Category: Art

Art, Bookarts

A Note on Paper

Shelly

Whenever I make a book, I list what kind of paper I’ve used. I didn’t this time, though, because I used a bunch of odds and ends. There’s some 90lb cream Stonehenge and some 140lb Cartiera Magnani hot press. There is also some buff Arches cover that I’ve been carrying around since school. I trash picked it in one of the printmaking rooms, I think. Some of the Arches had test images printed on it, so there will probably be found art in some of the spreads.

I’d forgotten how much I like the texture of Arches cover. It’s a nice weight for bookbinding, too. I’ll have to pick some up.

Art, Bookarts, Photography

Burlap and Bell

Shelly

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Burlap and Bell
four-needle Coptic binding with hemp twine and burlap over Davey board covers
8 x 6 inches, 9 signatures of 2 sheets (36 pages)
5 March 2008

I didn’t take any detail photos before covering it, so I can’t show the horrible stitching. After looking at a different tutorial, I think the problem was either operator error (always a possibility!) or the instructions I used were not clear. Meaning, the problem was not with the binding itself, but that I did it incorrectly.

The burlap cover I added isn’t perfect. The corners are wonky, and I haven’t added end papers yet. That would’ve been easier to do before the fact. I’d also intended on wrapping the spine, to mitigate the vertical fanning, but didn’t like how that looked. I’m sure to be doing a lot of collage work across the page gutters, and hopefully that’ll stabilize things.

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It’s all a learning experience, right?

Anyway, to answer Christina’s question, the tutorial I used was from the Volcano Arts website. This two-needle Coptic tutorial from Emma Jane Hogbin seems to be pretty straightforward. I’m going to try it next, though adapted for book board, not wooden covers.

Art, Bookarts

Instant Review: Four Needle Coptic Binding

Shelly

I needed a new journal, so I thought I’d try doing a four-needle Coptic binding. I’m not sure that was a good idea. I used hemp twine, which might have been my first mistake. The stitching pattern isn’t very clear, and the knotting is kind of out of control where the back cover is attached. It was also a pain in the ass to keep track of four needles. Aaack! And time consuming, too. It took about twice as long as doing a single-needle Coptic binding. I guess that’s to be expected, but I am short on patience, so it’s no wonder I was frustrated.

The worst part, though, is that I could not get the spine edge of the first signature even with the spine edge of the front cover. I tried and tried and tried, and even loosened and re-tightened the stitches holding the front cover to the first signature. No dice. It keeps playing peekaboo behind the second signature.

Something else that bugs me is that the back cover wants to drop down from the front, basically fanning the book out vertically. Weird.

So, what I’m planning on doing is covering everything with a piece of burlap (from a basmati rice bag), including the spine. I’m going to attach the burlap to the cover with Heat-n-Bond. Then, I’m going to wind hemp twine between each of the signatures and over the outside of the spine. That should stop the fanning problem as well as hide the ugly spine and the peekaboo signature.

That may sound confusing. I’ll take photos when I’m done. Not that that’s guaranteed to clarify anything.