Book Making

I had planned to test myself by preparing another talk using that odd machine and my computer, but it seems more practical to demonstrate book making for Carrie and whoever wants to watch and urge the rest of you on with your March 5th project.  

After that there is spring vacation and we miss yet another Monday class.

IF YOU ARE WORKING WITH DIGITAL IMAGES, PLEASE BRING YOUR LAPTOP...
WE NEED TO SAVE ONE COMPUTER FOR ARAN TO USE SINCE HE DOESN'T HAVE A LAPTOP...AND MAYBE FOR TUNISIA ...WHO MIGHT NOT HAVE ONE...

IF THINGS GET TOO CROWDED, WE'LL HAVE TO LIMIT TIME ON THE LIMITED NUMBER OF COMPUTERS...   REMEMBER YOU CAN USE THE PRINTERS DURING LAB TIME...thanks..

So, here are some photographs of specific styles of books in case Carrie wants to think about alternatives to the scrap book.

 This is a very large, heavy "scrap" book that I made for an etching class that I was auditing at UMass. I wanted extremely large pages because I was using etchings with text.

And I was using very heavy, very large board that I bought at a book bindery. It has to be laboriously cut with a matte knife.

The board that you buy in a package in an art store such as Blick is around 13x19, four boards in a package and is much thinner. It's easier to cut, but you can't make a huge book.

There are always end-papers pasted (with a white glue that you very carefully apply over the whole surface) inside the front cover after the outer covering (in this case, a heavy black rice paper). Sometimes you put on a sheet of heavy weight BFK Reeves -- the same paper you've used for the basic book block and then paste the end paper over it. Sometimes you use the BFK Reeves as the end paper. (Take a look at the accordion book and you'll see white end papers..) And you need to make spacers -- the same size as that board that makes the hinge and put one between each sheet because these compensate for the print (height) and the dry-mount tissue.

The scrap book consists of a front and back book board. And then there are two narrow pieces, cut the same width, that create the hinge to allow the cover to open easily. You'll need those two metal whatever-they-are called.  gismos? gromets?....(see top picture.)

The pages are 1/4" smaller on the top and bottom and 1/4" smaller on the right and left sides. In other words, 1/2" smaller than the book board because this protects the pages from being easily damaged.

This is a strap book...though it's easy to make and I made this one during a Workshop that I was teaching a couple of years ago, it's definitely more delicate because the cover is not made of book board but of a heavy paper..    The pages are made by folding each piece of paper in half, twice the length of what you've decided is your cover size...and then binding it through the fold (this has to be seen to be explained easily.)  One advantage is an attractive binding of stitching. But, again, it's fragile.  

I hated the blue coat that I was wearing that winter, so I wanted to make a book about it, using text.

So there were many photographs of me with my usual forlorn expression in that coat and also much smaller images of the coat and the lining, etc...it also functioned as sort of a diary.

This is an accordion book which is actually quite easy to make...Again, it's with a heavy-weight BFK Reeves paper and the images are adhered with dry mount tissue and the dry mount press.

I made it for that same class...using photographs I'd taken in the parking lot when I took a friend to doctor visits...they are digital images and I used photoshop to add text.   As you'll see, the end pages are an extension of the accordion book block.  I don't think anyone in that class was any more interested in my working along with them than most of you are in this blog...but why not do it?

It's possible to make deliberately messy books, but these are examples of quite formal solutions and they are a bit annoying to make because all the pages have to be the same sizes and the glue has to be applied neatly, blah and blah.    If you hate precision, these aren't the books you want to make because they look pretty awful if you're not careful...for instance, folding an accordion book is tricky.