"Zero Sum Game" Book, final

This book project started a couple years ago now and required me to delve into some new topics, like bookbinding, in order to complete my vision. Of course, other projects came up and I'm only now finishing the first set of books (a prototype was completed in September).


See earlier coverage of printing and assembling the core parts of the book here and here.


For the final stages, I carved and printed a cover with a title (inspired by learning about game theory in my micro-economics class taken in my semester off from print making) and solid black back. Unlike the soft cover on the Belize book, this cover and backing were separate and would leave the binding area exposed. 

First, gluing inside the front cover...

Once the cover (image side) is affixed, gluing the inside flap...

Once the front and back covers were glued on and dried under a heavy book, I bound the books with black thread, much like standard signature binding, or decorative longstitch (minus the soft cover to stitch through).

Treating each inside page fold as a signature, using a template and heavy duty paper awl to create six holes...

Leaving a tail to tie off in the first signature...

One of the reasons I wanted to leave the binding exposed was to show off the rhythmic stitching...

And repeat... and repeat...

Once I finish the set, I'll take some nicer photos and post one for sale on my Etsy shop!

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!

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.

Linocut book in process

I liked making the Belize book so much, that I decided to do another one using linocut instead of etching.

The squares are 4x4, which makes it much easier for linocut. The source photos were from a shoot that I was in for an SF Zero game in 2007.

The idea behind the shoot was to create a film noir feel on various San Francisco sites.

The images already had a strong graphic quality to them, which is great for linocut.

Unlike the Goodwill book and the Belize book, this one will not have any text and will just rely on the images to imply a story.

I managed to take a couple of good proofs before the semester ended, but I may still tweak some things.

I'm considering creating a second plate in the fall to add color.

I'll keep you posted ;)

Belize book

In the spring of 2009, I started a somewhat ambitious project of printing a small book using a single plate. With twelve 3x3 squares on my planned plate, I selected some photos from the trip that Anthony and I took to Belize in December 2007:

I did a simple line etching and then watercolored the print, which adds quite a bit of labor.

Once printed and watercolored, the print is cut into strips and glued together into one long strip that can be folded.

I used a monoprint for the cover and added the title with chine colle.