The collaborative cracker book project with the Artist's Book Club at UWE is finally complete. All packaged up and ready to distribute to the participants. Looking on the bright side, it's taken so long that it's seasonal all over again!
Launching today...
… a new shop in Westbury-on-Trym - We Make Bristol. Featuring the work of local artists and designers (including some of my books and cards). Worth checking out for some early Christmas shopping.
Keeping it local
Have been trimming and binding a new book of line drawings of my local shops (Westbury-on-Trym in Bristol). All ready for its launch tomorrow in a brand new shop - We Make Bristol - on the very same High Street. The shop will feature work of local artists and designers (including some of my books and cards)… do pop along and check it out if you're in the area.
Taking a leaf out of a (digital) book
Trimming and binding 40 copies of a digitally printed version of the very first book I made back in 2012 - Autumn Leaves. I used scans of the original carved rubbers, stamped in black and then coloured in Illustrator. Card covers with a title block cut away with my trusty Sizzix machine. Top notch printing job by printed.com - printed as A3 flat sheets on Acquerello paper.
Revisiting roller prints
Chopping, folding and stamping onto roller prints (from a workshop with Stephen Fowler a couple of years ago). I can feel a series of these coming on as I have a large pile of roller prints languishing in my plan chest - they may finally have a purpose!
Do you have a light?
Finished flag book of rizla papers ready for the ‘Set in Stone’ exhibition at the Tobacco Factory which opens next week…
Set in Stone
The original lithographic stones found in the stores of the M-Shed in Bristol.
My chosen litho plate which I scanned to print acetates to create photo-polymer stamps.
Embossed book cloth for the front cover - the shape will be filled with a metallic print of the star motif (shown in the next photo).
Gold foil heat transfer – laser printing black ink onto black paper and then running it through a laminator with the foil.
After a fruitless search for just the right green paper for a bellyband (to match the tobacco tin in which the book will sit) I decided to mix and roller my own colour.
Belly bands printed with a photo-polymer stamp of the company name and a metallic heat transfer foil for the seal on the back.
The fiddly job of folding, cutting and sticking 150 rizla papers...
… into a flag book structure.
Set in Stone
Deep in the heart of the M-shed stores in Bristol, over 70 lithographic stones have been stored, gathering layers of dust. These stones, discovered in the blitzed basement of the Mardons printing house, were once used to mass-produce labels of W.D and H.O Wills tobacco, whose products included Golden Virginia and Players Navy Cut.
‘Set in Stone’ is a collaborative project run by Charlotte Biszewski, who has worked with Stephanie Turnbull to transfer the images on the stones onto lithographic plates in order for them to be a starting point for various Bristol artists to create new work. It will culminate in an exhibition, appropriately, at the Tobacco Factory in August - more details to follow soon.
As soon as I heard about this project I was really keen to be involved. Following on from my MA studies, I’m really interested in the idea of taking printed ephemera from the past and preserving it through re-invention. When I picked up my litho plate back in May, I was thinking that this would be a good opportunity to create something non-book for a change, but as I mulled over the potential of the imagery I started thinking of traditional embossed bookcloth, patterned endpapers and creating something that could be contained within a tobacco tin. So that will be a book then.
Pictured here are some photos from the production process, which involved creating photo-polymer stamps, heat transfer foil blocking, embossed book cloth and Hedi Kyle’s flag book structure using Rizla papers. Truly tobacco-tastic!
New for BS9 Arts Trail
On sale for the first time this weekend will be a new range of hand stamped A6 notebooks - covers were created using a combination of handmade photopolymer stamps and hand carved rubber stamps. Way out in patternsville...
Cracker Books at Large
Great to see the collection of cracker books exhibited together in Bower Ashton library. It’s been a really fun project… many thanks to my fellow cracker collaborators: Rebecca Weeks, Stephanie Turnbull, Alison Sloggett, Kate Williamson and Linda Parr (and Anwyl Cooper-Willis who’s just handed in a beautiful new addition to the collection).
Packaging, pricing and publicity
The final preparations for this year’s BS9 Arts Trail. Do come along and say hello if you’re in Bristol this weekend. I’ll be in the Stoke Bishop Scout Hut, and - crucially - there’ll also be tea and cake!
The last batch
After three months of making books for the BS9 Arts Trail, I’m about to bind the final few (phew).
Arboretum
A small woodland has sprung up in my studio as I make up more copies of 'Twenty Trees (as seen from a train)'.
Cracker Book sneak peek
The Cracker Book collaboration with the ABC group at UWE is nearing completion, and early results will be exhibited in Bower Ashton library from 20 April. Participating artists (from the left): Kate Williamson, myself, Alison Sloggett, Linda Parr, Rebecca Weeks (2 books). Having seen early print proofs of Stephanie Turnbull’s amazing lithographic contribution, it’s shaping up to be a lovely set of books. Just need to put my thinking cap on to come up with a good way to package them...
Phew!
Fifty books made in the last two-and-a-half weeks, Building up stocks for the ABC@UWE exhibition at Bower Ashton library, the Turn The Page artists’ book fair in Norwich and the BS9 Arts Trail.
The perils of a momentary lapse in concentration
One silly mistake and a whole book is ruined. Bah.
Over the moon!
Ridiculously excited and thrilled to have my work featured in the latest edition of Uppercase. I have swooned over every issue of this magazine, and look forward to each one arriving in the post to read cover to cover, so it’s a real honour to be included. A very interesting, and - as always - gorgeous edition too… focusing on book arts, folding and paper making. Chuffed to bits!
Hats and Shoes
A fiddly, but enjoyable, few hours proofing linocuts for two new books.
Accidentally Easter-y
Cutting out ovals for the embossed covers of new books. A seasonally appropriate activity.
Hot off the press
Just received delivery of a stash of flat printed sheets to be made up into new books. Ten White Beasts and Ten White Blooms. Thanks to printed.com again for doing an excellent job!
Ten orange cracker books
Flocked and finished - hurray!