Books Glorious Books

Handmade books - what better way to display my monoprints than just framing them on a wall or chopping them into little pieces for gifts.... when I was at Woodgate last month I did lots of printing to make my prints into artist books.   what fun!

Here are the photos are promised.

 



These 3 photos above are of a concertina book, with a smaller concertina panel inserted into the folds (no glue!).  I used 2 different monoprints, with similar imagery.

For the covers, I used mulberry paper and ribbon closure.

The 3 photos above are of a book with a concertina spine with folded pages sewn onto the spine using pamphlet stitch.  I also added another print onto the spine when I was sewing it together; this really 'sings' against the black colour of the spine.

I really like this book due to its 3 dimensional structure; the loose concertina spine allows it to stand and be expanded out so the viewer can see lots of the print details.  Many of my monoprints have subtle marks and lines that can only be appreciated by close viewing, hence they are really suited to the book format.  Its much more intimate than a framed print on the wall.



The 4 photos above are of another concertina spine book, with folded pages glued to the concertina.  On some of the pages, I cut out sections and glued printed paper sewing patterns behind them, so they act as little 'windows' to another image.   I saw an example of this structure at the workshop I did at SLQ in May, so had to try it using some of my monoprints.  It works well in this instance using casuarina needles and Cotton Tree leaves.

And yes, the Cotton Tree again!  I was rather excited to see the trees at Woodgate, and I couldn't pass up an opportunity to print with their leaves.  I just adore their vein structures, they print beautifully.