Friday 27 May 2011

On You Tube

I am on you tube !

See the links and follow The Bookbinder.

Friday 20 May 2011

The Tempest, cold gold and first phase tooling.


After the dye has been allowed to dry out over night the gold leaf has been applied. It took 2 books of gold leaf !


Then the first phase of the tooling. I estimate that there may be up-to five different tooling phases..... I may just go mad.

Also... the book has been titled......... not a common thing with me.

Thursday 19 May 2011

The Tempest, Black Line work...



With the leather dying completed I worked on the image of Miranda. using a fine brush and a spirit leather dye I blacked in the original. This gives more definition and really brings the face to life. Next will be applying the leather to the book, then cold gold work..... still lots to do.

Tuesday 17 May 2011

The Tempest, Leather is pared on with the colour...


Following on from the spine cleaning new linings, end bands, linen, skirting, hollow, boards etc have been added to the text block. The next thing to be done is the paring of the leather. This I do with a hand paring machine and a French (Made and bought in Japan) paring knife. I do not use a spoke shave as I feel it stretches the leather, and if I am honest... not accurate enough.

An image of a young girls face (Miranda) is applied to the front board area.



Next is some hand dying to create the tempest............

If you would like to know more about some of the techniques I use, I will be demonstrating them at this years Society of Bookbinders Conference. Please go to the SoB web site for more details....

Monday 9 May 2011

EYE


The morning after a day of filming, the result....

Saturday 7 May 2011

Return of a Prodigal Book.

The Royal Mail delivers many things, yesterday was not an exception.

After some time, buried in the soil of New Zealand one of my books returned.


Buried by Sandy Corbett. Many thanks to her and her Husdband.


I would like to say that it has been through two earthquakes

Wednesday 4 May 2011

The Stoned Bradel.......


One of the variants of the 2nd module in the Studio 5 Introduction to Bookbinding Course is to make a Bradel Binding. This one has Flottage board papers with the spine leather being manipulated to hold two stones.



Just one of the variations that we come up with....