I’ve made covers for two of the small books.  I used scraps of silk and see-through printed fabric, stitched together.  They still need to have end papers pasted in them (a tricky part for me) and I plan on decorating the edges of the papers with words, but they’re getting closer to done.

Here are two more pictures of the beads I made in class.  Class is now over, but hotshop (glassblowing) starts next Tuesday.

I’ve been practicing bookbinding.  So far I’ve learned that the crossover stitch (the fanned out one) looks fantastic but isn’t very tight.  I’ve also learned that wheat paste is excellent for paper-to-paper, but not so good for mull-to-spine as it’s not flexible.  I’ve got enough paper for at least two more books. When they’re done, I’ll try to get creative with covers.  I need practice with covers too.  Sometimes mine aren’t very tight.

I’ve come to the conclusion that I need a baren, or some kind of printing press if I’m going to make invitations and Christmas cards.– Too time consuming otherwise.

Fish Paintings

Here is the latest page in my art journal.  I took pictures of it along the way so I could explain the steps.

Step One:  I painted watercolors of fish directly into the book, then photographed them so I could print the photos smaller onto cardstock.

Step Two:  I photocopied sheets of old stamps, coins, and Egyptian money, then made a collage.

Step Three:  I covered the entire thing with green tissue paper. It didn’t look very good, so after I did that I tore it off, leaving only three stripes.  After that, I painted it with a wash of half green acrylic paint and half translucent acrylic medium.

Step Four:  I had a photo to work from, and I started by sketching it on another piece of paper before concluding that it would look better drawn directly onto the page.  I tried to color in the flesh with a colored pencil, but it’s difficult to draw on top of acrylic.  I painted the shirt in with acrylic, then used a combination of soft graphite and sharpie marker to draw the outlines.  I adhered the fish with acrylic medium, and drew around them with marker and graphite to make them stand out.  You can still see some of the fish underneath.