Stitching it all together

I mentioned in my last post that I wanted to stitch all my gelli printed pages together into a little art journal. So, at the weekend, I finally sat down to make my first journal. So I took out my little box of bookbinding tools which I had bought in London last year, and started with the first step - folding all the sheets in half with the help of a bone folder.

The next step was to put the sheets together into signatures, and then punch holes through all of them using a hole-punching tool (I used my lovely awl with its smooth and shiny wood handle).

I decided to use this beautiful red waxed thread instead of the simple white one. I just hoped that it would be long enough, as it was already cut.

I started with my stitching following the instructions from an online course I had taken last year. But the instructions were for three holes, and as I had punched four holes into my sheets, this was just too confusing to start with. So I got out my three books on making books. One of them didn't have the coptic stitch I wanted, and with the other two, I just couldn't make head or tail of it. I really like the design of Esther K. Smith's How to Make Books, but I gave up on the instructions already after step 2. So I googled stitching techniques for a video tutorial I would understand. This one seemed quite useful, but it started with attaching the cover to the first signature, and as I didn't have a cover, I just couldn't figure out the technique without one. At the end, this instruction was the one that worked for me.

When I bought my bookbinding basic tools last year, I bought both ordinary straight needles and curved needles. I had started stitching my journal with a stright needle, as the curved ones looked a bit scary, but some time after the second or third signature, I began to realise the advantage of a curved needle. It made the looping bit much easier, but in general still felt very akward to use.

To be honest, I'm not entirely sure if I did it the right way, but at the end, I had stitched all my signatures together, and although I hadn't tightened the thread evenly, it was all holding together and not looking too bad.

What I like about this stitch is that the journal lies flat, which makes working in it much easier, especially if you want to paint in it.

I decided to add a cover to my book, a wrap-around one, using the sheet of paper I had used to clean my roller on while doing the printing. I just improvised, and stitched it on somehow. It's not quite straight, and I'm not sure if I will keep it on.

So here's my finished little journal. I'm not quite sure yet what I'll be using it for. Not for painting, but maybe for noting down quotations and special memories and such. And I'll definitely be making more journals.

Gelli printing

We've been having a bit of a heat wave here this past week or two, and unfortunately, I'm not made for high temperatures. When the temperatures climb to over 30 degrees, I just don't want to move at all anymore. I don't even feel like painting any more. But yesterday, I decided to pull myself together. I didn't want to miss yet another Paint Party Friday. So I got out my Gelli plate, and started some printing. I can't believe that this is actually only the second time I've used my plate since I got it, and that the first time was over 4 months ago!

I kept to a limited colour palette and made very simple prints with just one layer of paint, and two or three different stencils. After having printed almost 20 sheets of paper, I cut a bit of the top and bottom off each sheet, and then printed the back of all of them. Eventually, I want to bind them all together into a little journal.

Happy Paint Party Friday! 

Hope you're staying cool.

Soar

No bird soars too high, if he soars with his own wings (William Blake)

Summer of Colour - Finished!

It's the last week of Summer of Colour already, and I think this must be the first challenge I actually finished! I thoroughly enjoyed it, even though I was away almost half of the six weeks and had quite a bit of catching up to do. 

Week 1: Citron Green & Turquoise

Week 2: Orange & Hot Pink

Week 3: Lime Green & Purple

Week 4: Charcoal Grey & Pale Pink

Week 5: Candy Apple Red & Yellow

Week 6: Sage & Sepia

I didn't quite know what to do at the beginning of the challenge, and somehow ended up just splashing the colours on the pages of my little sketchbook and adding some doodle flowers. Because the colours aren't quite so bright in the sketchbook, I decided to do a bigger version on a sheet of watercolour paper. I liked the two versions, and decided to stick with this concept throughout the challenge. I'm glad I did, it's great to see all the six doodle paintings together, and how different they all turned out.

I can't really remember the combinations I voted for each week, but I think that whatever I voted, it never came up. Which in a way was great, because it forced me to try out colour combinations I probably would never have used myself. Especially the Candy Apple Red & Yellow was quite a challenge, as I don't like yellow at all, and although I do like red, not really in the combination with yellow. But I was positively suprised by the result, and I must admit, it turned out to be one of my favourites of the six, together with the lime green and purple one.

I'm planning to keep up these sketches by picking random combinations from magazines or wherever I see them. I probably won't do it very regularly, certainly not one a week, but it's such an excellent excercise, especially when trying out new combinations.

Linking up to Summer of Color - thank you so much Kristin for hosting this wonderful challenge! - and to the fabulous Paint Party Friday, where I can't even remember how many weeks I've now missed, but it's definitely too many.

Know your materials

I love making reference pages of my paints and materials in my sketchbook. I spent most of Sunday adding some more paint boxes (and discovering some long forgotten ones), and some of my growing collection of watercolour brushes. It seems I now have watercolour paints for every occasion and sketchbooks; cheap, expensive,tubes, half pans, full pans, big boxes, travel kits...

Summer of Colour, Week 5

I wasn't too happy about this week's colour combination, Candy Apple Red & Yellow, I must admit. I like red, but yellow really is my least favourite colour, and I just wasn't convinced that the combination of the two could produce something I'd be happy with. But of course I decided to give it a go, and as the yellow wasn't a specific yellow, I decided to make the best of that and use as warm a shade of yellow as possible, bordering on light orange.

I've only come as far as finishing the sketchbook page, and preparing the background on the sheet of watercolour paper. But I'm determined to finish that one too over the weekend, and catch up with the the past two weeks too, to be ready for the final week next week.

I did the doodles only last night, and, with my head being full of all the new stuff that starting a new job brings with it, my imagination was a bit limited. So I decided to go back to one of my older designs from my trainsketches. I love these sketchbooks, they are becoming such a great source for inspiration.

I have to say that I'm quite pleased with the result. The colours work well together, and I'm glad I tried a combination I'd never would have chosen myself. Can't wait til Monday now, when the last combination will be announced (can't believe it's already the last week!). I already can't remember what combination I voted for, but I'm hoping that it's going to be one that includes blue. We haven't really had any proper blue so far, only the turquoise in week one. Anyway, still lots to catch up with, so I'd better start working.

Summer of Colour catch up

Back from my wonderful two and a half week's holiday in England, and I've got a bit of catching up to do. In the first week of Summer of Colour, I did a sketch in my sketchbook first, and then a second one on a sheet of watercolour paper. I enjoyed the different effects of the different papers and watercolours, but it also meant that I felt that I had to keep this up for the following weeks. Which is rather time consuming. I did take some watercolours and sketchbooks with me on holiday, and although I haven't been very productive, I did a page or two, and back home again, I spent today with preparing the backgrounds of this and last week's colour combination and with adding the doodle flowers on the background sheet for week two.

Week 2: Orange & Hot Pink

Week 3: Lime Green & Purple

Week 4: Charcoal Grey & Pale Pink

I found a sketchbook with a landscape doodle I did one and a half years ago, and thought it would make a nice change from the flower doodles. The flowers doodles from week two came from the same sketchbook. I didn't even know I had done these! I'm afraid the pale pink didn't turn out too pale though.

I can't wait to learn which next week's colours will be. So far, none of the combinations I've voted for has come up in the respective week, but I've thoroughly enjoyed each and every one of them. But then that's the fun of these challenges, to do something you wouldn't normaly do yourself, isn't it.