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.

Sunday, January 22, 2012

Book 334 - "Chloride Days" - Accordion Fold Miniature Book with Tile Covers - Coptic Binding

Going small again tonight. This little tile cover miniature accordion book is similar to the book I did a couple weeks ago about San Miguel de Allende, the home of my heart. Puttering about in the store today, I noticed that some tile magnets we had were about the same size as the ones I used on that book.

I knew I had some nice photos I've taken here in Chloride, Arizona in the last couple years. So I thought why not do another tile cover accordion book.

First I had to pry the magnets off the back of the tiles, but that was not hard. I covered the back and edges of the tiles with brown lokta paper and painted over it with PVA glue to make it stronger. I sized and printed out all the tiny photos. Then I tore strips of Arches Text Wove paper 1 3/4" wide and accordion folded it. I needed one join in a valley fold of the accordion to make it long enough for all the photos.

After folding it up, I glued the photos to the pages. I designed and printed a first page plus a last page colophon. Once I had glued the tile covers to the accordion, this little jewel was done. I do think it needs to go under some weights. It tends to want to lay just slightly open.

Some of you have probably picked up on the fact that I'm not all that fond of Chloride. But this little book (about 2" square) makes it look not so bad. So I guess that's a good thing.








3 comments:

  1. Just a little tip to help an accordion book fold lay flat.

    Use a wide butter knife to make the creases.

    Who would guess such a simple thing like that, but it also works to make a double crease side by side, but a wide butter knife does it in one pass instead of two.

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  2. I'll have to try that, Frances. You mean just use the butter knife like a bone folder to crease the folds down?

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    1. First use the butter knife to score the crease and the use the bone to fold the crease. Then use the bone to flatten the outside edge of the crease. it puts about an 1/16th of an edge on the crease so it can handle the added book elements.

      If you use the flat side of the butter knife on the paper surface it will leave a mark like a in silver point drawing. The edge seems to stay clean, but if you are not sure, use wax on the metal edge.

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