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.

Holiday Print Show and Sale!

Our annual holiday print show and sale is coming up! I will be volunteering at the opening reception on Friday, December 4 from 5:30pm  and then again on Saturday from 11am to 2pm. Most of the sales happen during the Friday reception, but continue Saturday and Sunday from 11:30am to 4:30pm.


Many of my talented classmates and instructors will also have prints for sale. Last year I bought quite a few prints, which now adorn our walls. 20% of the sales go to the City College Art Department and the rest goes to the artist.


I will have about 40 prints in the show, including:

• Variations of the functional building series;
• Variations of the Float aquatint;
• A couple of the drypoint cityscapes;
• Variations of the Hummingbird monoprints;
• Unbound proofs of the linocut "filmstrip" book;
• And some new prints that have yet to be documented!!

Hope you can check it out!

Personalized holiday card etching

I actually made this plate and started printing copies at the beginning of the year, but as it was a gift for Anthony's folks, I didn't want to post anything until I had delivered it to them. I took a photo of their house in Minnesota last Christmas and used it to make a little line etching holiday card. I got the idea after helping Anthony's mom prepare some of the many holiday cards that they send out. The set of 50 that I made won't be enough for there entire list, but intaglio etchings aren't exactly the most efficient way to print cards!

All wrapped up and ready to go!

Yay! Presents!

SF linocut book project, continued

Now that class is underway again at CCSF, I'm moving along on my latest linocut book. I've trimmed, folded, and pasted together seven books and now need to figure out how I want to bind them. In the meantime, one of the folded copies will be put on display in Building B of Fort Mason, along with the Belize book, my mezzotint, and an uncut print of this book.