I've been home for a week now with the kind of flu that reminds a person how amazing it is that we have modern medicine...I'm sure that 200 years ago I would have coughed myself to death, or at least into some secondary infection that would take ages to recover from.  Thanks to a trip to my doc yesterday and a mittful of modern meds, I had my first full night's sleep in several days.

It's weird to have been away from work this long while classes are in session.  School board work often means chunks of time off, but it's pretty much always the same chunks of time for staff and students alike.

The last few days have left me in long stretches of low-energy consciousness...not so energetic that I could, say, do the laundry, but with enough percolation to sit and fiddle.

Of course, the foremost thing in my mind right now is the Sketchbook Project.

With a couple of drawings/paintings already ready to go for the Project, it was time to experiment with a bit of binding to see what is going to be useful and long-term functional for something that will be moved, opened, closed, shelved, packed, moved, flipped through again, etc.  I used a modified (mostly due to the size of my paper) version of Teesha Moore's Journal. My final book is pretty small, and the fold-flap pages are a bit abbreviated compared to Teesha's, but it was more about experimenting with the ideas than perfection.  Also wanted to answer some questions I had about how this particular paper would react to being heavily water coloured on both sides, and whether or not the markers would bleed (or if paint would want to creep through the stitching holes).

I used 3 pieces of paper, torn to approximate what Teesha did with her one large sheet.  My book has deckled edges on the top and bottom of each page, cover included.  The deckled edge allows for the handmade feel of the book, and those torn edges react to the paint differently, creating a natural border when the work runs all the way to the edges.

I used a waxed Egyptian cotton (not linen) thread to do the stitching, and found that I couldn't get it as tight as I wanted. It's because of this that I glued the pieces of mulberry paper to both the outside spine (as shown on the photos of the outside cover) and on the inmost signature.  They were fun, too, to play against with the paint, seeing how/if they would absorb the pigments in the same way as the rag papers, or not.  I was really quite happy with the way that the two papers complement each other.

Also, to play and experiment, I pre-painted all of the pages in random colours - just quick glazes, motley and spontaneous.  Having not painted in layers in quite this way before, it was interesting to see how the paint colour would suggest different subject matter.  The first page, with the portrait face, was pretty tricky, really.  It was my first time drawing on a surface that had nothing to do with the subject matter, and it took a lot of concentration.  All in all, I'm pretty happy with the outcome.  

The page that I did this morning shows two handmade things that are precious gifts given me by friends over the Christmas holidays.  The page colour suggested this as topic, as the plate and the background colour have the same rare yellow/green hue to them.  It was painted so that the yellow/green could glow through the  over painting and give some cohesiveness to the whole picture.

The paper held up well, and you can plainly see in the pictures the bit of bleed-through at the stitch holes on the signature, but all in all it was more successful than expected.  I'll probably bind a couple more little wee books like this to get the stitching tension ironed out better, then jump in and do the actual book for submission.

The whole thing leaves me wondering...if I weren't me, what would I do with all this time on my hands?  What do other people do when they're at home sick for long stretches? I caught up on all of my website work, wrote the rough draft of my proposal for a work thing, hammered through a bunch of email that was waiting to be dealt with, read 3 books and watched 4 movies (oh, find time to watch 'Mary and Max', especially if you have Netflix). That, and managed to sleep long chunks of time away here and there, including all of last weekend. 

Oh, and for the people in the audience who love that technical stuff, the paper is some bottom rung 100 lb rag paper, the paint is Koi, the markers are Pitt and Staedtler, and the pencil is one of those ones made of recycled Chinese newspapers.  

In better health,

Lisa

The sketchbook project

In a few moments of decision over the Christmas Holiday, I signed up for the Sketchbook Project.  I went for it, the whole enchilada...and am so glad that I did.

When the sketchbook itself arrived, I was a bit disappointed.  It's a rather small and slim Moleskine with very light paper (suitable for drawing, but not for too much more).  The paper is a nice quality, and there are only 8 leaves in the (single) signature, making for about 15 double page spreads in total.  The cover is plain, recycled cardboard brown, and it has a little bar code on the back with my name and my theme, 'The Science Of Story'.

The plainness, the thinness of the sketchbook is part of the genius.  It really does represent the 'blank canvas', the emptiness on which we participants can improvise and riff our way to a completed book.  The 'rules' of the project allow for all kinds of shenanigans.  We can alter and replace, unbind and rebind, fold, cut and burn our books into almost anything we want...as long as the final closed/storage size is the same width and length, and no thicker than 1".

Once I started playing around with actual images, doing paint sketches for the parts that were already clear in my mind, I realized that the best course of action for me is going to be to make the book as individual pages, then to assemble and bind them into the existing (or a modified) cover, replacing the existing paper.

I've rediscovered watercolour.  The existing book pages are too light to take the water and paint, and I have a block of bright white 100lb watercolour paper here to play with...so, naturally I'll be making my book from the paper I have on hand.

I could probably fill over a hundred blog posts with all the things that I've forgotten about watercolour as a medium; the how-to's and all the little terminology items like, 'grisaille' and 'impasto'.  Been operating mostly on instinct, feeling my way around the medium again, relearning all the little things (like that I should have taped the dang paper down - fundamental, Lisa!!).

 I ended up doing two parallel paintings, both from the same base image/reference photo.  I wanted to try something that used a lot of heavy black, that let it run all over, that took multiple glazes of colour to bring to life, and something completely controlled, almost 'comic book' style for the actual title page.

The photo of the black and white self above and the one above left are two stages of the same painting.  The one above right is the grisaille, the one at left is after multiple washes were applied and let run around, doing their wonderful damage to the base image.  The final painting is very gestural and warm, with a lot of dimension.  It was a good way to play and loosen up so that I didn't get to tight doing the other image, the one that will probably end up being the title page of the book.

 This one had more steps and stages, and many, many more washes.  Using a totally different approach (but one I'm far more comfortable with), this one began with dropping in the shadow areas of the sketch.  Each layer applied overlaps and deepens the colour of the existing layers, while is translucent on the paper and other exposed areas.

If you've been reading this blog for a few years, you will remember that this is the same method used for 'Bacchanalia' and 'Blossom Lady' quilts.

I love the under painting stages every bit as much as the finishing, when it comes to this method.

The second picture is an intermediate stage that shows a few more layers dropped in.

The last photo here, at right, is the finished image.  Once the painting was all done, I went in with some fine tipped markers (black and brown) and tightened up here and there, creating greater definition and doing the lettering. This one will get a little work yet, as I need to balance the composition a bit more.  I'll probably do some nice lettering borrowing from what the project has already established, dropping 'the sketchbook project' into the upper left hand corner.

Next, I need to make some real decisions about how this is all going to go.  I have a loose idea, but am at the 'rubber hitting the road' stage, and need to just get working on the more difficult stuff.  Can't wait.

:)
Lisa

Unable to leave well enough alone

 I tried to be happy with the way the beginning of the book was...but I just wasn't.  January was messy...as any learning should be...and the rest of the book was clean and lovely.

I woke up this morning thinking,"I bet I could disassemble that book, print a new January, and reassemble it again". As it turns out, it's not so hard to take apart a coil bound book, if you're careful and don't try to take out too many pages at once!    I carefully slid the pages out, printed new ones, then put them back in.

You'd think I would have been happy with that.

But that's where you'd be wrong.

I kept thinking...it would be nice if there were some contact pages at the beginning for all those numbers  that our family needs to have close to the surface.  And some more pockets would be nice.  And some dividers - one at the end of June, one at the beginning of September....

I took it all apart again.  I folded and punched, stamped and glued, and put it all back together again into a really lovely book that I feel very good about. If I'd left it as it stood last night, I would have thought - this could be better... and never felt quite right about using it.

All things considered, it went together rather well.

Fave details:

• It doesn't necessarily look like a homemade planner, but definitely has a hand crafted feel
• It has pockets and dividers where I want them, where they will be used
• room for notes and miscellany in the back (no doubt also for notes on how to make next year's one even better yet!)
• The heaviness of the sketchbook paper
• The portable size
• The colours
• Little reminders here and there to 'do art'.  That's my main goal for the year...to do more art.

Cheers,

Lisa

As the year closes

 The last couple of months I've been rolling around an idea in my head. Well, okay, more than one idea...but this one is about my day planner.For the last several years I have bought the same planner - and loved it.  It has room for all the things I need, and more.  It's the 'and more' part that got me thinking. Much as I appreciate the organizational brilliance of these books, I rarely use the family profile pages, note pages or contact pages (except as grocery list paper).   After all these years of planner use (at least 20), I know what I need from a planner.  

So, typical of my personality, I decided to make one myself.  

After surfing the web looking at endless templates that weren't quite right, I decided to draw my own. Rather than attempt to print out all the pages from my computer in the proper order, double side them accurately and collate them, I opted to buy an existing book and play with some ideas.

The things I liked about the purchased planner were the hard cover and the coil binding (can't beat a book that will lie flat!), so I bought a 5.5 X 8" sketchbook and made a stencil template to rule the pages.  There were a bunch of letter and number stamps kicking around a drawer upstairs begging to be put to good use, so I employed them as my typeface.

It probably took me about 4 hours to print up (to be honest, 2 of those hours were spent watching a spaghetti western movie with my husband, and the other two listening to a Jeffrey Archer book while printing).  I learned a LOT in the process (for example, mounted stamps are far easier to handle than unmounted ones...it took until about June to figure that out!).  My later pages are far prettier than my earlier ones, but that is to be expected, isn't it?

And here, my final picture of my sample page, will not load the way it should!!  This is my 3rd try to get this particular picture to load...and it will remain rotated, as I can not get it to go any other way.

It made most sense to put the month on the right page.  My weeks are all Mon - Friday on the left, the weekend on the right.  The lower right divided area is for 'to do' lists, and telephone messages.
My planner tends to spend most of it's life on the kitchen counter being consulted daily for meal planning and open for use and referral by other family members, so the loosely divided space on the lower right doesn't get formal designation...

It's hard to see in the picture, but I've put big gold stamps on family birthdays (Youngest's is Sept 29, shown at left).

 After all the stamping was done, I added some expandable pockets for receipts, etc. The whole works is sitting under a pile of books upstairs while the glue dries.  Tomorrow I begin the adventure of writing in all the different things we have already lined up for the coming year...not the least of which involves speed skating.

It's silly, but every year I have the same satisfaction with closing the previous year's planner, and opening the new year's one.  As we get older there are fewer milestones - and the ones we have tend to get further and further apart.  There's something about the ritual of literally closing the book on one year and opening a fresh new book on the new one that's so appealing.  All those blank pages will be filled with the story of our lives... the literal story, the minutiae. We have the stories we tell about our lives, the love, the memories, but these planners end up being the record of how we get from one day to the next.

Enjoy the rest of the year.  I hope your next year's book is filled with lovely things.

Lisa

Mailed

A few of the final steps

Sorry that this is not the most thorough tutorial for bookbinding, but the original tutorial really has all you really need to know. I thought I'd just share the little bits that I do that might be different from the original.

One of the things I've found that simplifies everything is that instead of folding the cover over the cover guide (left) with my fingers, then folding the wax paper over and clamping it all in place, I grab the wax paper and fold it over to clamp. I end up not handling the glue areas at all, it makes everything tidier and more accurate.



When assembling the cover I've taken to gluing the corners first and letting them dry completely. It makes for a very nice, tidy corner.

Oh, and if you want to have a ribbon bookmark, the best time to add it is when you are clamping and gluing the signatures. Just lay it on top of the glue and smooth it out. Make sure it is long enough to go the length of your pages. I leave mine quite long, they can always be cut shorter later. In this book I used a woven tape-style ribbon. I'll add beads and embellishments to it in the final steps.

This is how I put the pocket in this book:

Once the signatures were in place and glued into the inside front cover, I glued the pocket in as though it were an endpaper. Normally one would glue the last page of the last signature in to the back cover before placing the endpaper. I didn't do that (that would have meant that the pocket could not sit in as snugly as the signatures). I glued the pocket side to the inside back cover, then the paper side to the last paper of the last signature.

Once the pocket was in place, I glued in the endpaper. I made custom endpapers for this book by collecting quotes that spoke to my heart about our friend's life and situation. I wrote them all in WORD, turned them all a co-ordinating purple, made each of the quotes slightly different sizes and fonts so that, though they ran together, they can also each be read individually.

As you can see in the picture there are a lot of pieces of wax paper interleaved with pages that have glue drying.

This is the point the book is at right now. I'll let it sit under a weight overnight to dry, and I'll check on it tomorrow. It will be handle-able by then, but probably not totally dry. I can do any finishing bits at that time, then leave it under a weight for another 10 or so hours so that it is completely dry and flat.

Thanks for coming along on this journey with me. Thanks to you, too, for the comments and well wishes for our friend. She is much like an Aunt to me, she and her family have been in our lives as long as I can remember. I'll always be grateful to her for letting the boys hold her newborn lambs. They will never forget it.

Lisa

Pocket construction for inside back cover

This next step involves an amount of glue. Don't be too enthusiastic, but do be thorough. I used wax paper in many steps to keep the glue from migrating through the fabric and paper surfaces.

Place wax paper on your work surface. Grab the longer (12" ) paper that you folded last step and place it on your work surface, both folds as 'valley' folds. Set aside the smaller (8 1/2") paper for now. Make sure that the smallest (fold 2) fold is toward you.

Run a line of glue along each side edge from the first fold to the edge closest to you (click on any of the images to enlarge them).
Place the folded muslin on the paper, on top of the glue, between the first and second fold as shown above. Make sure that the folds look EXACTLY as shown in picture above. Check that the fold of the muslin is parallel to the edge of the paper.

Fold the forward edge of the paper up and over, sandwiching the muslin. This creates the outer pocket edge (it won't make sense yet, just trust me). Smooth it to make sure that glue is making good contact along the side edges.

Cut a piece of wax paper 5 1/2" X at least 5". Place it on top of the muslin as shown in the picture above.

Lay the 'peak' fold of the muslin on the wax paper. (If it doesn't make sense, just enlarge all the photos and follow them step by step. A picture really is worth a thousand words).


Fold the top edge down toward you.


Run a line of glue along each side edge. Fold the remaining muslin over onto the glue.


Above is what your pocket should look like, only in better focus. Keep the wax paper in place until all the glue is completely dry.


Grab the other piece of paper that you set aside in step one. Place it on your wax paper work surface so that the fold is a 'valley' fold. Apply glue to one whole side, as in picture above.


Place your completed pocket on the glued side, muslin side down against the glue. Put another piece of wax paper over top of the whole thing and put a stack of quilting magazines on it until the glue is dry and everything is nice and flat. Then you can carefully remove all the wax paper.

Lisa

preparations for the book construction

I prepared the signatures the way the whip-up tutorial recommends using light weight sketchbook paper. This time, though, in order to make room for the pocket in the back I bound 7 signatures (groups of pages) together rather than the customary 8. I did measure the spine and cut it to accommodate 8 signatures - this was to be sure that the book has enough room to hold the pocket and anything that our friend might want to put in it.

The thread for sewing the signatures is a lovely purple trilobal polyester, used double.


Making the pocket for the inside back cover was the next step. I wanted to make sure that the pocket had room to expand for anything that our friend might want to slip in there (notes, cards, anything). I started out by cutting two pieces of muslin 3" X pocket depth. I fan folded the muslin to create 4 layers (fold the fabric in half lengthwise, then bring the top raw edge to match the fold edge, turn the whole works over and bring the last raw edge to match the fold edge). You can see the folded muslin right and below.


In the last picture you can see the watercolour paper cut for the inside back cover. There are two pieces, one is 5 1/2" X 8 1/2", the other is 5 1/2" X 12". The second piece could have been longer, but it was all I had.

The smaller piece is folded in half (at the 4 1/4" point). The larger piece is folded so that the first fold matches that of the other paper (this is where the bottom of the pocket is, where things snuggle up against the spine). The second fold is at the 8 1/2" point. When folded up the two pieces should be the same size. Notice the directions of the folds in the pictures below and left. This is really important if you decide to try this for yourself.


The next post is about how to assemble the pocket pieces. It'll be VERY picture heavy.

Lisa

working on a gift

A dear friend of our family is pretty sick.
She's lovely, we've had her in our lives since I was in pre-school when I chased her son around the playground equipment and she met my Mom. I've been thinking about her an awful lot, especially right now, knowing that she's going through some pretty heavy treatments for her illness. I really wanted to make her something...something that would be right, y'know? For a good while I thought I'd make her a large shawl/throw as I understand that people undergoing radiation can get very cold. I researched all kinds of yarns, trying to find one that would not be irritating on hyper-sensitized skin - but with where we live it would take a long time for anything like that to get here, so I started casting about for other ideas.

I've been keeping up on Sue Bleiweiss's blog where she's been doing wonderful things with journals, making them themed, and in that way they can become tremendously personal. It struck me that I could make a journal for our friend.

I started out making a multimedia collage surface to be the cover. It's layered up with MistyFuse on muslin using several kinds of tissue, pressed Johnny-Jump-ups and Calendula petals that I dried last summer from our garden, skeleton leaves and stamps. I sealed the whole works together with diluted fabric medium to give it a bit of resilience, but help it maintain it's flexibility.

I'm using the same template I used for the hardbound journals last Spring when I made gifts for other friends, with some modifications.

I wanted to put a pocket inside the back cover, and make the endpapers from inspirational quotes and sayings.

Our friend has always been a very outdoor person, enjoying the outdoors and an active lifestyle. I hunted through my stash of tissue to find the dragonfly tissue, and included the plant material as a small tribute to her love of nature.

The next couple of posts include how I made the pocket and incorporated it into the endpapers. I've broken it up a bit as I expect this next bit to be quite photo heavy.

Lisa