Week Fifty Two - Sporadic Snake

Well this is the last book for the year. The book challenge is now complete and I am quite happy with my body of work. This week's book is in the long Coptic style and is made from bits of everything: wrapping paper, scrap paper, receipts, labels, instructions and more. It's name comes from its flexibility which makes it feel almost alive. All of the books that Kathy and I have made will be in the cases at Pullen Arts Center all through January so make sure to stop by and take a look. The reception for the gallery will be the night of the 17th.

Week Fifty One - Rain On Your Parade

This week I did another canvas cover. I have recently gotten quite into books with canvas covers because they are malleable and there are many ways that you can decorate the cover. For the book challenge, the first canvas cover I used acrylic paint with some mixed media elements. The second canvas cover I used alcohol inks and acrylic paint with a snowflake template. This time I just used the alcohol inks so I could play around with them and learn more about how they work and what you can do with them. I decided to call this book "Rain On Your Parade" because of all the bright colors I used, but I had so much of the ink it started to pool and I let it drip off the canvas which makes it look a bit like it got rained on. There is only one week left in the year!

Week Fifty - Fibrous

I recently taught a fibers surface design class at Pullen Arts Center. For many of the pages I used my dyeing samples from the class and one of the embroidery samples. The cover is my sample for paint on dyes that I turned into book cloth. It has some blank pages in it and would work well as a sketch book for a fiber artist or to hold needles, labels, and ideas.

Week Forty Nine - Vertebrae

I stitched together the spines of old hard cover books to create this recycled cover. I used 2 from a children's story series, 2 old literature books from middle school, an old thesaurus, a French war novel and an American political novel.

Week Forty Eight - Think Again

This a traditionally bound book with a hard spine but I was inspired this week to make it a triangle instead of the normal rectangle. Who said books had to be rectangle anyway. I'm quite pleased with how it turned out. It was a bit harder to cut and cover because of the 45 degree angles but well worth it. The book fits nicely in your hand as well.

Week Forty Seven - Jacobs Ladder

This is a Jacobs ladder book if the title did not give that away. This was a lot harder than I thought it would be but it's also my first time making one. It's made from an old deck of cards and pages from a phone book. It took me 3 tries before I got it right but I guess that just makes it better.

Week Forty Six - Snowflake Madness

As the title states, this week's book is snowflake themed. The cover is hand painted on canvas using a snowflake stencil, acrylic paint, and alcohol ink. The pages are from packaging paper. I also laminated a few snowflakes so they could be sewn in with the signatures. In the past 3 days I have cut out about 11 or so paper snowflakes, so I feel the title is appropriate. I have cut out Star Wars themed, pac-man, skulls and more.

Week Forty Five - Too Much Coffee

This week is apparently all about coffee. I used coffee sleeves as the pages inside and cut the covers to be the same shape as the coffee cup sleeves. Instead of sewing them together, I used book rings to bind it, which allows you to easily remove and add pages.

Week Forty Four - Come Join Us

Happy Halloween! And to celebrate I made a Halloween themed book. This is a tunnel book with 4 panels. Each panel I cut by hand with a different scene. This style book makes me think of small plays and theaters, so I named it Come Join Us, as this is a Halloween show.

Week Forty Three - Starry Night

The cover of this book is made from scrap canvas that I painted with acrylic. The abstract painting reminds me of a night sky so I'm calling it my version of a The Starry Night. The paper inside is blank and used to be used for hand written dedicated end pages in bibles. The paper was donated to Kathy, who gave me some.

Week Forty Two - Travel Journal, Sweden

This is the journal that I took to Sweden with me. I took an old book, removed the text block, and replaced it with blank papers and recovered the spine for extra support. This week it is more about the content of the book than how I created it.

Week Forty One - Papper of Sweden

Since I am in Sweden, I decided to make a book with different labels, paper, maps and more that I have found so far here. I only brought a needle and book thread with me, the needle of which is now broken, but I found a cool paper store in town where I got the hinges that are on the spine and I used the bag from that store as the cover.
I have also included a picture from downtown Uppsala. I love it here.

Week Forty - Pear

I carved the book into a pear shape and painted the edges. When I added a stem and leaves it became a pear! (Which happens to be my favorite fruit). This is probably the last of the sculpture books for a while. I leave for Sweden tomorrow (10/4/12) and I will be there for about 12 days. I have no idea what next week's book will be like but I hope to be inspired by Sweden.

Week Thirty Nine - Egg Rolls

To make this book I cut other random books into strips. Then I used water to wet them and molded the strips into a specific shape. After the strips finished drying they retained the shapes and created an egg.

Pullen Arts Center's Fall Arts Fair

Come join us at the Fall Arts Fair. Many great artists will be there along with kids crafts, live music, food, and demos. This is a great place to do some holiday or birthday shopping. Forget the mall and join the fun at Pullen Arts Center. We are located near the NCSU bell tower. Make sure to stop by my table to say hello, I will be selling handmade books and more.

Week Thirty Eight - Crackle

This book is a mix between my book sculptures called Cheshire (which can be found on my website) and the circular Coptic book I did earlier in the year. I painted all the pages to make them thicker and more plasticky. Instead of curling the pages, as I did for Cheshire, I crinkled them.

Week Thirty Seven - Folds

This week I wanted to try out manipulating books by working with altered books and sculptures.  Only using folds and the pages that are already in the book I created a design. This is my first attempt at doing this, so it was all about exploration, next time (though I don't know when that will be) I would like to using the folding to write a word on the side of the book. For a few weeks or so I am going to concentrate more on books as sculptures. 

Bookmaking and Fiber Classes

Check out my up coming book making classes. One Saturday a month I will be holding a book arts class where we will make one book that day, each month featuring a different style book.  It provides a great way to learn or refresh yourself on a style of bookmaking and time to spend with friends.  I am also offering a surface design class where we will be going over many different techniques for manipulating and decorating fabric. Go to <a href="http://reclink.raleighnc.gov">reclink.raleighnc.gov</a> to register. Classes are held at Pullen Art Center in Raleigh. 

Fibers - Surface Design

Age: 16yrs. and up.

Learn processes to manipulate fabric such as appliqué, reverse appliqué, some embroidery and other decorative techniques.  No sewing skills are needed.  If you have a transportable sewing machine it could help with some of the class projects. Instructor Jennifer Mahaffey (5 weeks)

$70

#130744    Nov 7-Dec 12  W  6:30 PM-9:00 PM

 

Bookmaking - Saturday Book Arts

Age: 16yrs. and up.

Come enjoy a relaxed afternoon of bookmaking.  Each class is a one day session to make a specific style of book. The sessions are stab binding (September), accordion fold (October), pamphlet (November), and folders (December). No previous bookmaking experience necessary; this is open to all skill levels. Basic supplies are provided, but we encourage students to bring any papers or ideas you wish to incorporate into your book. Instructor: Jenny Mahaffey (1 session).

$36

#130710    Sep 22       Sa        10:30 AM-2:00 PM

#130711    Oct 27         Sa        10:30 AM-2:00 PM

#130712    Nov 10       Sa        10:30 AM-2:00 PM

#130713    Dec 15        Sa        10:30 AM-2:00 PM

Week Thirty Six - Not Quite Related

In this book there are 15 panels, each with an old photograph on one side and a dictionary page on the other. I chose one word from each page to write larger. The people in the photos aren't really related to me, hence the title this week, but are related by marriage to my family in a more complicated way than I'm willing to describe in a blog.

Week Thirty Five - Blobs

This week is more conceptual. I didn't really have a plan while making it, I just did whatever came to mind. Each page has a blob cut out of it, getting smaller as you flip through it. Afterwards I soaked the book in balsamic vinegar to give the paper an aged look.

Week Thirty Four - Hospice

This week I helped make books for Hospice along with many other people. The goal is 20 books a month. These will become journals for those through the Hospice program.

Week Thirty Three - Folders

This Week it was all about folders. I made 2 books, one with folders and blank paper and this one which only has folders in it. The folders are made from sample pieces of wall paper which should make them much more durable. I would still like to add closures to them but haven't found the right buttons yet.

Week Thirty Two - Robots!

This has a hard cover spine. I've been trying to do more of them and make them better. This one I decided to screen print on the cover for fun. A robot happened to be the creature I felt like drawing that day. A working man robot.

Week Thirty One - Reuse

This week I taught a half day kids camp and one of the things we did was make our own paper. This is the single signature book we made from the hand made paper with a book cloth cover.

Week Thirty - Casing

Instead of having the pages seen to their cover, I made 2 single signature books that fit inside a hard cover case that can be tied closed. Next time I would like to put a little bit of elastic inside the case to hold the books but so you could still remove them if you wanted.

Week Twenty Nine - Getting Fancy

Using a long stitch and a kettle stitch, I did a more decorative stitching on this book. This is my second attempt at curving the stitching. The template for this stitching gets abused during the making of the book and it takes forever but is well worth it in the end.