Printsy Interview

 Some time ago I made contact with Printsy, a group on Etsy.com focused on printmakers selling their work on Etsy. The group maintains a blog that features a weekly structured interview with different Etsy printmakers, as well as new item listings. It's a great resource (you know I love an organized approach to learning about artists), both for artists looking for insight and inspiration, as well as print lovers and art buyers looking for new works.

Anyway, my interview is featured on the blog this week! Check it out here.
(http://printsy.blogspot.com/2010/07/printsy-interview-dormain-geyer.html)

Blogged!

My little number prints found their way into the blogosphere!! Well, beyond this here blog, that is...

A fellow Etsy seller created an awesome number-themed collection of various Etsy items. Check it out:

http://mags7575.blogspot.com/2010/05/etsy-poster-sketch-super-fun.html

Decorative Longstitch

I finally made it back to the San Francisco Center for the Book for another bookbinding workshop. This time, I took a one-day workshop on decorative longstitch with Jody Alexander.

I recreated the class project, using an old aquatint of mine on Rives BFK for a cover. I'm not 100% sure that Rives BFK is sturdy enough, but it's pretty thick. After cutting the cover paper and folding the spine, use a template to mark the holes for both the binding and any decorative stitching in the center.

It's important to do any decorative stitching before proceeding as the center of the binding will not be accessible after the signatures are bound.

Depending on how the spine template has been designed, one or more signature templates will need to be created. My design for 8 signatures was symmetrical, so I needed 4 signature templates. Align the templates to the interior of the signatures and use an awl to puncture at the fold.

As you can see, the signatures should line up to the original binding template when they've all been punctured.

Starting from the inside of the bottom signature, begin sewing it to the spine, leaving a placeholder in the as you double back into the first hole. Similarly, at the end of the first signature, leave a placeholder.

At each end of every signature, which should be outside the spine (above), loop under the stitch immediately below. The second signature will loop where the placeholders were at each end (above).

After looping the stitch (or placeholder) below, re-enter the spine, but without re-entering the signature (below). Then exit through the hole above, in preparation for the next signature.

Once again, loop back under the previous stitch.

Re-enter the puncture just exited, but this time stitch through the next signature again. Continue stitching each signature, repeating the double looping process at each end. At the end of the last signature, tie-off and trim!

After all signatures are attached, fold up the flap for a tight seal. Voila!

Bookbinding

This weekend, I went back to the San Francisco Center for the Book for a two-day workship on bookbinding. The Bookbinding series continues through VI or VII, but there are a number of non-sequential technique classes that I may look into.There are a lot of specific details that really require demonstration and supervised instruction, but I tried to take notes to help me remember for future attempts.

On the first day, we assembled the text block, using Mohawk paper, and stitched the "signatures" together. The stitching weaves over two fabric tapes and employs kettle stitches about 3/4" from the ends.

The stitched text blocks are locked in a press and the spine is glued. "Super" cloth is then glued between the kettle stitches:

Small headbands are then affixed to the ends, outside the kettle stitches:

The final step of spine preparation is in affixing a thin, strong paper along the entire spine. We used Unryu, but similar papers will suffice.

After measuring our book cloth, we centered and glued the spine

Leaving "gutters" along the spine, we glued down the book board and folded the bookcloth over.

In another variation, the book cloth only covered the spine and a thin margin of the bookboard. Decorative paper was then used to cover the remaining bookboard.

Voila. The finished cover.

The text block is then carefully glued to the cover.

After some final pressing, I am the proud producer of two notebooks!

Lobster Pot

My mother spent the summer working in Cape Cod, and Anthony and I went out to visit her at the end of the season. We took the ferry from Boston to Provincetown and explored a bit before heading down to Brewster. I found a couple cute, old-fashioned establishments around the town, including The Lobster Pot:

I was anxious to get back to linocut, so I used this picture as a source for a 6"x6" lino plate.

After some deliberation, I decided to add a second black plate. Normally when doing a two-plate lino print, I start with the black "key" plate and use that to add the mid-tone color plate. Working backwards was a little tricky, but I'm pleased with the result:

Alkmaar Cheese Girl

Anthony and I went to Europe this summer, primarily visiting some friends living in Amsterdam for the year. One day, we went to the cheese market in Alkmaar. It was pretty touristy, but I snapped a couple pictures of the participants in their traditional dress:

I used this photo as a source for a line etching. There's quite a bit of foul bite on the plate, which I expected after seeing how the ground had rolled out, but I was curious if it would add some character to the otherwise sparse background...

My next step was to add the key colors with chine colle. I did a set of eight with the color, two of which already have a home!

Numbers

Earlier this semester, I started another etching book, similar in structure to the Belize book. The subject was numbers, represented in symbol with the name written out.

I intentionally left the etching as a simple line drawing so that I could experiment with monoprint. I did a handful of books (will post later), but also printed the individual numbers on paper scraps, seen here.

As a bit of a nerd, I guess I have a thing for flashcards, so there was something really appealing about making these little cards.