Sunday, September 03, 2006

This is the front and spine of a small journal I just finished. I began the process by painting acid free text weight paper using various techniques mostly done wet on wet: spraying, sponging, and brushing watercolor and acrylic paint, stamping with commercial stamps but mostly with my own hand cut stamps. Some pages feature mulberry paper collage for texture, gesso, subtle sparkle from Lumiere, Golden Interference, and other metallic and sparkly pigments.

These decorated pages are the first folio (first and last page) of each signature, the colored paper seen on the spine. The blank pages are ivory 24lb. watermarked, 25% cotton, fine granite paper. There are over 150 pages counting front and back.

The endpapers were hand painted using oil pastels and acrylics, and sealed with Golden Matte Medium. The book board is covered with my hand dyed cotton. The book is bound with linen thread using the one needle Coptic stitch. This type stitch is wonderful because it will lie flat on a table, like a spiral notebook but is much more aesthetically pleasing!

A small art quilt was sewn to the cover. Free-motion quilting, silk ribbon embroidery, beading, beautiful yarns and ribbons, a scrap of vintage tatting, and three vintage buttons embellish the quilt.

A braided and beaded cord is attached to the back cover through an eyelet. This cord wraps around the vintage shank button on the front for closure.