workshop prep

I am making some mock ups for the workshop that I'm teaching at Meeniyan on creating artists books based around the Concertina. We'll start with a straight concertina then do another book or two that incorporate a concertina of some sort. I'm giving everyone a set of photos to make a flag book so thought I'd better make a sample. I selected a group of photos taken at the same time of rocky beach and cliffs, I loved the light in these images.

The white backs of the photos looked a bit dull so I made up a haiku to fit (seven backs and seven words in the haiku, perfect!)

Seaside walk,

One summer's night,

shadows play

These pictures are of a very painful experiment, many hours cutting through photo and watercolour paper, ouch! When I was in Hobart last year I saw an exhibition where there were a series of tunnel books but they were just concertinas so I thought I'd try it with a couple of photos and here are the results. To view them properly you need to be on the same level as the book, but they sort of work.

Moonah workshop Tasmania

Next week I am heading over to Tassie to teach a three day workshop on sculptural books, here are a few images of the type of books and decorative techniques we'll be making to whet my students appetites.

Credit card technique

Sons of Wallace - Piano Hinge Binding

Collage Paste Paper

Nest Book - Two Needle Coptic Binding

Torn - Sections in a Concertina


Greetings from India - Flag Book Variation

Two Needle Coptic and Celtic Binding

W binding

Roses Flag book

IAPMA Flag book

Childs Play - Piano Hinge Binding

Childs Play - Piano Hinge Binding

workshop two

Afternoon tea at the Windsor for Auntie's 90th birthday, I was meant to take my mum but she wasn't up to it so I got to play ladies!

My book class had the last session on Saturday and we made two needle coptics, here is my example.

The previous week we made flag books from postcards and again here is my example.

I

I used a couple of Alisa Golden's book for the instructions and for inspirational examples.

The participants made some great looking flag books especially from the IAMPA cards. They are quite keen for me to go back and teach Papermaking and another book class.

I have been making a few photo albums lately with 300 gsm Hahnemuhle, here are a few pics of my newest books.

And this is a miniature book work in progress for the Valda Quick Paper Arts Biennial which is to be held at Bundoora Homestead in November.

Lastly, in preparation for a workshop with Glen Skien the weekend after next I went around the garden taking a few photos and found these fungi.

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