I took a little vacation from my blog. My youngest started school this year which, you would think would give me more time to get things done at home. Alas, I need to go back to work so I’ve been updating my resume, writing cover letters, getting ahold of references to make sure people remember me, and job hunting. But, I’m still working on projects–the biggest one was a large art journal that was a custom order and the current one is a Halloween themed art doll for the ADO Halloween Challenge. I haven’t taken any pics of the Halloween doll yet so we’ll just focus on the journal this round.

And boy was it a doozie. Definitely the biggest journal I’ve ever made before but I love the heft so I’ll probably do more this large at some indeterminate time in the future. I’ve been calling this journal the DAG journal because the person who commissioned it is in the Dark Artists Guild and she wanted an art journal to use for her guild-related pieces. The customer is one of may favorite dollmakers and all-around wonderful person, Michelle of The Studio at Crowhaven Farm.

She wanted a journal that “fit” the DAG feel–something that looked old, full leather cover with a skull (see the DAG website for the original picture) and the guild name on the cover. Plus the guild name on the spine. She also wanted straps and she wanted it BIG. Did I say “BIG?” I meant to say GINORMOUS. Seriously, she wanted 400 pages and she wanted paper that could be used for various art media plus adding embellishments, mementos, bits of fabric, inspirational things. In other words, paper that was heavy enough to handle gluing and attaching things to it, not just for drawing and painting. Did I mention that this is a THICK book?

I used three different kinds of paper: Fabriano Tiziano pastel paper, Canson Mi Teintes pastel paper and some Strathmore 400 series, cold-pressed watercolor paper. I started by tea staining all the paper (see my earlier post about the tea staining bonanza) followed by sewing the text block (sewn on tapes) and then started trying to figure out the cover.

My biggest concern was the straps. I’ve done straps and closures before on books, but never anything like this. We’d discussed options and I suggested using straps with buckles rather than having wrap-arounds. I thought buckles would look pretty cool with the overall style of the book and we could fit the skull on the cover without hiding it every time she used her straps to secure the book. Of course, I’m good at coming up with ideas that I then have to try and figure out the how-to of later. I went through several books I have on bookbinding, glanced through a few pictures online and tried to mentally engineer the straps while staring at the book boards and leather.

I actually seriously considered partially burying the end of each strap into the book board under the leather and leaving a slit in the leather to feed the length of strap through. I had a few concerns about doing this, though, like dying/coloring the straps, finishing the edges on them and pressing the book once the cover was attached without causing major indentations in the cover from the straps. I finally decided to go with the most straightforward method I could think of which was to use rivets and bury the underside of the rivet enough in the book board to make it flush with the surface so there wouldn’t be any “unsightly” bumps in the endpapers.

The first step was to prepare the straps and the cover, including carving the skull and lettering, punching the proper holes in the straps, cover, and boards and dying/coloring the leather. It was definitely a new experience for me carving a piece from a photograph. Coupled with the fact that the design was a bit more complex than my normal designs, and I found myself challenged quite nicely with this piece. I’m also rather happy with how the carving turned out.

Next step–varnish the cover. Some of the stain I use is water-based and, although “books + water” is never a good idea, it would be even worse to have the dye start wiping off if you got a little water on the cover (i.e., the mad dash through the rain to a meeting or your house), so I use a spray sealer for protecting the color on the cover.

After it was all dry and ready to go, I cut out indents on the inside of the book boards near the spine to match my tapes. I don’t always do this, sometimes sticking with the more basic method of casing in where the tapes are cut short and glued down to the text block and the endpapers are used by themselves to attach the text block to the cover. But, did I mention how THICK this book is? It’s pretty hefty and I figure it’ll need extra support so I decided to attach the tapes into indentations in the book board (so they don’t show as bumps under the endpapers) and then paste down the endpapers.

Normally I would paste the endpapers in right after gluing in the tapes but I still needed to attach the straps and I wanted to partially bury the rivet head on the inside of the book board, so I decided to put the book in the book press for a few hours first. I wanted to press the book before adding the straps because I wouldn’t be able to press it after without making some rather ugly impressions on the leather cover from the straps. I ended up pressing it for over 24 hours.

Next job was to add the straps. Putting the strap on the front cover was pretty easy. Single rivet, dig out a bit of board on the inside of the cover so the rivets are inset and put it all together. The back cover was almost as easy although I ended up adding a second rivet so the straps wouldn’t swivel around when they weren’t buckled. I put it all together, attached the endpapers and had myself a LARGE leather bound journal.