February 2015 - Week 3 Content Creation

The challenge with creating this book is in having the paper be strong enough to carry the weight of the thin spiral forms.

I decided to go with glue several pieces of paper together.  It would have been possible to just use  thick (300lb.) watercolour paper but I felt the glue between the sheets of paper would be stronger than just thick paper.

I will only be showing the process for the color red.  It is the same process for the other colours, orange, yellow, green, blue and violet.

Creating the Pages

I started first with crumpling the paper, then glued four sheets together.  And then set the pages under a weight to dry.  It does take a couple of days for the sheets to dry.

Here's the result-

I added the crumpling to add some texture.  It also meant I didn't have to struggle so much making sure everything was aligned and not puckering.

Then, using my templates, I marked, traced and cut out all the shapes.

Using straight right out of the tube acrylic colour, I paint each page the colour needs to be.  In this case, it was red.

Using straight from the tube colour is rarely recommended.  But I want the consistency and visual look to the colour that can only come from straight from manufacturing.

Now, what you can't see is some more strengthening of paper I felt I need to do.  So I also added a layer of Clear Acrylic Top Coat spray and a layer of Mod Podge.

If when I'm binding the book, I feel the strength still isn't strong enough. I will adhere each page with a clear acetate sheet.  But I'm feeling very confident in the strength right now, so I will let you know next week if I had to add the extra support.

The last step was to add a central circle to each page.

It represents the light and will serve as a guide to align up all the pages.


The same process was done to create all the other pages.

Next week, the binding of book.

Until then, Happy Book Binding!

Sheila

February 2015 - Week 2 Content

Content Creation - part I

When I'm looking for an idea or trying to come up with a concept for a work, one of my favorite things to do is to take a familiar subject and try to come up with my solution(s) for that subject.  I like to try to not only be unique but also put my feelings and emotions into a subject.

For this month's challenge, I decided to have the content revolve around a short story creation myth I wrote.  I love creation myths in all their forms and so when I wanted to create my own, I thought it only fitting that it should be about colors.

In the story,  the colors are pulled out of the light.  The tunnel book form was the best choice, to me, to illustrate the concept.  So looking through you will see all the colors being pulled out of a central core.

Below are some of my sketches for this idea.

I did limit myself in that I only wanted to do the primary and secondary colors.

I liked the idea of the central star pattern and the colors flowing from the tips, but I decided to make them freer and intertwine them.  Also, to help illustrate the story, I will make the first page white to represent the light and the last page, or back, black.

Next, I created the patterns from old scrap paper.  First the overall outside shape, second the star center and lastly the curving patterns for each of the colors. I marked all the pieces for easier transfer.

I did have to rework some of the curves to get the to be in a pleasing form as a whole.

HELPFUL HINT * Spend some time getting your template right and visually pleasing.   Since you usually create the template with cheap, left-over or scrap paper, there's not a huge emotional or financial attachment to it, so it's easier to change or throw out completely.

Once I was happy with the templates, it was time to move on to the creating the actual pages.

Next week - creating the pages.

Happy Book Making!

Sheila

February 2015 Week One - The Challenge

Hello Everyone,

This month's challenge for book form is an 8 panel Tunnel Book.  

Small Scale Mock-up of Tunnel Book

The special characteristic of this book form, as you can see, is the tunnel that is created by decreasing the dimension of the center hole.  This means that if you want to have a lot of panels, the images, cut outs, words, etc. that are on the panels, are going to be very, very small by the time you get to the last one.


With that in mind I am going to start with the following dimensions, but may have to increase them if I feel that things are getting a bit too small in the back.

This form does not contain signatures, but there is room on the inside cover for a short story or poem.

Here are the list of materials I will be using:

Panel pages -  8 - 8 1/2" x 10",   (90 lb paper works best)
Concertina sides - 2 - 8 1/2" x 18"
Cover -
     Gray board (Davy board) - 2 - 8 3/4" x 9 1/4"
     Cover paper  - 1 - 10" x 16"
     End paper - 1 - 8 1/2" x 9"
Spine -
     Light weight gray board - 1 - 8 3/4" x 3/4"
     Cover paper - enough to cover spine


My theme this month will be "Myths", more specifically the Myth of How the Colors Were Made.  More about that next week.

Till then, Happy Book Making!

Sheila