Pamphlet Stitch Journals

When I made my Journal52, I tried pamphlet stitch, and I wasn’t entirely happy with it.  Nevertheless, I was reading The Little Book of Book Making by Charlotte Rivers, and got inspired to try again.

 

I was much happier with the results this time. I think it helped that I followed the written tutorial AS I bound the book, and not from my shabby memory. This journal took me several failed attempts, wherein I made the duct tape spine too narrow, the tissue paper & cardboard covers did not come out the way I wanted, and I grew disenchanted with the cardstock I used for the signatures. Still, a good low-stakes “practice” run, and my plan was only ever to keep it in the car, so I’d always have something to doodle on. I’m sure it’ll do just fine.

That came together with such quickness & such little fuss that I decided to try pamphlet stitch for the “higher stakes” journal I was planning to make.  I used a lovely San Francisco-themed gift bag (over cardboard) as the cover for this one:

 

The pamphlet stitch came together quickly again, and I’m happy with the results. I gave this one to my husband David, who recently expressed an interest in art journaling with me. It has some nice watercolor paper.

 

 

I feel like it’s two new art journals for the “price” (time) of one. But I think I still like the look of long stitch better. Thank goodness there’s a whole world of stitches out there!

Journal 52: Weeks 5-8

Woah! Am I behind on my posting or what?! I’ve been keeping up with the actual prompts, maybe a week or two behind at any given moment, but I haven’t been doing a very good job of sharing. So here’s an update to rectify that situation.

 

The Week 5 prompt was television.  I thought it would be fun to paint a test pattern, all those bright bold colors next to each other in an arrangement I wouldn’t necessarily pick myself. I tried watercolor, but it didn’t go so well, so I went to acrylics:

Week 6 was windows.  For some reason, I struggled with this one, and eventually came up with this uglyinteresting page. I was pretty happy with the lettering, though. And how curtain-like that paper looks.

 

Week 7’s prompt was valentine’s, in honor of Valentine’s Day (see how late I am?!) I like the doodled partial-mandala in the lower left corner.  Not sure what happened with that kitten, though.

Week 8 was aromatherapy, and I chose one of my favorite incenses from a sampler of my favorite brand.  I was also reading Sita’s Ramayana, a beautifully illustrated graphic novel by Samhita Arni (Text), and Moyna Chitrakar (Illustrator). Chitrakar’s art is in the style of traditional Indian Patua scrolls, and I just thought it was so beautiful I wanted to try my hand at some of the stylized trees in watercolor. I gessoed the page first, because I used a cheap cardstock for this journal.

More next time!

Mail Art

The day before I went into labor with Sam (May 27), I was tooling around online and decided to join the International Union of Mail Artists.  You know, because maybe I wouldn’t be busy enough in the upcoming months. Heh. I never actively participated or updated my profile or anything, but regardless, a few intrepid mail artists sent their art to me unprompted that summer. I’ve finally gotten around to documenting & sending back now.
I think the first one I got was this lovely pencil sketched envelope from Michael C. Paul:

Then I received this rather mysterious postcard from Thomas Brown, which my husband promptly cut the stamp out of:

And last but not least, a couple stamped images from Petrol Petal of South Africa! The ink is gold, and combined with the delicate tissue paper, I’m afraid it didn’t photograph very well, but it really is pretty and will be beautiful for collage:

 

 

Thank you, all! I hope my mail art finds its way safely to you, and sorry about the delay.