Art Of Bookbinding

Author: Aleksey Grushevoy Location: Kiev, Ukraine Mostly about bookbinding. My bookbinding group in social network VK.com: http://vk.com/artofbookbinding ALL IMAGES, UNLESS OTHERWISE NOTED, WERE TAKEN FROM THE INTERNET AND ARE ASSUMED TO BE IN THE PUBLIC DOMAIN.

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Paper and Kinetic Sculptures

Name And Colour on Etsy

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The Galaxy Fabergé Egg

I have always had a fascination about how much details Carl Fabergé put into his Easter eggs that were made for the Russian Tsar, Alexander III. Apparently out of the 69 that were made, only 57 survived. I have seen it featured in movies and television series, often traded as a very high value treasure. They were made with precious metals, gems and a very beautiful enamelling method called the Guilloché.

Initially, I bought this pattern that was meant for a pineapple box made of glass. It is sold by a Russian designer, Алексей Тонких, on Etsy. I decided that I did not exactly like the pineapple, so I decided to attempt a Fabergé egg inspired box instead. 

This box took me a total of 10 days to make, which is 5 times longer than I would spend on a normal (or rather rectangle or square) box with a simple structure. The parts had to be meticulously cut. Even though I tried my very best to be as accurate as I can, the two halves did not match up very well. There were a lot of tweaking and forceful manipulation to bring the box to its final fixed shape. 

I covered the box first in a lime green book cloth, and then decorated it with a sheet of Tyvek® I coloured last year while making the covers for a competition book. As the colours the the Tyvek® resemble deep space, I decided to add gold foil dots so that it reflects light like stars in the galaxy. The inner paddings are covered in a dark blue velvet book cloth which makes it look almost like an endless abyss.

There were countless problems which I took as learning experiences. For one, my ribbon is not in a good position and hence it does not hold the lid up at an ideal angle. The lid of the box is heavy, so it tends to lean backwards when there is nothing in the box. Lastly, geometry is really very mind-blowing, It is amazing how a slight deviation to angles can result in parts not lining up.

Overall, I enjoyed making this box. I must say, it is one of the most decorative ones I have right now. 

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Latest finished journals…

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Paper Art by Daniela Leitner

Daniela Leitner, an artist from Vienna, Austria, works on style development with a focus on non-conventional materials of visual approaches, no matter if traditional or digital. Having a background in advertising and strategy she believes in simple storytelling and a strong core idea.Since 2014 Daniela collaborates with Salon Alpin and completes their craft department for animated and interdisciplinary handcrafted Projects. She loves to work alongside other people and is always interested in complementing a bigger team for a larger purpose.

Keep up with all your favorite artists on our Facebook page.

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Hand crafted solid oak Finishing Press No.102

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The book cover bound in white leather with deep embossed pattern and gilded tittle in Arabic calligraphy…

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Handmade Paper Toys by Haruki Nakamura Spring, Fold, and Jump into Action

Japanese paper engineer Haruki Nakamura continues to design delightful toys using simple materials. A friendly armadillo curls into a self-protective ball at the touch of a finger, and a sleepy boy emerges, ready to sleepwalk, in “Astral Projection.” Nakamura uses rubber bands and carefully held points of paper tension to spark the jumpy movements of his characters, and sells kits so you can make your own endless entertainment.

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My bookbinding teacher recently had a client bring her a book for restoration, found in the street by chance, abandoned on a trash can. It turned out to be a hollow book made for the 1889 World’s Fair, to house a collection of pen nibs (whoever owned it was diligent about it, there are 500+ of them!) I particularly like the one at the top of the close-up picture, shaped like the Eiffel tower (which was built for the 1889 Fair) (apparently we immediately started selling tourists Eiffel tower-shaped objects and never looked back)

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Large journal with beautifully aged leather, gilded symbol and 700 lined pages…

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@vaderetroearthgirl and I made a hand-drawn, hand-cranked version of Truncation, showing cross sections of a hypercube.

Check it out in person at the Curfman Gallery.

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Into the woods, Doug Eng

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Cut it Out: Paper World of Tang Zhengwei - Art+ Shanghai Gallery.

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Lines

I am pleased to announce the completion of my most recent binding, a copy of “Lines: Composed a few miles above Tintern Abbey, on revisiting the Banks of the Wye during a tour: July 13th 1798″, or, in short, “Lines”. The book is a 2002 publication by The Old Stile Press of a poem written by William Wordsworth which is often abbreviated to, “Tintern Abbey” although the building doesn’t actually appear within the poem. It was written by Wordsworth after a walking tour with his sister in this section of the Welsh Borders on the banks of the River Wye. The abbey fell into ruin after the Dissolution of the Monasteries in the 16th century.

Frances and Nicolas McDowall from The Old Stile Press actually live on the banks of ‘the Sylvan Wye’, about two miles upstream from (‘above’) Tintern Abbey. Taken from The Old Stile Press website:

“Having lived for more than fifteen years amidst ‘these steep woods and lofty cliffs, And this green pastoral landscape’, we felt the time had come to tackle the work that we have come to regard as 'our’ poem.

We can almost see William Wordsworth’s footprints on our riverbank. Even before we came to live here we felt a deep affinity with this poem. Wordsworth helped us to understand and to accept the 'sense sublime of something far more deeply interfused’ of which we have always been aware. The images involved Nicolas editing photographs which had been taken on our stretch of the river but Frances too spent long hours at the vat to make paper for the entire project text, endpapers and binding.

Spring water on its way to the Wye is an essential part of this paper making process and plants grown beside that stream were used in the endpapers. Altogether a very personal project!”

The original cover of the binding pictured below:

Keep reading

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Art by Daria Aksenova.

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Design Binding Commission - Singapore through 19th Century Photographs

Back in March this year, I started working on this commission for a dear customer, but my life went into a whirlwind of an upheaval. It was difficult to manage having a clear mind to work on a design binding, and having to sort out the toughest months in my life thus far. So I decided that I should pack it up and do it when I am at my best and my mind is clear.

As promised, I will show a weekly update of the work in progress, as my customer enjoys watching his book come along. And also, this is a chance for me to share about the process of how a design binding is done. 

It is not often that the textblock comes nicely in folded sheets, unbound, from the printers. It almost always comes already bound, in the factory, by a machine. Then it takes some precision work, effort and a lot of slow careful heating to remove the factory binding. First the case comes off by gently cutting away the board endpaper, then with slow heating, the fly leaf comes off. I learned a very hard lesson to not pull off the tipped on fly leaf because it takes a whole chunk of paper off from the first folio of the first section. It will then be a tedious task to repair that. So instead of a heated tacking iron, I used a hair dryer to slowly heat it bit by bit, and ease it off slowly from the first folio. I enjoy looking at the textblock after all the nasty adhesive has been removed, and I have a nice clean spine to work on. 

My initial idea for this book was to use rather bright colours in a kaleidoscope kind of way, but through these months away from my bench, I decided that this book should not have such a loud cover, for such an amazing collection of photographs of my country from the 19th century. I have decided to do something more 3 dimensional, almost as though the photographs are coming out at you. But subtle.

So first things first, the endpapers ideas have to be sorted out, endpapers decorated, prepared and then sewing will begin. 

This is getting exciting.