All posts filed under: Bookbinding

The 100 day project 2020

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The 100 day project starts tomorrow and I am in! I have done the project for about 5 years now and I have always got into it and ended up with a nice chunk of work. Some themes worked better than others and I hope this years will be a winner! In the past I have drawn mandalas and recorded ideas and last year I did 100 days of blueand I think this and the first mandala year are my favorites.   This year I have made a book and I am going to fill it with 100 days of black and white.  This way it will have a theme but I will also have enough scope for lots of ideas to fill it with.

I like Friday. Art Witch Academy review.

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Art Witch Academy is a fairly new membership art website exploring the concept of ‘art as ritual and ritual as art’, which I like the sound of, so I asked the founding witches if I could have a preview of the Academy to review for Brush magazine. Brush is no longer in print, but the website still has lots of inspiration. The  A.W.A. website provides tutorials, inspiration and information with projects on a variety of art topics, all art witch and magic related. The witches run the academy in semesters and they are full of original projects and ideas. The Academy is the vision and work of three art witches, Vanessa (@dansmoncrane), Caroline (@freya.fennec) and Emily (@fern.and.oak.art).  Each has a unique take on their contribution to the Academy.  Their passion, knowledge and generosity is apparent in every part of AWA as you browse around the site looking at book recommendations via detailed seminars and tutorials. The website is clear and easy to navigate and revisit to carry on with a class or to follow an …

Get Messy Season of Reflection week 1

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For this season I explored the Japanese stab stitch book binding technique.  I have to admit that I have always looked past this method as I didn’t think it would be a great journal binding as it doesn’t lay flat readily.  I always thought it looked too bulky to work with the papers I like to journal on and I was right, it would not work very well with a  watercolor paper even though I am sure it could be persuaded to open flat. So I explored some different papers. I followed the advice of the experts and went for the four hole binding to start with and I used a soft unbleached mulberry paper and my trusty waxed linen thread.  It opens nicely and I like the folds at the outside edge of the book. This technique does not require folded signatures, you can use single sheets or folded sheets with the fold at the spine or the open edge.  I am thinking of all the possibilities to be had with this book binding …

100 days of creating in blue 31-40

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Loving this 100 day project, it is so nice to have a fixed palette and a dedicated sketchbook, it is filling so fast I might have to add some more fold out pages to fit it all in!  Any new inspiration or technique I get to try out in blues and I am really enjoying it.  Almost half way and not struggling to get pages done at all, in fact I am often starting a few at a time and of course always searching old National Geographic for fabulous blue pictures.  Blue landscapes, blue cars, blue dresses, I want it all! If you are doing the 100 day project I hope it is going well and you are keeping up (I am already checking which number we are on almost every day!). Happy Thursday x

My pile of art journals from 2018.

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It is always a revelation when I gather my journals together to see what I made in a year.  Some I thought I made last year and one I had completely forgotten about (thanks Instagram!).  Most of these are full and a couple are my current journals which should be finished soon. What this pile has made me think about is that I want to use one journal for sketching and one for art journaling and work my way though them.  This is such a higgledy piggledy pile I lose track of what I did when.  I am terrible for not dating work too, so I need to be sure to do that more next year! All of the journals I have used this year are handmade even though I do use bought sketchbooks for general sketching and note taking.  I usually use Moleskine and Hahnemuhle books for this. Are you filling books? Do you intend to in the New Year?  It is well worth it and such a joy to be able to look …

Get Messy season of story week 8

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I can’t believe another season at Get Messy Art Journal is almost over!  Almost two months of the season of story and it has flown by.  I took a while to get going on this one but I have really settled on a coherent ‘theme’ in my journal and I love to include the vintage photos and clipping out random words and arranging them into poems of a sort is sheer joy!  I am really loving it! Making art in my handmade books is so exhilarating, I like to work through and fill them up with art journal spreads as well as sketches and practice pages like the portrait over a spray painted background.  It is a place to try things and keep them all, good and bad, a place to learn and improve. I have been trying to add more sketches to my pages to make them ‘mine’,  but it all takes practice and that is what I intend to do. Happy Thursday x

Get Messy Art Journal, Season of story week 7.

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I am loving how this handmade sketchbook is filling up during the season of story.  I am no where near full but I am happy to keep going with this one and see it full of journaling goodness. Almost every page so far has begun with or included a vintage photo of someone or something.  The top page here has a 1923 note from a ledger of the time, an antique post-it!  The parrot has no rhyme or reason except that he is so cool he had to be included and he ended up on the first page, which I never start with.  I don’t know why, but I never begin a journal at the first page, I usually dive in wherever I feel like it and work out until it is full! I photocopied the reverse side of the photos of Dorothy Jean, so the writing could be included in the page.  One of the many things I like about old photos is the writing often found on the back of them. If you …

Handmade art journal and Get Messy Season of Story

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Whenever I visit an antique shop or estate sale I am always on the lookout for old photos, books and ledgers as well as any interesting papers from days gone by which I can use in art journals as collage or inspiration. Sometimes there will be a box of photos to sift through but in my eyes, the real finds are the albums still full of ancient black and white images often with written descriptions on the back or front of the photos and on the album pages. I love to see the names, the date and often a little description of the image. Just look at the poses and the joy in the page of photos from 1916 shown above! I consequently have a lot of old pictures and I use them in my journals some, but I want to use more. One per page at least to and fill my journal with photos and the imagined stories that accompany these people and their clothes and cars and locations. A happy coincidence that the …

Art journaling, bookmaking and sketching.

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I felt like I was neglecting my little art journal for the Season of Play at Get Messy this week. So one evening I picked it up along with some collage pieces I had chosen, cut out and left to one side. Rather than wait for inspiration to strike I decided to just go for it and make a page with these ladies, a constellation map and some butterflies with a few swipes of paint.                                                                                                                                                        I have also just signed up for Sketchbookery so I did a little sketching practice on this page too in the form of a flower …