Paper and Threads

I LOVE books - all books - and always have.  It is probably the reason that I gravitated to sketchbook/visual journal art when I was getting close to retirement. 

I decided to recycle orphan books when I couldn't find watercolor sketchbooks that I loved.  After several years I broke down and took a weekend class to learn how to make a traditional cased-in book - cover and all.  In the last 5 years I expanded my bookbinding adventures, sometimes from information online, other times from projects with my friends Pat and Gwen.  But I still hadn't explored some of the oldest and most common bookbinding methods.

This year I plan to do a little research on specific bookbinding methods and to practice making books exploring some of the variations.  I have reference books here in my personal library and there are many websites and videos available - making this a good DIY project.  

The book project for January was coptic stitch bookbinding and so far I made two books using two different variations of the method. 

Book 1:  I made the cover using bookcloth I made from fabric I painted, and filled it with my favorite watercolor paper.  The bug was painted in a class by Judy Coates Perez using Tsukineko ink thickened with aloe vera.  The back cover was made with fabric I made testing a new batch of procion MX stock solutions.

Book 2: I also made a smaller book, using decorative paper for the book covers, and card stock for the pages.  I am using this book to collect all of the information about coptic stitching that I want to remember and to document the methods that I used. 

Plan for February:  Long Stitch with leather wrap covers. 

A tutorial for recycling orphan books, and all of my prior projects can be seen in the Bookbinding Category in the right column on my blog.

Posted by Shirley at 7:50 AM | Permalink | Comments (6)

This time of year, when I'm recovering from lots of Holiday preparations and celebrations, and I'm indoors trying to  "catch up," I need something to shake me up.  Night after night I struggled with decisions re: what to draw and finally decided to play with my many tools (pencils, pens, inks etc) while drawing lots of elephants. 

Here are my first 5 - each drawn/"painted" with a different tool.

Elephant 1:  Drawn with a Dark Wash Soluble Graphite Pencil by Derwent and painted with clear water.

Elephant 2:  Drawn with a Tombow marker, which is water soluble, and painted with clear water

Elephant #3:  Cretacolor 9B graphite and Cretacolor white pastel pencils on gray paper

Elephants #4:  Pigma micron ink pen and WN watercolors

Elephant #5:  Pentel Pocket Brush Pen

I bind Fabriano Artistico 140 lb soft press paper in my handbound watercolor journals.  No one believes me, but the Pentel Pocket Brush Ink is completely water soluble on this paper and even drying the ink overnight makes no difference.  Here is an elephant drawn with the pen and then painted with clear water!

Posted by Shirley at 7:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (10)

My friend Pat and I spent a day visiting art galleries in Chelsea and walking the High Line.  El Anatsui, born in Ghana and now living in Nigeria, creates enormous sculptures using copper wire and bottle caps/pieces of aluminum from cans and bottles. 

Here is an example of one of the massive sculptures in the exhibit Pot of Wisdom which ended on January 19th.  It is next moving to the Bass Center in Miami and the Des Moines Art Center in Iowa.  A second exhibit is opening in February at the Brooklyn Museum in New York.

A detail:

But he also has an outdoor installation, made of rusted metal and gorgeous reflective tiles, over the entire side of a building along the Highline,  This will hang for a year.  Here are my photos, taken from the Highline - between 21st and 22nd St.  Also look at the water towers which appear everywhere along the NYC skyline.

I love the way the clouds are reflected on the sculpture making it hard to see the dividing line with the real sky.

The Highline is an abandoned elevated railroad track in lower Manhattan.  It is slowly being converted into a wonderful, popular public park. 

We walked North along the newest section (extending the walkway to 30th St.) and found wonderful sights:  the top of the Empire State building, great graffiti art, and an apartment occupant, whose window is feet away from the edge of the High Line. 

This image appears to be part of the window surface - humorously put there to keep Highline pedestrians from becoming voyeurs.

There was a great pair of water towers right next to the sculpture and I painted them in my sketchbook, from my photo, to remember the day. 

Posted by Shirley at 9:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (6)

Last week our art friends spent a wonderful day at the Picasso: Black and White exhibit at the Guggenheim Museum in New York City.  Readers of this blog know how much I like sketching Picasso and I expected to see many of his ink drawings on paper.  The exhibit however was a wonderful mixture of sculpture and paintings, many of which were drawings in oil.  

As we moved up the circular ramp, I tried to sketch sculptures and then paintings that spoke to me.  Here is a drawing of a large painted metal sculpture, entitled "Woman with Outstretched Arms" and a wall sculpture of Marie-Therese in profile

The Acrobat - painted in 1930.

Two Figures that were drawn from a Large Study for the painting Guernica, May 1, 1937

Draped Nude Seated in Armchair 1923:  This painting reminds me very much of the Seated Woman by Matisse (1919) that I sketched at the Frick, uploaded recently to my blog, and posted it again here for comparison.   

I love my Art Buddies and thoroughly enjoy both our museum visits and regular projects.  On Jan 6th a group comment was posted by Gloria,a classmate in the Mary Ann Moss class A Ticket to Venice, telling me that she found a photo of her friend Benedicte on my blog.  We made the connection and Gloria joined us 3 days later at the Guggenheim. 

From Left to Right:  Teri, Gloria, Me, Pat, and Benedicte

Posted by Shirley at 2:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

I am taking an online class by Mary Ann Moss called Ticket to Venice.  There are many videos demonstrating a bookbinding technique to make a travel journal.  And she demonstrates 3 different bookbinding stitches, of which the double diamond is the most advanced.  Plus there are PDFs, Printables, Blog Entries, and More Videos during her actual December vacation in Venice.   

I took the class to learn how to make the book and to enjoy another trip to Venice for 2012.  I kept a travel journal and watercolor sketchbook during our visit in May - and I wasn't disappointed when Mary Ann took us around with her in photos and videos for Venice in Winter.

Most class members made travel journals, but I have 2 books of watercolors from my recent visit, so here is the book I made.  I used a $1.00 orphan book for the covers and tex libris book cloth for the spine.  I want to use the book for more figure drawing practice and bound 3 signatures of drawing paper in the book.

There is one stitch that is a little catty-wampus and I used pre-folded paper from my stash and it is slightly small for the size of the covers.  But the book opens flat and I really enjoyed making it.

At the same time, I made my 3rd Mary Ann Moss Remains of the Day book - from her class which I took online two years ago  Here are two photos of my new book.

The book cover is made from fabric which I made using a variety of surface design techniques.

Here are similar photos of my first two Remains of the Day books.  I filled each of them with one year's photos, drawings, tags, tickets and other ephemera from my art adventures in New York City with my artist friends.  One is the diary from 2011 and the other is from 2012.

These books become wonderfully stuffed - with collage, flaps, filled pockets, and dangling tags.  Here are the before and after photos.  The two finished books are on the left and #3 is on the right.

Posted by Shirley at 3:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (15)