How To Make Artist's Books: Book Recommendations

My friend Nancy suggested that I do an occasional book recommendation for book artists, origami enthusiasts and paper crafters. Since I was a blogger in need of a post it seemed like a good fit. So here is my first list of books on book arts. These are ones that I return to time and again for structure and content ideas. You can get them at your favorite online bookstore. I hope you find some inspiration or a new treasure here.

My top three recommendations are:

1. Creating Handmade Books by Alisa Golden has clear, concise text and illustrations for making everything from simple one-page structures all the way up to multi-signature sewn structures.

2. Making and Keeping Creative Journals by Suzanne J. E. Tourtillott is a feast for journal lovers. She offers innovative structures to match topics such as gardening, birding and art journaling.

3. Sleight of Binding by Cherryl Moote offers playful structures to lift your books into the third dimension. You will find kinetic and interactive designs in shapes and colors that wake up your creative mind.

Here are some pictures of my work using these books for instruction and inspiration.

 Book/card with tunnel from Creating Handmade Books. (2014)

Jacob's Ladder book (front and back) and content from Creating Handmade Books. (2004)

Jacob's Ladder "Flight" book from Creating Handmade Books. (2009)

Journal with different color and size pages from Making and Keeping Creative Journals.

Inside of journal showing content. (2003)

Dos-a-Dos book from Making and Keeping Creative Journals.

Inside the Dos-a-Dos book. (2003)

 Glove book inspired by one in Making and Keeping Creative Journals. (2007)

Gallery Book from Sleight of Binding. I modified Cherryl's structure by leaving the paper on the front of the "windows" and using it to fold the cranes. (2012)

Cherrly's book Sleight of Binding has many kinds of flexigon structures. Here are three that I made using Graphic 45 papers. (2014)

Graphic 45 Mini Albums

Wednesday came and went in a flurry of laundry, art salon get together and child care. So I am doing a Thursday post instead. I have been very busy making two "mini" albums and the results are pictured below. The first album is inspired by Anne's Paper Creations. She creates astounding albums, cards and other paper creations and then makes videos so us mere mortals can follow along. I made some changes to her album, but used four of her pages that I really loved from the Graphic 45 Eerie Tales collection. I left lots of blank space for my kids 18 years of Halloween pictures.

The second album I finished was based on Kathy Orta's Foto Folios 2 collection. This one is style 3, the genealogy folio. I used Graphic 45 papers from Raining Cats and Dogs, Communique, Transatlantique, and ABC Primer. I plan to put travel, pet, and school pictures in this album. I think the different collections work well together. How about you?

Eerie Tales Album

Foto Folio 2 Style 3

Wednesday Post #13 part 2: Glove Books

I thought I would share some of my other glove books. Yes, I have made more than one glove book in my career. I love collecting vintage gloves and some of them just want to become book covers while others want to be the book. I hope you like the selection.

Clasped Hands is a book made entirely of gloves.

A is for Other, an ASL ABC was juried into the San Diego Book Arts National Juried Show in 2010. It also won entry into the Cannon Art Gallery 2011 Juried Biennial.

Woven pages of Graphic 45 paper adorn these lovely pink gloves.

These long gloves were perfect for a wedding guest book. Somerset Weddings Magazine agreed and showed this book in their 2007 edition.

Three glove books I made for a Graphic 45 Design Team tryout in 2014.

Grecian Fragments was juried into the Athenaeum's 6th Juried Artist's Book Biennial.

Inside Grecian Fragments, a poem about falling apart and remaining strong at the core.

Wednesday Post #7: My Mini Album Structure

It has been a while since my last post. Somehow I missed May altogether. I will work on posting more regularly now that summer is almost here. Today I have pictures of my latest creation, a mini album. I invented the page structure and sewed the spine so that the pages lay flat when open. I used Graphic 45 Bird Song 8 x 8 papers to decorate the pages and I used Japanese handmade paper and black book cloth for the covers. The best thing about the page structure is that the folding process creates pockets and corner tabs as you will see in the pictures. It also creates a between-the-page pocket for a large photo mat. I folded the pages two ways to get side and top pockets, but you could make them all the same way. I will post a tutorial for making the pages on You Tube as soon as my editor (son) has some free time to do his technical magic. In the meantime, enjoy the pictures and descriptions below.

Thanks for visiting.

Gina

 Picture one shows the book with the pages sewn to the accordion folded grey paper.

Here are all of the pages laid out before they were decorated with G45 paper.

A side view of the pages and accordion fold binding.

Two page spread with side and top/bottom pockets.

Two page spread with corner tabs showing.

Good view of sewn accordion fold spine.

Finished book cover. I used Japanese paper for this along with black book cloth. The grey spine paper has a 3 inch end that I glued onto the book cover.

Inside page spread with G45 Bird Song papers decorating the pages. Notice the tabs at the top and sides of the pages. These are the photo mats.

Here is another two page spread showing floral patterns. I just love the florals in this set.

Here I have pulled out the photo mats so you can see that they match the pages and pull out from the top or the side depending on how I folded the pages.

Another two page spread showing off the greens from this collection.

Another page spread.

Here you can see that sometimes the pockets are both the same (in this case from the top of the book).

More photographs of the pages decorated. I love the way the papers work together.

This is a photograph of the binding sewn to make the book sturdy. I did sew the binding loosely so that when photographs are inserted they won't make the open end of the book bulge. I used scrap book board as spacers when I was sewing to keep the spacing between pages consistent.