Prepping For Another Bookbinding

The next bookbinding in my Handmade Book club is the French Link, one that, like the coptic stitch, I've admired and wanted to learn. And it might actually be done were it not for a hitch in what to use for the soft cover. I'd planned to use more of my eco-printed watercolor paper but found that the grain ran the wrong direction. So now what? I'd already chosen the ribbon that the binding is stitched over, and the thread so wanted something that would go with them. Looking at what others had used, I considered using some of my paints and a stencil to create a cover, which suddenly felt overwhelming (I have many stencils and paint colors to choose from). Or I could just paint some paper and sponge a second color over it - I've done that before with success. Or, I could once again kill two birds with one stone and try another texture producing technique I'd bookmarked which uses tissue paper. But instead of doing it using a sturdy w/c or mixed media paper, I dug through my collection of food boxes until I found one the right size with grain running the proper direction. Yes, even cardboard has grain apparently.

I've worked a little with boxes like this and know that you need to put a coat or two of gesso over the slick printed side before proceeding.

Most of the tutorials for this technique use white tissue paper but I'd saved this printed kind and wondered if some depth could be created by layering several pieces since tissue paper is not opaque. Nothing to lose by trying.

One tutorial used PVA, another gel medium, to adhere each layer of tissue paper, doing a bit of scrunching to create wrinkles rather than smoothing out the tissue paper. I opted for slightly watered down PPA (Perfect Paper Adhesive) and used 3 layers instead of two (because I had that much tissue paper and was going for those images shadowing through). It was difficult to stop myself from smoothing each layer out. Once weighted and dry, the tissue paper is trimmed one half inch beyond the edge of the substrate so that it can be turned to the back. I used glue stick for this step because each of these will be folded in half with a piece of cardstock in between for extra stability of the covers.

To be honest, the floral motif isn't very "me" and it was a bit bright and white for the tan ribbon I have set aside. Plus the wrinkled texture wasn't really showing. The tutorials had one last step of painting their white tissue paper to bring out the texture, but I feared I'd just cover up the print too much without really highlighting the lines of the wrinkles. After much thought and experimenting with a couple of options, I decided on applying this dark green Paint Stix using my finger so that the application would remain light while still darkening the wrinkles. Kind of hard to tell from the photo but perhaps if you click for the larger view you will see the difference between the piece on the left and the piece on the right that has Paint Stix worked over it. It has done the trick to make these go better with the ribbon, but I am very much on the fence about the look of the texture and the way the flowers shadow through the top layer.

In between these various steps to prepare the covers, I folded and trimmed to size the signatures. Now at last I am ready to punch my holes in signatures and covers, add slits to the covers and start sewing it all together.