by Steve | Jan 23, 2010 | Recently Bound |
In the process of preparing to go to PLAY for a few days I’ve bound two books, the leather wrap and The Book of Jade Faces. I’ve very satisfied with the way they both turned out but something still wasn’t right, I needed more. I wanted something… a little… beefier? I rummaging through my supplies trying to get an idea of what I wanted and then I found a piece of walnut burl, the grain and striations in the wood were fantastic. I only had one piece of walnut but I was able to squeeze two 8 1/2″ X 5 1/2″ pieces out of it. To do that however, I had to cut it so the grain was running horizontally across the cover instead of from top to bottom. Visually I think it works, the burl hides the direction of the grain well and from structural standpoint this is a fairly hard wood so there shouldn’t be any problem with wear or breakage.
The beauty of the wood called for a very simple treatment so after easing the edges and slightly rounding the corners to avoid “pokeage” a couple of coats of Tung Oil were applied, followed by a couple of coats of Carnuba Wax. The book block is 300 gm (140 Lb.) Fabriano Artistico and sewn to a leather spine with waxed polyester thread using a modified long-stitch. As the stitches go down the spine they get progressively longer and a friend commented that it creates an illusion that each series of Xs is fatter than the one above. Here are the photos:
by Steve | Jan 20, 2010 | Recently Bound |
I put the last detail onto The Book of Jade Faces and as stood there looking at it there was a problem. Fabriano Artistico paper comes in 22″ X 30″ sheets and because of the size of these journals, when I tear the pages down from the sheet I’m left with a 3″ x 22″ strip of paper. Normally, I’d just toss them into my scrap bin and use them down the road but this time, the scraps lay there on the counter mocking me. What the scraps didn’t realize is the the polymer clay and all the tools were still out on the counter. They weren’t scraps for long.
This small pocket journal is 3″ X 3″. Both the front and back covers are made from polymer clay. The front cover is made from the faux jade that was used to make The Book of Jade Faces, I added some inlay just to make it a little more interesting. The inlay is gold polymer clay, the design in the inlay was created with a fairly standard mica shift technique. The back cover is the gold clay which I cut the inlay from. I’m not completely satisfied with the way it turned out and I’ll probably replace it, but it’s not bad for a few minutes work.
by Steve | Jan 16, 2010 | Recently Bound |
Unlike Artfest which is several days of formal workshops and classes hosted by Teesha and Tracy Moore, PLAY is a “come as you are and do your own thing, but if you’re interested we’re going to teach a class or do a demo over there” affair. This year, it looks like Tracy is going to teach his Relic Journal class during PLAY. The Relic Journal is made using polymer clay, resin, leather and found objects. I’ve been working with polymer clay for years and teach a similar class but I still like Tracy’s. Tracy limits the size of journals in this class to 5 1/2″ X 5 1/2″ and when I asked him why a few years ago he said it was because of durability and weight considerations. I’ve made bigger structures out of polymer but agree with him on the weight issue, on durability i might argue if it cracks or breaks, I’m okay with that.
I know that I’ll make a Relic Journal while I’m at PLAY but I decided to make one to take with me, maybe it will be my primary journal for the next few months. I think one of the reasons I like Tracy Moore’s work is because like be he’s drawn to what I would consider dystopic forms. Most of the journals I’ve seen come out of this class in the past have at least one skull and almost all are painted in browns and blue-green hues to give the feeling of antiquity. On my leather journal I used some faux bone for the closure, when I make faux bone I generally make a large block of it and use it in several projects over the course of time. I decided to use the bone and built up the cover using a layer of the bone on top of the basic structure, I liked the way it looked but I wanted something to provide contrast with the bone. After think through a variety of options Jade seemed like a good fit. Here are some photos of the completed journal, The Book of Jade Faces.
Here’s a more detailed image of the faces, when I made them using molds I laid a paper thin layer of the bone in the mold before pressing the jade into it.
by Steve | Jan 14, 2010 | Recently Bound |
Over the past couple of years I’ve started to use PLAY as a way point for a fresh start. I usually bind a book just before I go, take it to PLAY and then it becomes one of my primary journals for the year. I haven’t really produced anything over the past couple of months except for one book which was a birthday gift for a friend. She had mentioned what she wanted some time ago in a casual conversation and probably forgot about it. She had talked about what I typically just call a wrap, a single piece of leather that wraps around the pages to enclose them.
I made one for her with some grey leather, the dimensions were about 5″ X 8″ and although I’m not a fan of this style, I actually liked it when it was done. Later that week I stopped by the Leather Factory and found a great half-hide which was kind of a mottled milk chocolate brown… nice. The only logical thing to do? Make a journal out of it.
I bound this journal using the leather I found at the Leather Factory, 200 gsm (90 Lb.) Fabriano Artistic and 4-ply waxed Irish Linen thread. The closure is made from polymer clay using a faux bone technique. My original idea with this was to slip strips under the closure and then tuck them in on the back side of the journal. Here’s a detail of the closure.
by Steve | Jan 12, 2010 | Collaborative Projects |
I’ve been participating in Someguy;s 1001 Journals for a while now. I started out doing Traveling Journals which were based on the original 1000 Journals project but several of them disappeared. I decided to try location journals instead and I’ve had really good success with them, normally I leave them at coffee shops in the area and periodically I take them home and scan them. When they’re full, I do a final set of scans.
Journal 3885, The Book of the Salmon Latte was recently filled. I’ll be getting the final scans up over the next month or so and you can view them at the 1001 Journals website (http://1001journals.com).
