Stones - a stick book!

My original idea was that the book Stones would be a created as a stick book, companion piece to Sticks. I talk about the two books in a previous blog, along with showing simplified templates for both. In order to put Stones together I worked methodically: I scored the Khadi paper prior to printing and scored the Fabriano endpapers. The covers were made of a heavy duty, acid free blotting paper; only the front cover needed to be scored to facilitate folding when opening the finished book. 

Stones is a book of five intaglio prints based on pebbles at the seaside. The intaglio is done on 800 micron acetate plates and I printed the plates using my pasta press. I have given extensive details on how to convert a pasta machine into a miniature flatbed printer here.

After all prints were created, I decided on the page order. This is the first printed page.

Page 2.

Page 3.

Page 4.

Page 5.

Page six is an information page (signature, title, edition number, date). The pages were sandwiched between the endpapers and then wrapped with the blotting paper cover. I used a page of white paper, some corrugated cardboard and a lion clip to hold everything in place while binding holes were created using a drill press.

Stick binding is a variation of Japanese stab binding (instructions here). The stick, however, allows the binding thread to pass through the same hole consecutively, without unravelling. Although I originally planned to use real sticks, I was hit by a bolt of lightening and decided to create my own sticks in the ceramic workshop I am taking weekly. I simply rolled out some coils, hand-formed end bits, and used a real twig to press in some texture. Because of the colour of my prints (various mixes of Permanent Green, Payne's Grey, and Cobalt Blue) I chose a slate blue glaze for the sticks. I matched this colour to the six strand cotton embroidery thread I used for binding.

I started binding at the top, back to front and around the top of the stick then down to the next hole, and so on. This process was repeated going back up the book, tying several knots at the top back and trimming to the desired length. This is the back of the book.

Here are several of the bound books, showing the slight variation in the ceramic sticks.

I was very pleased with the finished books. Stones is in an edition of ten books.

Sticks - accordion book

I conceived of "Sticks" as a simple accordion book for a single, long format intaglio print with ceramic covers. The print is a horizontal image of sticks based on some sketches I had done of wood debris floating in the Glencullen River in Knocksink Wood.

I had created a unique protype, "Shinrinyoku", of this image as an accordion book in June. I made the prototype to figure out how an accordion book could work, using handmade paper for the drawing and for the covers.

Because I wanted the front cover of the "Sticks" book to have some relationship to the future intaglio print, I created a bark stamp that could be pressed into the clay slabs that would be my book's front covers

The stamp itself was simply made from some scrap wood and the bark affixed to the front of the stamp with pva glue.

Although I coated the entire stamp to seal it, when using it on the clay it worked better to have a layer of cling film (Saran wrap) between the stamp and the clay slab. For the back covers, I simply used a rubber stamp kit to press my name in the clay slabs.

I was doing an edition of ten books, so needed 10 final intaglio prints of the image. I have detailed how I converted a pasta machine into a flatbed press in a previous blog (here). The small prints created using this press are only limited in size in one direction (in this case the length is shorter than the width). The prints are on Khadi 100% acid free handmade Indian rag paper.

When the prints were ready I did a general layout of how I would like the completely open book to appear, with both the front and back covers visible. This would give me an idea of how to fold the book.

Or rather, giving my trusty assistant the idea of how to make the folds (I fully recognise that my husband tends to measure more accurately than I!).

The prints were affixed to the background of Fabriano with pva, along the top only, prior to making the folds.

Components ready to be turned into books!

A view of the back of the accordion book.

A view of the front of "Sticks".