It might just come in useful !!

"I'm saving that," is a phrase heard around here a lot recently. After looking at the Internet and books it became apparent that there is tons of stuff that could be made into books. 

    The first thing I did was a vintage game board I found. This was before I started looking at the rubbish we throw away every day. 

This is the front and back before the pages were added then 2 views of the finished book. 

     Then I decided to try using tea bags as the colour attracted me so I dried some out. Originally it was going to be an artist book with drawings and writing about tea. This didn't work out too good. So then decide to draw mini landscapes on them and bind into a book. I then realised lots of people are painting on tea bags, my friend Maggie Goodwin is doing a portrait a day on tea bags you can find her on Instagram. I ended up cutting of 3 sides of the bags and using the outside "page" and the inside one to paint on. Had a total of 20 paintings. Used the bits I had cut off to make a cover and used a scrap of pigs skin to make a case.

Then I planned a large painting of Ribblehead viaduct using tea bags to paint the individual parts of it. This is still work in progress. 

The next teabag adventure was sewing teabags together so I could made a larger book cover. 

All this has caused a mass of teabags in various stages of drying around the kitchen. 

   Then came the books made from carrier bags, corriagated card board, drinks cans. 

This is my excuse for a cluttered house. "It might just come in useful".

 

In between the pages.

 This year I thought a daily challenge would be a good thing to do. If any of you saw any of my Photo blogs you will know this hasn't worked out in the past. One year it was going to be a photo a day. Didn't last long, then I choose a subject to take a weekly photo of. This was a bench close by my home. The idea was to be a series of photos to record seasonal changes and the any litter showing use of the seat. This was fine for a few weeks then one day I went up there and found a totally different bench! This was like the old one which was wooden and had lots of character, this was a modern metal one. After a couple of weeks I lots heart and gave up.

This time I thought a daily sketch would be great. By the time I decided this there was only a week left in January. 

These are my rules. 

    1- Each sketch is done in a page a day diary. ( A pocket Moleskine was my diary of choice) 

2-Each sketch can only take 15 mins 

3-Can use any thing that makes a mark

4-Any subject or pattern is fair game too.

Rule 5 - there are no rules!!

Having left my creative side behind for years, my drawing skills are rusty to say the least. So for my first day I decided to do a Zentangle. Why? I have no idea is something I never got the hang of. Then there was a weird sketch from outside the bedroom window. I didn't post any of these but for some reason I decided to post a strange rainbow and a badly drawn sketch of my Bass Ukulele. That was my reemergence on Instagram. Some sketches turned out ok ish and as time has gone on I have improved .

As I pike to use colour when sketching I found that the pages need clear gesso to take the water.

This whole sketch thing has had many good effects on me, making me look around more and see things I could draw quickly. I often grab a pic on my phone to sketch later.

All so got me trying out some other media I have had a while and not used. One being water soluble wax crayons. The other thing I discovered was the gesso made a HB pencil darker and I could shade with water. This got me looking at other water soluble media such as tinted graphite pencils.

So all in all I feel it has been a success. Fingers crossed I can keep this up all year and beyond. Good fun go on and try it!!

How a book is made

Here are a few photos to give an idea on the process of making a book.

First of all collecting materials together.

     Fabric  for the cover, some board to cover, and paper to make into pages.

Fold the paper in half.

The pages are nestled together to form signatures in this case 5 pieces in each.

Holes are then punched in each signature.

Thread waxed then signatures sewn together.

After the signatures are sewn, they are clamped and the spine is given a couple of coats of glue and some thin muslin type cloth glued on. 

The headbands are added.

Decorative paper the same size as the book pages folded and glued on as end papers. 

The book cloth is glued to the boards the boards are the put under weight over night. 

The pages are the attached to the boards by gluing the end papers to the boards. Then the whole thing is put under weights again over night. And the book is done. 

 

New Beginnings.

Things have just been plodding along in my studio doing little bits and pieces managing at least one notebook a week and the odd sketch and prep for ongoing projects. 

This is one of the books I made. It is made from a vintage snakes and ladders board. 

The tea bag book is still on going I have about four more pictures to do then I can think about binding it.

These are just a few of the latest ones. All painted on teabags and are from photos I have taken around Yorkshire. 

The other projects I have become involved in are doing a sketch a day in a moleskine diary. I alow myself 15 mins for them so are better than others but it good to push myself and make myself draw something everyday even if I don't get time for anything else. Here are a few of the daily sketches.

This has been the work bit of the last couple of weeks but the main event was the birth of my grand daughter Poppy Henry Bushby.

😍😍😍😍😍

At home and out and about.

The first few teabag pictures have been abandoned and the theme has changed to landscape type paintings. Still going to be a mini book perhaps 10 teabags which would be 20 pictures I have done 5 up to now. Also have a larger project in the planning stage which also involves teabags ( I drink enough tea so thought I better recycle some 😉)

The first 5 pictures.

I have still been making some books only 2 these week though.

Sunday turned out to be the first snow of the winter although it was short lived near my house but I met a friend and we went on a photo walk in the Valley gardens in Harrogate and found some snow. 

Was the first time I had been out with my camera for sometime will have to make a point of going out more.

Hiding in my workshop

Sunday was the first day for a while I had chance to spend as much time as I liked in my workshop. A few weeks ago I dried out some tea bags and cut them to take the tea out, what was left was a double "page" joined with one end of the crimped paper. I tried ink on them but it tended to bleed a little so they were coated with a thin layer of clear gesso. This stopped the bleeding but because of the nature of the tea bag you can still see the image on the back. The empty tea bag reminded me of book signatures so that's what I intend to with them bind the as I would a book not decided on the cover style yet. 

Next job was to try out some ways of doing backgrounds that we were shown in #the journey within.

Various ways of putting colour on a page so the White page becomes less intimidating . Only tried 4 different ones . They are just first layers so will be building up from them .