Coming Up For Air

I hope my lack of posting hasn't been a cause for concern. All is fine here, only 4 confirmed cases so far in my county, people are being relatively good about staying in and keeping their distance when they aren't. Few are feeling the need for masking up but we've had a burst of pollen affecting my breathing so I pulled out this allergy mask for my walks. Won't filter out viruses or even smoke particles but makes such a difference keeping that pollen out of my lungs.

Carla Sonheim Box Journaling

While many unaccustomed to having so much free time on their hands are searching the internet for ways to fill it, I am in my usual state with so much pending and so much free stuff cued up to watch. Since my last post I've been head down getting through the Sketchbook Revival videos - 13 days of two lessons a day from as many instructors. The late start and few days when I could only get through one of the day's videos had me concerned about getting through it all before it would disappear. Fortunately, they always tag on extra days for catch-up, and I need them! Some teachers are repeats from last year, but most are new, and I am super pleased with how my handmade sketchbook is working out. One of the repeat teachers, Carla Sonheim, started off the sessions with a look into how she uses a box journaling technique to help her set the tone for her day.

Carla, of the sidewalk cracks jump starter of last year, also showed a similar exercise, this time with putting down blobs of paint on the page, one using a spatula and one using a credit card, then assessing the blobs for images. I had no trouble spotting a dragon-like creature in the top one, mostly just tracing around darker lines or patches. The bottom one was easy too. The lines and dark areas of that blob immediately reminded me of a flower and again all I had to do was use my pen to draw over the lines to make it obvious. This is the sort of "see an accidental image" thing I instinctively find myself doing a lot. Carla's take on this is that it can help you make the next mark which would be unexpected or something you otherwise would not have thought of. I can attest to that in my study of images in hand-dyed fabrics.

There were others giving suggestions of how to get to the crux of what you want to do with your creative time and how to stay on track. I didn't think I'd be interested in Chetna Mehta's commitment worksheet and discipline chart but after watching her video, I can see how this could really get me organized and back on track again, partly because it includes all parts of your life, not just the art part. So I may be spending some time with it.

Stephanie Lee relies on Word Wisdom to do what she calls calibrating her thinking which clears the fog and helps her get to the bottom of what's true and what isn't in the story she's telling herself. She does this with a word or two or a quotation that has caught her attention and then on further thought might not be as true for her as she originally thought. This gave me the chance to tie into a quotation that's been bugging me for awhile, sussing out the parts of it that work for me and the parts I don't think are helpful.

Several of the teachers jump start themselves with fun exercises like Noah Scalin's 100 dots - just 100 dots placed randomly on a page which you connect as you start seeing shapes or images. At first I was seeing nothing, and then I seemed to be seeing nothing but hexagons. I admit, I got influenced by what he was doing with his dots which were becoming a face as I began to get the hang of the exercise. This is one of those lateral thinking exercises that while you are concentrating on the exercise at hand with no particular outcome in mind, your brain unbeknownst to you is generating random stuff that might come out later as useful, or even generate something on the page that will be useful at a later date. He has a whole slew of similar activities to get that brain thinking new ideas.

Another teacher with ideas of how to shake ideas out of a too muddle brain is Mary Beth Shaw who works with "doodle sketches" art journaling. I first heard of this basic method as a design tool from art quilter Michael James but never had much luck with it the few times I tried it. It's based on making random lines across the page, then seeing how you can use the shapes formed. In Mary Beth's version, you collage and paint and stencil in these shapes and pen over some of the lines, paying attention to color, balance, and variety. Obviously, this is one I have yet to finish but I'm game to give it a try with my acrylic paints and stencils.

I really enjoyed Tamara Laporte's Quirky Happy Houses warm-up of last year and she was back this year with Quirky Birds which she uses to help herself and her students "embrace you, quirks and all". Her quirky birds are MUCH quirkier and elaborate than mine but I just couldn't get into the way she was approaching hers. I realized fairly quickly that I was making an owl (whereas hers could not be defined as any recognizable kind), but she kept saying, embrace whatever it is about yourself that you might be embarrassed about, a part of your personality you might think you should suppress, OWN whatever it is in this drawing. As I worked through my owl, thinking about how realistic it was compared to her bird and I didn't care, that was me, lightbulb moment - this is what she was talking about. I sat back, thought, yes, you are a very stodgy bird dressed up in your vest, and a bit precise too and I think that is pretty much me these days. I have more to do on this one too, which has a combination of pencil, watercolor, colored pencil and pen being used.

Watercolor seems to be very popular and there were ample sessions to work with it. The Doodlewash guy, Charlie Shields, was back, focusing this year on doodle-painting food. He showed us how to draw and paint whipped cream (and yes, mid-stream he admitted, "Huh, I think I just showed you guys how to draw a poop emoji - sorry about that.") which can be added to any dessert, but in this case a cupcake, I need to go back in and add the watercolor.

However, on Juliet Meeks "Paint Expressive Florals" there was no underlying sketch and I just followed right along with her demo. I obviously need more practice but I at least felt I was starting to learn different ways to use the different brushes. She supplied an inspiration photo, them promptly said she'd decided not to follow it very closely, and I wish I had paid more attention to the photo than to her rendition. But of course, I can always do this again. And I found it somewhat similar to a "paint a bouquet of flowers" from last year done with acrylic paints.

I learned even more watercolor techniques with Chiara Mazzetti and was relatively pleased with my rendition of her winter landscape. She stayed pretty true to the photo of a similar winter landscape she provided and by following her step by step instruction, I learned a lot about when to wet areas first, what order makes for the best results and when using crumpled cling wrap can make for interesting texture on a painted area.

And then there's my poor sunflower. It's supposed to be an end of summer withered one, but like Juliet, Ildiko Karasay deviated from the inspiration photo she provided, and I was so busy following her on screen that it didn't sink in until too late that she had substituted black for brown and done her leaves completely different from the photo. Never mind that my loose beginning sketch of the petals came out wonky and I goofed up on the leaf shapes. Well, if nothing else, it was an interesting lesson in layering watercolor from light yellow to the darker orangier shades. There was one other flower session, using regular colored pencils and watercolor pencils but it required working with a real petal from a flower so I decided to try that later when there are some blooms to work with. Yes, I took copious notes.

I always find it interesting to see how illustrators work and this year we had two different sessions on that. Last year, Nina Rycroft showed us how to draw a dog and then alter that basic shape to put the dog in different poses and animations. This year she showed how to go from a real rabbit to different types of illustrated toy rabbits and then again, how to make slight changes to turn it and animate it. You can just see my pencil sketch on the left, following Nina's directions.

For a different approach to illustration, Melissa Lee shared "fun exercises to get you started on developing character." She walked us through how to work with different basic shapes like a rectangle, a heart and others to end up with a head with a face. She also gave some tips of how to draw bodies for those heads, using block shapes to begin and remembering basic body proportions, after which you can start altering to make thinner or fatter or shorter bodies.

But a type of illustration I got really excited about learning more about was presented by architect David Drazil. I've long drooled over the urban sketches done by architects and now know a few of there secrets. David provided warm-up exercises and tips for drawing straight lines, circles, hatching, trees and shrubs and basic body shapes in proportion. I don't like adding people to my urban sketches as a general rule, but he explained how architects will use the addition of human figures both for storytelling and to help show the scale of buildings or landscaping as in our exercise drawing of a wall. Actually, pretty useful information.

And then things got messy. Karen Stamper was back. She's the one who had me flooding my page full of glued down strips and torn pieces of papers, masking tape and washi tape and some shapes from labels with inks to create a background for sketching. I liked my backgrounds too much to sketch over them but was fascinated by the process. Now she offered a dive into creating a wild garden in black, grey and white. And the messy part was laying down graphite pencil, crushed charcoal (I used my Art Graf since I didn't have charcoal) rubbing it in with your finger, and white oil pastel (I used Paint Stix) to act as a resist. We also were to tear a rough leaf shape out of a small piece of paper to use as a stencil, placing it here and there over the page while rubbing charcoal with your finger through it to make black leaf shapes. I was lucky to have an indoor plant to steal a couple of fresh leaves off of because then we were to press those into a black ink pad and stamp the image on the page. While the leaf was covered with a piece of paper while being pressed on the pad, ink still gets on the fingers when picking it off and placing it on the page. But goodness, I was so surprise and pleased with the delicate and clear image it left. Of course with collage, nothing goes to waste, so the scrap paper placed over the leaf on the pad now had a clear white negative leaf image surrounded by smudges of black ink. Those got collaged down and veins inked on. Lastly, any additional details. leaves and vines were added in pen, and the Art Graf used to draw heavy black grass lines. I really liked how this was turning out.

But that wasn't the end. No, Karen wanted the final step to be adding slightly diluted ink over the page, not as much as in last year's exercise, but enough that I wasn't sure I wanted to do it, having that "I don't want to ruin it" feeling I often get. But I forged on and bummer, I DID feel it ruined it, or at least made it into something different that I did not like as much. I lost the stark whiteness of the collaged leaves that I had liked so much and the ink pooled around the edges so that they no longer blended seamlessly with the background. I left a few areas unpainted with ink, as it looked like she did on hers, to mimic a bit of light coming through. Her very final act was to take a stick and dip it in ink so she could draw heavier briar-like branches across the page. I have a squared-off bamboo stick I decided to try and it worked really well and added a nice finishing touch. This exercise, I decided, was all about building up layers which frankly I am not very good at, so I learned a lot by doing this and seeing it build in front of my eyes.

Also messy, this "expressive portrait play" by Melanie Rivers. If you can believe it, the undersketch is done with your non-dominant hand, following her step by step instructions (she starts with the nose, moves to the eyes and eyebrows, then down to the lips before drawing the outline of the head and adding ears, neck, shoulders and hair). Then with two colors of acrylic paint plus white, you paint in the dark and medium value areas and highlights WITH THE FINGERS of your non-dominant hand. Honestly, I didn't like finger painting as a kid, like the thought of it even less as an adult, and that particular day, I just couldn't bring myself to get out the paints and take this next step. But I'm gearing up for it because I rather like her results!

Amanda Arneill practice sheets

Joanne Sharpe bold and colorful method

There were two session on lettering, each very different, each of interest since I've wanted for a long time to be able to do some of the fancy or more interesting lettering on some of my pages. Amanda Arneill showed her method of getting a brush lettering look with a regular pen while Joanne Sharpe focused on "whimsical watercolor word art" using a paint brush for bold letters, a drop and mingle approach for using two colors together and just going for it with a waterbrush. Lots of ideas for practicing your lettering in your sketchbook from both and Amanda offered additional free lessons which I will look into.

I'm not going to mention the teacher's name for this one because it was such a lame presentation. She was using gauche instead of watercolor which is something I've wanted to learn more about how to use but she gave no instruction whatsoever, and was one of those who seemed to forget people were watching as she just worked on her spread which was supposed to be demonstrating how to fire up your art journal. Well, there was nothing very fired up about what she ended up with and very little suggestions for us students. She did provide some vintage images to download which is where I got the dog illustration. I'm not much on vintage (which she apparently is) and didn't have any vintage portraits on hand to copy how she started her spread. I have since found this vintage-ish lady which I think will work well with the dog and have been thinking how to put my own twist on what she presented in order to get an art journal page I will like. It really was just basic collaging and background painting.

So I'm guessing if you are still with me, you may be feeling as tired right now as I felt as I watched my final video with the organizer of this event, Karen Abend. Just like last year, Karen suggested we use any of the techniques or combination of techniques we'd worked with through this series to make our final page, using a quotation for inspiration. Luckily, while I was looking through my little bin of collage materials, I ran across several of these plaque quotations I'd cut from catalogs, and one just immediately conjured up an image to go with it. It too needs more work (darkening around the plaque, maybe some stamped spirals), but the quotation, in case you can't read it says, "A simple act of kindness creates an endless ripple." This is so appropriate I think for the times we are living through. Even in our locked down state, social distancing when out reality, we can still engage in simple acts of kindness. It will make all the difference in the world.

One last word. Please, no comments telling me how talented I am. I just followed instructions, step by step, as I watched the demos. I really think almost anyone would have just as good if not better results if they did the same. Now if any of this gets channeled into a good original piece, THEN you can tell me I'm talented! And if you are interested in seeing a taste of last year's lessons, this blog post will do the trick.

Secret Belgium Binding

Blank Book 4-3/4 tall by 4-1/4 wide

I paused my watching of Sketchbook Revival videos to sew together this book on the last day of March, in order to post it to my Handmade Book Club to meet the month's challenge of using blue. I'd picked out the lotka paper that had been wrapped around a gift and saved for a long time before I knew about the challenge so lucky me! The boards and signatures have been ready to go for awhile so just needed to set aside a few hours to work through the tutorial for the Secret Belgium Binding.

So what's with the name, many were asking. Well, apparently it really was dreamed up by someone in Belgium. The cover is in three separate parts, sewn together in such a way that the spine floats between the crossing threads that enter holes in the book's front and back cover.

As for the "secret", that information seems to have been lost. However, some speculate that the secret is the way the cover can be folded back. Frankly, I can't see any advantages to this feature, am wondering if it was just unintended and a surprise to the inventor.

Once the three parts of the cover are strung together so to speak, the signatures are added to the threads crossing behind the spine. Use of a curved needle is required and even then, it is an awkward business.

Here's another view which also shows the bookcloth I made from a batik and used for outer spine and "end papers". I chose it because I wanted to camouflage the stitching on the inside of the cover, knowing I'd be using dark blue thread. I do not like the look of those stitches and especially don't like the exposed knots on the back cover, but had seen one member of the club do something similar and her book looked the best of any I saw.

Here's the book open after all signatures have been added. They are the bottom part of the resume paper that was cut off when making a previous book and so determined the size of this one. I really do like that batik on the inside. But each signature is sewn on separately from the next, leaving knots top and bottom of the line of stitching in the center of each signature. Not crazy about those knots there either. However, because they are sewn onto the heavier thread used on the cover, a thinner thread of any color you like can be used to sew them. On other books we've done, whatever weight of thread needed for attaching covers and making the decorative spine stitches was what the signatures were sewn on with, making some very visible lines down the middle of those signatures. So many trade-offs!

And the ultimate test for me: how flat do the pages lie when open? Pretty flat and not a great deal of space between signatures. This paper didn't fold very flat, perhaps would have been better with fewer pages in each signature and then the signatures could have been snugged up tighter. Or maybe that's just the way handmade books are. These are the sorts of things one learns to gauge by doing, not a lot of hard and fast rules. 

Not sure about using this binding again mostly because of that free-floating spine. As I sewed in the signatures and played around opening and flipping back the cover, I swear the thread across the covers stretched (I'm positive I snugged them up more than once as I stitched), and that spine is only held in place by the tension of the threads crossing over it. On the other hand, this binding gives the folds of the signatures protection with that spine that the other exposed bindings like the coptic don't have. And the fact that the spine is not sewn through allows for some novel materials to be used, such as a ruler as one maker did. We shall see.

Sketchbook Revival and a New Sketchbook

Handmade journal modeled on the purchased one on the left

When the e-mail arrived announcing this year's version of Sketchbook Revival, my first thought was to sigh. I still feel like I have so many things I am frantically trying to catch up on; do I really want to commit chunks of time for 13 or so days watching videos and doing exercises in a sketchbook? But I had to admit that I enjoyed the information and discipline learned from last year's immersion so opted in, knowing I could skip what wasn't helpful or things I already knew, and take advantage of whatever new info from a wide range of instructors might be presented, all for free. One small catch of course. The Strathmore multi-media Visual Journal that I used last year got pretty much filled and my many other journals wouldn't quite fit the bill. Am I going to have to order one, I asked, sighing once more. Heck no! Of course, I could make my own while trying out a new binding from my Handmade Book Club. Yup, kill two birds with one stone.

I studied that commercial journal that had served so well for last year's lessons and decided it would be my model in terms of kind of paper and size. Not needing it to be any more sturdy than for use here at home, I decided to reprise my cereal box "boards" covered with tissue paper. Boy, was I excited when I found the teal tissue paper and the beautiful printed one. Not enough of the teal to do two layers scrunched and I didn't really want to add a lot of texture anyway. So after gessoing the boxes, only one layer of tissue paper was smoothed into place and it was enough. The smoothing wasn't perfect so there's a bit of wrinkling here and there but basically, not much texture. The teal became the outside of the covers while the print became the endpaper on the inside. Taking a cue from a tutorial on how to use paper napkins on substrate, I used acrylic varnish to cover both sides of the board to give the tissue paper extra protection. What I have on hand is high gloss, which probably would not have been my first choice, but it actually mimics the gloss of the commercial journal covers.

I checked my paper supply because yes, I'm starting to have a stash of it, and had a couple of choices in multi-media paper. The least waste when cutting down to size would be in using a pad of large sheets where I could get 4 pages out of each sheet. Rather than cut, I tore the pages to size which left rough edges (deckles) and I decided there was no point in trimming them smooth once they were stacked and folded into signatures. These four signatures would have given me about the same number of pages as in the Strathmore journal but at the last minute I decided to add four more signatures to accommodate the binding stitching I'd be doing. Besides, all that tearing was a bit therapeutic considering all the closures and stay at home recommendations finally descending on my little community.

Once the boards dried and they, along with the signatures, spent some time under heavy books, everything got their sewing holes punched, and I set up on the small table where my laptop resides so I could follow the video tutorial on what the teacher was calling the dragonfly stitch.

That dragonfly stitch - I'm not the only one that struggled with it. I was wishing we'd added the back cover first since I did a much better job on it than I did the front cover. Just look at the beautiful printed tissue paper! It makes my heart sing when I see it.

Once the front cover was on, the rest of the signatures went on much faster than I anticipated and quite easily. On each end is a kettle stitch which is what we used on the first books - 2 and 4 needle coptic binding - and supposedly is a sturdier stitch than the chain stitches in the middle which are more what I think of a coptic binding looking like, all done with a single needle.  If you look closely along the edge of the top board, you will notice a slight buckle. I had the same thing appear on my other cereal box board book. I think it's a failure to get the paste evening distributed and all the way out to the edge before putting to two pieces and their cardstock stiffener together. Recycling is a nice idea, but I may have to rethink using these boxes in the future.

I think my stitches got tighter with each signature I added so the book doesn't close totally flat. But flat enough for my purposes. This is a working sketchbook, not meant to be fancy although those deckle edges make it a little bit so.

I nearly used the French Link binding again because I know for a fact how nice and flat the pages all open and that is pretty important in a sketchbook like this. However, I'm still catching up on binding tutorials so I didn't really want to repeat a binding yet, and I'm not sure how rugged that French Link would turn out to be over time. Decided to trust that this Dragonfly Stitch binding, essentially a coptic stitch binding, would lie just as flat. And it does! The dark line down the middle is the stitching thread in the center of the signature, a grey thread which was the only color of the appropriate weight of thread I had on hand. Yes, if I keep this up, I will no doubt be accumulating a different kind of thread stash from the quilting one I already have.

And in spite of feeling like my stitches got tighter as I went along, the spacing between signatures is fairly consistent and not too much of a gap. I am very pleased.  The book, by the way, measures 8 by 5-1/2 inches.

It's a bit exciting to be starting this year's Revival in this book I made myself, covers in my favorite color. Better get cracking and see if it really works. The videos started on Monday and I have yet to watch one.

National Quilting Day Results

Honestly, this doesn't look like much progress on my chosen project for National Quilting Day, but in fact, this is more quilting activity than I've done in months. If you heard any strains of hallelujah, it was probably my machine being so happy to be turned on and running. Most of my time was spent finding fabric and cutting it up in preparation for some sewing. Egads - half square triangles! Do I even know how to do that anymore? And where is that nifty tool that draws the diagonal sewing lines across the paired squares? I couldn't find it anywhere and had to revert to just drawing a single line from corner to corner. I even had a moment when I wasn't sure which button to push to set the machine for quarter inch sewing. I was pretty pleased with myself to get that little stack of half-square triangle units sewed, pressed and trimmed to size.

Sample blocks and patterns from a long ago class I taught

I wasn't flying totally blind though. I pulled out a file from my teaching days where I had stowed sample blocks and a pattern. My late friend Judi had worked up these two versions of this split nine-patch block and I made them up for samples for her hand-dyed fabric booth. We didn't have a lot of success in selling the patterns but I think the sample quilts sold a lot of fabric. As you can see, I worked up both a scrappy traditional fabric block and a more subtle contemporary version in batiks. I had the file at hand because I've been intending to make enough of those batik blocks to use as background for a tree silhouetted against a moon art quilt. I'd just been digging around in my blue batiks to make that book cloth so I thought that was the version I'd be working on. But I decided it needed more care in selection and placement of fabrics than the traditional scrappy one, so those are the kind of fabrics I dug out of my stash.

 

With soothing jazz music in the background and the hum of the machine, I spent the afternoon in a small bit of paradise, being reminded how much I enjoy working on this type of project.

National Quilting Day!

The third Saturday in March is designated as National Quilting Day, a chance for quilters to either gather in groups for a sewing day, do public demos or just dedicate some hours to their personal quilting at home. Well, most of us are sheltering in place anyway these days, so there's little excuse for not getting into your studio and doing some quilting today. And I spotted this idea on Facebook, to hang a quilt outside today to cheer your neighbors. Well, I don't have a way to do that but I do have this printout of the Idaho Beauty Block that I hang up when the art group needs to differentiate my house from the identical ones up and down the block. So my shingle is out and I think I am going to cut some fabric and sew up a few blocks. Won't you join me?

 

Trying New Things

I meant to post this earlier in the week but got distracted. I'm still working away on books, and this photo represents several days of trying out some new things. And for a change, they were all successes! I know it doesn't look like much but as I've mentioned before, things take longer than one would think, having to be very meticulous in measuring and cutting and factoring in drying time for the glue. And just like in quilting, I end up spending time searching stashes for coordinating papers and fabrics. It rather delightfully sucks me in. Anyway, here are my trials and triumphs:

I made wheat paste so that I could try making my own book cloth from a commercial batik in my stash. Wheat paste is archival, reversible, and has a longer open time than PVA glue. It adheres a light strong paper like rice paper to cloth to stabilize it and protect it from the glue used to adhere the cloth to bookboard. Worked like a charm! The bookcloth went on the spine and as end paper of the boards for the next tutorial - secret Belgium binding (bottom boards).

Then I mixed a little of it into my PVA as our instructor suggests to extend the PVA's open time, using this to glue on cover papers and end papers - what a difference! Since I am still learning, I tend to work more slowly so having the glue dry more slowly is really helpful.

I also tried putting the glue on the board rather than the cover paper as we'd been shown in previous lessons and liked that method a lot better than putting the glue on the paper. We were shown this alternative because of that narrow spine board which otherwise would be more difficult to cover and again, for the benefit of us new to all this as a perhaps easier way to get the board centered on the paper and leaving the corners to be mitered free of glue for that cutting.

I had read a suggestion from Kaija at paperiaarre.com to punch holes in the book board BEFORE covering them for a more professional look (follow this link and scroll to the end, but she gives many of the same good tips that our club teacher does before this one) https://www.paperiaarre.com/7-tips-professional-looking-handmade-books/ I didn't actually shave off the bumps as she suggests but did sand them down some, and found that glue does go down in the holes when putting it on the board rather than the cover paper and that seems to help the paper and end sheet pushed into the holes stay in place. I felt I got a much neater look.

The smaller boards along the top were extras I cut during the first coptic binding tutorial. I reworked some of the cover paper I made (wet scrunched paper bags rubbed with Art Graf), stamping the grass motif over it and then sealing it with matte medium. That layer of matte medium really made a difference in handling as I glued and pulled it around to the back, giving the paper more durability.

I generally like to work on one book at a time, but I'm doubling up right now as I signed up for this year's Sketchbook Revival course and realized I did not have to order a sketchbook but could make my own. So the next post will show you how I am going about that.

 

Before and After Shots

Still Winter . . .

I've been struggling a bit with a cross between cabin fever and spring fever. February was just cold for the most part. When the sun did come out it was still cold and often windy. When it wasn't sunny it was often rainy. Now I'm not one of those who starts whining in February about how long the winter has been because I know darn well that in this part of the country, winter isn't over until April, and sometimes not even then. But since our snow has been sporadic and all that's left are some dirty piles pushed up by the plows, and nothing is budding out or even pushing up yet, my walks along my usual route have been bleak and soul-sucking. So when the sun did come out a few weeks ago, I headed to city beach for a different view that I hoped would perk me up. Even colder there with the breeze off the lake, but at least I was looking at something different, and I was a little surprised at how many people were there doing the same.

I do get some delight when the sun comes out from my collection of rocks that sit on a ledge below my house number. I don't think you can tell from the picture, but many of these have flecks of mica in them that make them pick up the sunlight in sparkles. Most of these have been snatched up on my walks because of an interesting shape, lines of different kinds of rock within a stone or a pleasing color. Since I live in a development where all of the townhouses are identical, This pile of rocks helps visitors delineate mine from the rest.

Before

And now the before and after promised in the heading. I continue to carry out small experiments in my 4-needle coptic binding book. You may remember me showing a spread where I painted brown ink over the paper. I decided to try a technique from the Sketchbook Revival Series, but pared down to this. Labels were suggested as an easy thing to use as a resist or to be left in place when flooding a page with inks. I remembered having some large labels bought for shipping, not realizing they were removable, more made for labeling a bin for instance. Maybe I can cut some tree shapes and apply them to the page, add diluted black ink I'd saved over and around them, and then remove them once the page was dry. It should leave me with brown trees on a darker background.

After

And it did! The black ink pooled at the edges of the label trees, defining them nicely.

Before

But because of my thing for birches, I wanted to try the same thing starting with a white page. I decided to set it up facing the somewhat failed experiment of dropping ink onto a wet page and use the same green ink.

After

This time I had some seepage under the edges of the label trees, probably because of them being used already. But I still like it.

Waste not, want not

By now the label trees were nicely colored from the two inks I'd used and still had quite a bit of stick to them. I couldn't bear to throw them out, so I found a page with a very faint string-pull image and place them there. I may need to add a little glue stick to the ends, but for now, they have a happy place to live.

All these pages have the potential to be worked into more, or may stay just as they are.

Long Stitch Binding With Slit Covers

I've used a variation of the long stitch when making my blank journals (thanks to Michele at Sweet Leaf Notebook for giving me one of hers that I've used as a guide) and it is a very simple a quick way to put a book together. This version with the slit cover is supposed to be equally quick and easy but I struggled a bit with it. Sewn-in signatures would flop around as I tried getting my needle in the right place and pulling thread through, then keep turning the book to the back to tighten up stitches. Eventually it dawned on me to get some clothespins out to hold those unruly signatures to the cover while I worked sewing in the next one.

I'm still on the fence about Kraft-Tex in general, but as I worked sewing the signatures in, I came to like the feel of it. However, I struggled with getting the slits in the spine cut because, as I always forget, black is impossible to see things like stitching and in this case, pinprick awl marks on and I couldn't get a clean cut through on the first swipe. I think that is why there's some white showing at the slits. The bottom one in particular I KNOW got cut in two places close together with a sliver having to be removed. As much as I like green, I couldn't believe I had no suitable green thread, but the black's ok, particularly since I don't really like the look of the thread wrapping over the head and tail of the spine in this binding.  Also, it requires the signatures and covers to be identical heights unlike other bindings that require the covers to bit slightly longer, the extra providing some protection to the edges of the signatures.

A fairly usable size at 6-14 x 4-14 inches

I've been using drawing paper or watercolor paper in my other books, but this time I decided to use just a plain paper that might make for a good writing surface. I have quite a bit of 25lb cotton rag Resume paper left over from the days of submitting one's resume printed out on fine paper and submitted by mail. Does anyone require that anymore? That paper makes for a very special feel over just copy paper. The strap is what I trimmed from the cover, and frankly, I don't really like the slits on the cover for it to thread through. I was considering velcro and might change to that. 

Honestly, I doubt I would use this binding again. Besides not liking the look, it doesn't lay open and flat as that French Link binding does (not sure why) But in the meantime, lessons learned, preferences hit upon, and a nice little book to add to my collection.