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.

Saturday, October 29, 2011

Book 256 - Purple Pebbled Leather Journal/Blank Book - Long Stitch Binding

 Here's another pretty leather journal/blank book. This leather is just wonderful... and I have no idea what it is. I fished it out of a scrap bin of what was called "upholstery leather" at Oregon Leather in Portland. It is most likely cowhide that has been machine embossed to add the pebbled finish, but I'm not sure. The surface effect looks quite authentic and is lovely. The color is a rich deep eggplant purple.

I paired the leather with hand-torn Arches Text Wove paper for the pages. I love this paper. I don't use a lot of it anymore because it's pretty expensive. Although it is thick, it is also very soft, with a nice tooth for pen, pencil, charcoal, ink, etc. It's so wonderful to the touch, I just want to stroke it.

The binding is done with red waxed linen thread in a long stitch binding. The liner paper is a print of an old map, printed in washed out brown. A quite nice book.






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