Making a Book .....

Although I haven't been painting I have been a little creative.

I joined a Life Sketch group, we meet every Saturday afternoon and sketch .... lol.  The cost for the live models over 8 weeks is negligible when share between us all.  Last week we had a male model who was excellent and this week I think I heard someone mention it was to be a female.  It is interesting to see how others perceive the same subject and during our two breaks (to give the model a chance to shake out kinks) we all checked out each others work.

I have to admit my first 3 or 4 sketches were only fit for the rubbish bin - but then I started to relax and got some reasonable ones down.  It is hard to sketch something reasonable in  a few minutes, and even 30 minutes means you only get basic shape down and not a lot of detail.

We had 10 x 1 min warm up sketches and none of mine looked like anything other than scribbles on a page.  But by the time we were doing the 5 mins sketches I was okay.  The final sitting were 1 x 20 minute and a 30 minute.  The model was very good, male, and even those who have attended the meets last year said he was one of the best they had used.

I took a couple of different sized pads and charcoal, graphite and pencils.  Next time I won't bother with the charcoal as it makes such a mess in the pads; I ended up just using graphite.  I will also take some watercolour paper next time for the longer sketches so I can tint or paint them when I get home.

25 x A3 sheets folded in half.

That being the case I decided I wanted to take some watercolour paper to work on.  I did not want to take single sheets or a large pad and I did not want to have to go out and buy a smaller pad.  So I decided to make my own book filled with A4 sheets.

I have part of a roll of paper left so I cut up a metre or so to make 25 sheets A3 size, then folded these in half and put them in bundles of 5 (signatures).

using an awl to make the holes

Next I put holes in the centre of each signature - 4 holes accurately measured so they all lined up with each other.



The 4 holes spaced along the centre.  I put one 1 12/"at the top and bottom then the others 2 1/2" from them.

I then stitched the signatures together using dental floss.  I followed this pattern as far as the numbers went but a couple of times I went wrong but in the end I got the 5 signatures stitched.

5 signatures sewn toget

Sewing guide - go in at one , then out at 2 etc.

Then I set those aside and went to work on the cover.  I had some heavy cardboard which I cut down to slightly larger than A3, making sure I took into consideration the width of the spine in relations to the signatures.


Next I scored the spine at the start and end of the thickness of those signatures.

Adding the sari to the cover.

I reinforced the scorings then cover the front in calico.  I used PVA glue and left enough so I could turn the edges onto the inside of the cover.  Once it was dry (overnight) I then covered the 'book' in some lovely purple sari material I had, leaving edges to turn again.  This was left to dry again.

The first page stuck to the inside of the front cover.

SO now I had a covered book and the signatures for inside - time to put them together.

I covered the inside of the spine with plenty of PVA glue and put in a pice of ribbon I had cut to make a bookmark, then carefully I put glue on the inside left hand side of the cover.  Next place a piece of wax paper between the first sheet of the signatures. Very careful I close then book, making sure the signatures well push into the spine as hard as possible and the first page was aligned correctly to the inside left cover.

I put some bricks on the book and left it overnight.

Next morning, it was time to stick the last page onto the inside right hand cover, leaving it to dry with the bricks.

And now  .... viola ... I have a 'book' of 50 watercolour sheets to take with me to the next Life Sketch group.  Now hopefully the sketches I do will do justice to my book ...lol!!

You could use this idea to make your own journal using either blank or lined paper.  Your book can be any size you like.

There are lots of blogs with better details if you are interested enough to give it a go or you can send me an email and I will try and explain, plus tell you my mistakes .... lol

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