Thursday, February 28, 2008

Flag Books and Portland Class

Last weekend's class went really well. On day one we made hardcover concertina books covered in bookcloth with a window and a ribbon closure then in the afternoon a stab binding and an account book binding. You can see the results in the picture below. I had taken my tub of papers
and most used those for the covers of the oriental books.


On day two we did the exposed stitch books described in my last post, unfortunately I didn't get any photos of those but they all worked really well using the cloth from the upholstery samples. Before the class I'd played around with a few ideas for making book cloth, I tried pasting Korean paper on some pieces and painting the back of some with gesso but ended up settling for using the large roll of double sided tape I'd got for them from Reverse art. It took most of the day to make the exposed stitch books leaving only an hour or two for the flag book which I had planned to do. I tried to gear the workshop towards bindings that can be adapted for artist books. I used Wendy's idea of the postcards as the base and the excellent instructions given in The Bonefolder, Fall 2005.
I made up a couple of samples to show the class and I also took my 'Greetings from India' book which is a form of flag book. The first one pictured I made from postcards I had printed a couple of years ago of my book 'Dark Side of the Rose'. I love the way the book moves and particularily the view you get from above. I had some wrapping paper that matched pretty well so I used that for the backs of the cards and for decorative elements on the cover and other places.

The book below I made from free Avant cards by Jess Brown

4 comments:

quirkyartist said...

Hi Gail,
I have a stack of nice postcards put aside for the next time I teach this class, and I have the one you've used there. It's gorgeous isn't it.

Papergail said...

Yes it is and works well as a flag book.

Anonymous said...

It was extremely interesting for me to read the blog. Thank author for it. I like such themes and anything that is connected to this matter. I would like to read a bit more soon.

Anonymous said...

Don't stop posting such stories. I like to read stories like that. Just add some pics :)