taught his Relic Journal and demonstrated how to make journal covers using polymer clay and jewelers resin to build. This is a similar technique I used for The Book of Jade Faces, but the surfaces are painted instead of composed using colored clays. Several people were new to polymer so there were lots of questions of questions and some trial and error. There was a wide variety of styles from completely organic forms to some highly structured compositions. I’d have to give the “Eye for Detail” prize to Matt who created a forest of mushrooms on his cover complete with the gills on the underside of each mushroom.
Here are a few more examples of what people were working on in various stage of completion.
