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.

Wednesday, January 4, 2012

Book 309-314 - Pocket Notebook Collection - Moleskin Style - Running Stitch Single Signature Binding

Here's a collection - six neat little pocket notebooks. I got this idea when I noticed sellers on etsy were buying classic little Moleskin journals and simply decorating the covers with drawings or stamped art. I heard that voice in my head saying, "Those are pretty simple. I can make those in a jiff."

But of course, I don't do truly simple very well. So I spent a few hours trolling through my thousands of image files looking for what to put on the covers, sizing them, cropping them, playing with the colors and contrast. I think I came up with quite a range of styles.

I printed the images on letter-sized card stock, two images per page, so each notebook ends up 5 1/2"x4 1/4", more or less. I folded text-weight paper into a single thick signature, creasing it very well, then trimmed the fore-edge to get a clean edge. I punched holes 1/2" apart all down the spine and sewed the signature to the cover with a running stitch, down the length then back up again so that the stitch line is solid.

I creased the whole thing again very well, rounded the corners with an X-acto knife, then put them under heavy weights overnight to crease and flatten them even more.

These are actually pretty neat little notebooks. After showing them to Allen and a couple of other friends, the general consensus was that the pulp fiction cover ("Women in Crime - I had Nothing to Lose but my Virtue") was the best. I have lots more of these pulp images so I'll probably make a bunch of these to sell. They're fast and cheap to make so they should sell well.






4 comments:

  1. I like them and think you could sell them. Just the right size for a pocket or purse. :)

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  2. These are sweet. I have to admit I bought a set of passport notebooks for myself for Xmas. (by unemployed philosophers) They are like yours, the perfect size to tuck away for travel notes.

    I like the Women in crime best uh oh, I could see a whole set of those on my book case...sigh... Never enough book cases.

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