Small Start - Book-making

I have offered to make a visitor's book for The Bach Community Tapestry Project. I decided I'd do a "test" book first so I wouldn't be disappointed in any thing that goes wrong - which seems to be all the time.

 First of all I applied a coat of gesso to an large sheet of paper. I used a credit card to do this
a once it dried I mixed up blue/green acrylic paints and once again used the credit card to apply it.

I pressed bubble wrap over the surface to create some texture.

I repeated the gesso/paint process with another sheet of paper.

again using the credit card in a criss-cross fashion which I found fun and freeing.

To make the cover I cut the card to fit my handmade paper when folded in half.

I used masking tape to join the pieces of card leaving a small gap of a couple of millimetres so they can fold to open and close.

It's important to leave sufficient space between the card pieces to create a hinge - otherwise you can't open and close the book!

I applied a thin coat of glue to the card and centred it onto my painted sheet of paper.

Then I glued and folded  in the four corners and finally the four sides making sure to smooth out any creases as I went. I left the covered book cover overnight under a stack of books.

The next day I attempted to fold the cover at the hinged spine..and sadly, the paper tore. 

So I came up with an idea, cover the spine (and torn paper) with some of my handmade paper.

I then repeated the above process for the The Bach Tapestry Visitors Book that I'm making so people who work on the tapestry can leave their details with a comment should they choose to.

This book will be a little different in that it'll have interscrew posts to hold the pages in place.

 More cover experimentation with gesso, acrylic paint and paper.

Green - my favourite colour!

 After slapping on the gesso I mixed some blue and red 

paint to make purple and applied that using a credit card. 

Then  I dabbed the wet paint with a rag.

  I just love the texture it created! 

I also experimented with applying acrylics to my handmade paper. I plan on making more books  - Art Journaling books, to be precise and use the painted papers for the journal cover. I would like to (in the future) experiment with print making or photo transfers on handmade paper but that's for another post!

I marked the holes for the signature stitching at 1 inch apart


Then I lined up and marked the stack of signatures and using a needle stitched the pages using the coptic stitch method.

It took me ages to do the coptic stitch. I seem to have so much problem understanding and comprehending instructions. My concentration is really bad at times so much so I get panicky!

I finally stitched to signatures together though but really looking forward to my block week book-binding course at TLC campus on the 18th to 22nd September where I'm hoping I'll get better understanding of the techniques and have the opportunity to focus on different ways in making books.

I'm not sure if this is correct but will adhere the front and back pages to the covers.

Once the glue had dried on the outer cover I glued a couple of A4 sheet of paper to the insides. 

 
Unfortunately the painted paper cracked upon bending so I had to improvise with duct tape to cover the cracks at the edge where the hinge bent back to open. I'm glad I didn't go any further with this as it it not The Bach "colours" (all logos are uniformly orange and purple) and I need to make the book to match. I hadn't thought of that when I painted the painted for my cover.

Needless to say, I had to make another.

Booking-making, Book-binding - 15 hours