A Book a Day? What's Up With That?


Hi, and welcome to this year-long project. So what's this all about and how did it happen, you might ask. In mid 2007, artist Noah Scalin decided to make a skull out of anything he could find, every day for a year. It stretched him in ways he never imagined, as an artist, a writer and a person. His experience turned into a blog that went viral, and then a book.

Others have picked up on the idea: 365 Hearts, 365 Masks, 365 Bears drawn on a cellphone, 365 paper napkin mustaches.
I wanted to play, too, and I chose books. I love books, I know a bit about making books (thanks to my talented book-maker sister, Marilyn Worrix), and they're broad enough in definition to give me a lot of creative leeway.

The whole point is not really the books. The idea is to stretch myself in many ways as an artist and a person, to set up a discipline, stick with it and see what that teaches me.

I hope you'll join with me and follow along on the journey chronicled here, and let me know what you think.

Friday, August 12, 2011

Book 194 - Scrabble Board Double-Faced Journal/Sketchbook - Japanese Stab Binding

Here's another game board book--the ever popular Scrabble. It's a double-faced Japanese stab bound blank journal/sketchbook with nice thick pages that will take pencil, charcoal, markers and other mostly dry media. (I've been playing Scrabble online lately with my friend Irene, who roundly trounces me 3 games out of 4--at lest--so it's been on my mind).

I cut the game board so that the fold in the middle would serve as the hinge for the Japanese stab binding, but then I realized that the board on the back of the book would be upside down. So I decided to put a third piece of book board in the center. That center board divides the book into two connected books and whichever side of the book is facing up is the "cover" of its own half of the book. It's sort of like a stab-bound version of a dos-a-dos book. It's easier to get the idea from the photos, especially #3, than from words.

The binding is done with very dark navy blue satin ribbon in a tortoise-shell stitch pattern. I like this stitch because it looks fairly sophisticated but is really easy to do. The hardest part is getting the holes lined up exactly right. I used vintage Scrabble tiles to spell out the words "good ideas" on one side and "true dreams" on the other. They're glued on with E6000 and they're definitely not going anywhere.

Even though the Scrabble tile thing has really been overdone the last few years, I still think it's a pretty nifty little book. I'm working on a couple of other Scrabble board books too that I'll likely post in the next couple of days.









4 comments:

  1. I see! You can flip it over, so it is almost like having two books in one. Cool!
    I had no idea scrabble was overdone lately. I must be out of the loop--LOL! I think this is so clever. :):)

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  2. Yes, now I get it. And one thing I dont like about dos-a-dos books is the bindings on different sides. This is a great solution to that, just flip it over, binding remains on the same side. Nice creative solution.

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