Tag Archives: paper arts

July 1, 2012 · 1:40 pm

Gardens, Portfolios and Vacations

I haven’t taken time to write about my activities recently, but that doesn’t mean I’ve been quiet.  I was able to plant a garden this year in spite of the cold April weather and it was off to a beautiful start.  Now I just have to keep it watered in all this heat.

Here’s what it looked like a week or so ago.

It’s not very big, but it gives me all the  tomatoes I can eat and delicious potatoes.  I try cucumbers every year and I think this year I will actually be feeding myself instead of the deer and rabbits.  You can see my rather makeshift fencing.  Although a determined deer could easily jump it, it seems to be enough of a discouragement that they don’t bother.  After I found a rabbit sitting inside the fence which has only 2″x3″ openings, I wrapped the bottom with chicken wire and that seems to have kept them out.  There are lots of other wonderful things for them to eat on the rest of the property, so they have to stay out of my garden!  

There is a nearby farm that has U-pick strawberries and every year I plan to get some to freeze.  It works out that I do about half the time!  This year I picked 14 quarts and was very glad I did.  It was a wonderful strawberry season. We had a lot of rain followed by hot dry weather at the perfect time.  The strawberries were luscious! Big and sweet. I’ve found that the varieties that are  huge can tend to be tasteless, especially when frozen.  These are a variety called Sparkle and they have a wonderful flavor no matter their size.

Enough of food, so what have I been doing with my paper?

As I mentioned in my last blog, I’ve started making designer portfolios and last week I finished a set of four.  Here they are:

I’m very pleased with these and there was only one real problem.  On the red one somehow I made two left sides and so I could either throw it all out, have the cranes flying upside down or have the “pocket” on the wrong side.  I opted for the latter.  My next set of large portfolios will have replaceable pads on one side like the smaller notebooks do. Not sure I like this, but I’m trying to sell them in a local office supply store and the owner suggested that might help.  We’ll see.

In mid-July I’m taking off for one of my favorite places – The John C. Campbell Folk School in Brasstown, N.C.  My granddaughter and I will be taking a course in wood carving, so that will be a whole new world for me!  I don’t know how the blogging schedule will go for the next month, but I’ll try to pop in with pictures occasionally.

 

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June 22, 2012 · 11:14 am

Portfolios, for people who still find a need for paper

Carrying real paper documents these days seems hopelessly old-fashioned, but there are times when nothing else will do.  Sending someone a resume doesn’t need a stamp, but when you are sitting in a job interview, I’m not sure that handing out flash drives to all the participants is the way to go.  So in the hopes that someone, somewhere still carries paper and wants to make a statement at the same time, I’ve designed some portfolios that fit standard 8.5×11 letter paper.

I posted the prototype a few weeks ago and last week I made the first batch.  I forgot to photograph them before I put on their shiny packaging, so please excuse the shiny spots! Here they all are:

The outside paper and the side strips are all my hand-marbled paper, but I found that using marbled paper on the inside also was just too much, so I’ve used commercial, printed papers there.

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June 12, 2012 · 9:38 am

Notepad Covers Join the Party!

A few posts ago, before being distracted by the Clay books, I was playing around with designs for portfolios and notepad covers. Last week I got down to business and lined up the materials for four of the notepad covers.  I finished three of them, but not the fourth.  I was unhappy with the choices I had for the spine of that book.  I had a bit of the color of bookcloth I wanted to use, but not enough. Of course, instead of just gong with a lesser choice, I decided to order more.  My rationale was that I had hardly any brown bookcloth left and I’d need it for other projects anyway. The result was that for want of a 3″x12″ strip, I ordered three yards (brown, black and cream) and some headbands that I needed.  I try my best to keep bookbinding supply companies in business!

Here are the three finished notepads.

 

Below is a gallery of  the three notepads with various views.

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June 8, 2012 · 6:43 pm

Finished Books

I finished the books that I had started in the last post.  No major disasters and I’m happy with the results.  You can see the complete process in photos on this page.

Here are the completed books.

Finished Books

The three in the back row are the ones that have Clay themes.  The first is “Lady Luck”, for the duet that Clay and Dee Snider did of “Luck Be a Lady Tonight.”  It has an Italian paper with antique playing cards on the covers and endpapers that I hand-marbled.

Lady Luck

 

Lady Luck

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Book with title and endpapers.

 

 

 

The second book was a tribute to the version of “Lean on Me” that Clay sang on the finale.

Always Tomorrow

I titled it “Always Tomorrow” for the spirit of always going toward the next thing.  I think the pattern on the marbled covers reflects  upward aspirations.

Always Tomorrow

The endpapers are made from some wonderful Italian decorative paper that shows all the months of the year with typical activities for each month in various Italian towns.

The last book has a cover of papyrus, so I had to give it a a desert theme.  Of course,  papyrus actually grows along rivers, but I associate it with desert countries. The only song I could think of was “Get Here” which has the line “…cross the desert …” so that gave me the title for the book.  The endpapers are a yellow and brown swirl pattern that reminds me a sandstorms and deserts.

So this was a good week for me.  Now I think I’ll move on to those portfolios and notebooks I was playing with in my last post.

 

 

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May 16, 2012 · 9:44 am

Comedy, Tragedy, or Just a Mess?

I had, what I thought, was a brilliant idea as I was marbling last week.  I have been marbling pages from an old coverless copy of Shakespeare’s plays and I thought I would use the title page of “King Lear” to make a Treasure Tower. It had an interesting line drawing and the beginning of the play.  I then would marble one of the text pages in a similar palette to make the inside.  I was so enthralled with the idea that I did “Much Ado About Nothing” also.  The pages came out quite nicely.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Since these pages are smaller than the paper I usually use, I had to figure out new measurements for all the parts involved – boards,  outside, inside, boxes and lid – plus a bit of trial and error and I was ready to roll.

After cutting the board, I started to paste out the outside paper.  As soon as I started working with it I knew I was in trouble.  When any paper becomes damp it begins to stretch and it also becomes weaker and tears more easily.  The pages I was using were old, cheap paper and they became very fragile as soon as the paste dampened them.  They had gone through the marbling process with some care, but now I was just asking too much. I went ahead, laying the pieces of board in position, but as I folded over the edges, the paper began to fall apart!  Whoops.

By the way, you should always apply the adhesive to the paper and not to the board.  The paper stretches, the board doesn’t.  Let the paper rest for a few seconds so it has time to fully stretch before putting it on board.

I soldiered on and put the inside piece on, but the old paper just wasn’t strong enough to take the folding and unfolding the design of the Towers need.  It would have been fine as the cover of a book.  So now I have a tower that can sit on my desk and only I can see where the folds, cracks and tears are!  From three feet away, it looks great.

Second mistake.  I decided to try to reinforce the remaining paper by adhering another piece to it, just like using interfacing in sewing.  Only problem is that instead of using Japanese tissue paper, which probably would have worked, I grabbed a piece of light weight modern paper.  Another disaster!  As I’ve said a couple of times already, paper stretches when is becomes damp. If you put a pasted piece on top of a dry piece, the dry piece will try to stretch as it absorbs moisture from the pasted piece.  The result – wrinkles, lots of them!  Sometimes you can get lucky and the wrinkles will smooth out as both pieces dry and sometimes they are just a mess.

In spite of everything, I tried out one of the laminated pieces and the old paper just cracked along every place I tried to fold it.

Some pictorial proof to come, if I can bear to take the pictures.  I just hope my next great idea works out more smoothly.

As promised here’s a gallery of the disasters.  Can you spot the problems?

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May 1, 2012 · 12:33 pm

Finally, Back to Marbling

I’ve been out of commission for a while and have lots to catch up on here.  If you remember the crown I groused about, well, it turned out that the tooth needed a root canal.  Yuck!  Fortunately,  while the temporary crown was still on I knew that all was not well and went back to the dentist.  He checked things out and told me the bad news.  The only good news is that they could use the permanent crown that had already been made.  My mouth is still not back to normal, but at least it has calmed down enough so I can function.  On to better things!

Saturday I decided I had to get back to marbling.  Not that I don’t have enough paper to cover hundreds of books or make dozens of towers, but just because I love doing it.  Marbling does, however, require a lot of setup and preparation time.  I did the prep work on Saturday and started off marbling on Sunday.  Because the carrageenan breaks down over time, it’s most efficient to cram as much marbling as possible into four or five days.  After five days, results of the breakdown begin show on the paper and it’s time to pack it up.

Look for a new page on marbling soon.  (I hope!)

Not the greatest marbling session ever, but there were some successes.  That’s always the fun with marbling.  What looks great in the tray may be a mess when printed or, what frequently happens to me, the process of laying down the paper messes up. I catch a bubble or there’s a hesitation line or big speck of paint I didn’t see.  If it were easy, it wouldn’t be fun!  Above are two of the good pieces from this session.

For a slide show of this marbling, go here.

 

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April 20, 2012 · 3:16 pm

Hanging Books

These hanging books are a lot of fun to make, so I’ve been doing a lot of playing.  I made a batch of ones with hinged covers and have more planned that are soft covers.  The best part of it all is that I have a treasure trove of beads and ribbons and cord in my basement to finish them.  I’ve found some of it, but I know there’s a box some place filled with spools of cord. Here is my current “inventory” plus some different views of one of the books with a hard, hinged cover.

I love the design and texture of the Japanese paper used in this book.  The paper is soft, but the printed side has a smooth finish.  It takes adhesive very well and is really easy to work with.  The only disadvantage is that the finished book is not as resistant to stains and scratches as the Italian papers that have hard finishes.

The hardest part of making these is getting the holes the correct size to be able to thread two thicknesses of the cord, too small and the cord rips the paper, too large and the pages slide around.

I’m hoping to finish the soft cover ones this weekend and begin selling them on Etsy next week. Here’s more information on their construction and a preview of my Etsy shop.

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April 17, 2012 · 8:15 am

Trial: Stamp Book or Card Holder

Back to fooling around with papers and boards.  I tried out a new folder this week.  It was originally designed to hold stamps, but I don’t think stamp collecting is very popular any more, so I may have to put it to a different use.  When I was young, stamps were all the rage and I had a stock book similar to this one. Well, not as pretty: It had plain brown covers and, as I remember, more rows of pockets.

The stamps are held in place by Mylar pockets. I could use paper if it is not necessary to see the entire object in the pocket.

This book is only 4.5″ x 6.5″.  I think a larger size would be more useful.  I need to figure out a specific use, like holding business cards and then design around that.  Just haven’t focused  on particular use.  Suggestions sought and welcomed!

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March 3, 2012 · 10:09 pm

Design vs. Doing

 

If you’ve read my pages on Designing a Book, you’ll know that I’ve started working on a new set of books this week.  The design decisions have almost all been made, so next week I’ll be moving on to the more mechanical aspects of making books – the sewing, the pasting, the cutting. I think the enjoyment I find in creating books, or my towers, comes from the duality of the process.  There’s a lot of thought and creativity that goes into the design phase, but that is followed by rote work.  To do it properly, one has to be careful and precise, but the sewing and pasting doesn’t take much thought.  Attention, yes, but not thought.  I can relax and daydream a bit.  Not too much or the textblock goes into the covers upside down!

It would be boring to just do the making part and it would be frustrating to just design with no product.  Combining design and execution makes a very fulfilling whole.  I’m sure there are hundreds of hobbies and skills that would yield equal satisfaction, but this works for me!

In case you missed them, these are the books I’m currently making.

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February 12, 2012 · 5:46 pm

Towers are Fun

Last week I decided to make some more of my Treasure Towers for sale in my shop on Etsy.  I think the part I enjoy the most is picking out the papers to use.  Usually, I start with the outside, but not always.  I find that I prefer to make four boxes at a time even if they are different size.  Doing the same actions “assembly line” fashion just works best.  Not more than four, or I get bored!

But back to choosing.  My first was very uncharacteristic, I didn’t use my own marbled paper.  I had a piece of Italian paper with large butterflies that I wanted to use.  The pattern is really too big for my books.  I had trouble finding papers for the inside since the colors weren’t a good match.  I finally found two papers that had patterns that reminded me of the scales on the wings  of butterflies.  I made the top of the same butterfly pattern as the outside.

The other papers were a bit easier, I knew I wanted to use some maps I’d marbled.  The last tower was a recently marbled sheet that I was excited about.

I have more towers here.  I have a page about making my boxes and towers here or you can click the link at the top of the page that says, ” Boxes & Other Creations”.

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