Drops

simple little book with a modified leather binding

Ideal Spanish Lady Take 2

cover is the same drawing as last entry's but the original tracing paper used as carbon paper sealed by silvery matte medium

a standard coptic


interior pages are purple/blue dyed, textured by lying on my tile floor, interspersed throughout

Ideal Spanish Lady

cover is a redrawing from a 1932 Spanish magazine cover with the Neruda quote: "Zumbando entre los arboles, orquestral y divino"

binding is a coptic with off set, modified center stitches

Folk Musician

cover drawn on tracing paper then glued down

a slight variation on the zig zag coptic variation

blue flower embedded front sheet

blue papers mixed in

Varias Ventas

ads are from a Spanish magazine (blanco y negro?) from ca. 1932

Fretboard

a present for a guitarist friend's birthday. Since the only drawing things I have are apparently water based which inevitably smears upon application of the matte medium I use to seal off my covers, I lit on the idea of drawing it on tracing paper and then simply gluing the drawn side to the cover. simple innovation that erases all that frustration!

binding is a twisted link and kettle with doubled over variation

Artist Cards

So when I first created this blog and begun to sell my books, I also developed an artist card. Since the first one, I've gone through 3 designs but the basic premise has remained the same; my artist card is a mini book-zine to stay true to my DIY aesthetic.

my first card was not at all slick-handwritten, glue sticked, photocopied much like the zines of the 90s underground scene.

the text is the same as the sidebar to this blog.
I went through some other designs that I was not too fond of so they had limited runs and I couldn't find evidence of my taking pictures of them...

My current one is very different. It incorporates my own photos as backgrounds to each page and was designed on the computer.

the text is a little more philosophical/political and less autobiographical than my original one, but it's in a way, much more my own than previous ones......and though it doesn't quite fold too well (illustrator and me printing don't quite work out too well) it is my favorite

Dandelions- teaching book

Subtle

it's very hard to see but this is a centipede stitch with stabilizing coptics at the edges.

Icarus

heavily modified coptic

Series- Webs

a little petite double 3 signature book


simple bindings, modified leather and pamphlet bindings

Series- Watch Out

3 covers ended up this way. One was already posted, another a coptic variation, and the last a twisted link and kettle.

Hide and Seek, Final

I originally posted this as my teaching book for the 3 signature binding. However, when it came time to give it away as a gift, I felt like it needed more. Like, more signatures and a more interesting (for me) binding so here is the final result.

Hide and Seek

made as a teaching book (hence the super wide spine for such a thin little book) for 3 signature binding

Escaping Away

binding is a straight up twisted link and kettle. This is the first use of an etching tool as my makeshift awl...

Watch Out

My latest books are slightly different from my usual books for the simple reason that I have none of my book-making kit and am improvising while on my dig.

Zig zag variation on single needle coptic.

Heraldic

cut out to show striped (recycled newspaper) paper

binding is doubled twisted link and kettle
intended as a gift

Tile

Cut out cover. Design comes from a rather popular design for medieval tiles.

Binding is twisted link and kettle, doubled over with thread shift
created as a gift.

"I thought it was too late, but I learned. There's more than one way to capture a heart."

front

back

binding is modified leather binding, my binding of choice for closed spines. The cover is a screenprint of mine of a cobwebbed heart and octopus tentacles. The image came from the phrase,"I thought it was too late, but I learned. There's more than one way to capture a heart" which is written along the bottom. Along the top it's written in castilian spanish.

Masculine

cover

binding is some more double coptic modified into chevrons

Strange name for the book maybe, but it refers to my mother and grandmother's responses to the cover which was originally made as a gift to my godmother. It was rejected as too masculine and I had to make a different book for my godmother. I was entirely nonplussed by the judgement.

Memories

This cover is unusual for me in almost every way. Was I having a good day when I made it? nope. does that explain it? you bet.

binding is a double needle coptic modified into chevrons

Mountains-Redux

Cover is of handmade blue paper and my linocut of the Alaskan mountains. It was my first attempt at oil printmaking and it...didn't go as planned. This cover however came out a success!

is it obvious to do the zig zag variation for mountain scenes? yes. do i care? no

Vines

Cut out of grape vines with handmade tinted denim paper underneath

internal shizen end papers

binding is a double, twisted link and kettle. I usually wouldn't do such a harvest style color scheme but the colors suit its recipient

usually link and kettle is done just once giving alternating stitch and blank bits on the spine...but I went twice, both to strengthen the binding and to suit the twist and curl of vines (...left unpruned?)

this is NOT a viable binding!

Another of the gift books. This one gave me a headache because I broke my own rule-don't do risky variations with books you must have professional-looking at the end. Well it really didn't work out and I ended up with strangely spaced holes in my covers (and had to scrap the signatures)...and of course, it's meant for one of the people I respect the most! *sigh* It came out alright in the end but the process...was terrible!