Day: January 14, 2007

Art, Artist Books, Bookarts, Journals

Endings and Beginnings

Shelly

Hemp Bound Journal, finished (finally!). I started it in July of 2005 and quickly got sidetracked. I picked it up a couple of times, but didn’t get serious about finishing it until a couple of weeks ago. I still have to do a table of contents, and will post that when I’ve completed it, but for all intents and purposes, it’s done, done, done.

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This, of course, means I am in need of a new journal. I’ve been trying to decide what paper I want to use. I’ve got some really nice 140lb Cartiera Magnani hot press left (God, I love that stuff!), but I decided to go with the black 90lb Stonehenge for now. I may regret that decision, though. It doesn’t take kindly to water. Not at all. But it’ll be fun to play with gel pens again. (Oooh! Shiny!)

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Stonehenge Journal
7 1/2 x 5 5/8 inches, 11 signatures of 4 pages each (44 pages total)
Coptic stitch with linen thread, 90lb black Stonehenge paper

If you aren’t familiar with exposed spine bindings, and would like to try making your own books for writing or art, there’s an illustrated tutorial for how to do this binding on my website. It’s really not complicated. Tearing down and folding the paper to the size I wanted took about 30 minutes. The binding itself, including setting grommets into the holes on the front and back covers, took about an hour. I did the entire thing while watching television.

Speaking of television, I’m in the middle of watching the first season of Rome. Oh my. If you enjoyed I, Claudius (or I, CLAVDIVS, as I like to call it), then you’ll like Rome. It’s set during Julius Caesar’s reign, so it directly precedes I, Claudius. In fact, I’m going to rewatch I, Claudius as soon as I’m finished with Rome. I could use a good dose of Derek Jacobi.

Side note: While Googling for links for the above shows, I came across the Wikipedia entry for the Robert Graves book that I, Claudius was based on. And it contained a spoiler warning. Honestly, does a book about Roman history–even if it’s heavily novelized–really need a spoiler warning? The mind wobbles!

Pets, Photography

Arting and Dogblogging

Shelly

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I spent the afternoon cleaning and putting away the mess I made last week. There were scraps of paper and junk everywhere. Thankfully, I can shut the door on it when I’m fed up with it and don’t want to look at it any longer. But, since I’ve finished the Hemp Bound Journal (yay!), I really had to clear away the debris before I could start on a new project. This may be the cleanest this room ever gets, so I thought I’d take pictures before I went to work dirtying it up again.

I didn’t get much else accomplished today. I’m not quite sure where the day went. I did manage to slap a coat of gesso on a crappy old painting I found at a yard sale. I think I paid $2 for it, which, considering I don’t have to stretch or prime it, was a damned good deal. A coat of black gesso slapped on with a credit card (no brush to clean!) covered the hideous Madonna (under)painting. After that dried, I layered some dress pattern pieces, gluing them down with acrylic medium. I don’t have a specific plan for it yet (paint or oil pastels will be involved), but at this point, it kind of looks like a road atlas.

I haven’t decided what I’m going to do, journal-wise, now that I’ve finally finished the Hemp Bound Journal. I’m thinking I might tear down some black Stonehenge paper I’ve got. The surface is a little hard and slick for my taste, and I don’t like how much it buckles with wet media, but it might make a fun change from the earth tones I’ve been stuck in lately. Something more colorful would be nice, and black paper would lend itself well to gel pens. Hmmm. I think I will do that. Maybe tomorrow, even.

And now, gratuitous dogblogging:

Harriet at the Fence

This is an older picture that I’ve Photoshopped. It was taken last April, in the country. Harriet liked to stick her head through the holes in the livestock fence, and graze on the grass on the other side. She also would stand like that and call to the bunnies. I think she was trying to convince one to hop in her mouth. Not one of her more brilliant plans, as it turns out. Rabbits are surprisingly unreceptive to that sort of mind control.