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.

Thursday, December 1, 2011

Book 286 - "Duke" - Leather Wrapped Accordion Book for John Wayne

Finally, something just a little different. This leather-wrapped accordion book is a homage to John Wayne, "The Duke." Actually, I'm not all that great a fan of John Wayne, but I had some quotations from him that were just too good not to use. Quotes like:


Life is hard. It's harder if you're stupid.
Courage is being scared to death but saddling up anyway.
Nobody ever saw a cowboy on the psychiatrist's couch.
And, of course....
A man's got to do what a man's got to do.

I matched up photos of Wayne to go with the individual quotes and laid them out in my graphics program. I printed them on nice heavy satin finish photo paper, cut out each page and backed each one with copper-colored textured card stock. The result was a series of nice heavy, stiff pages. I cut an irregular strip of really nice soft brown leather, spread it on the floor and laid the pages out. After marking the positions, I glued the pages to the leather, folded it up in an accordion fold and wrapped the extra leather around the whole book. I cut a long strip of the leather to wrap several times around the book and hold it together.

Even though I'm not that crazy about "The Duke" himself, I do like this book. I see more like it in the future.
























2 comments:

  1. Wouldn't this just be the perfect gift for a John Wayne fan?! (I'm not really one, either.) I can see you picking a variety of different actors or famous people for these. :)

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  2. I like this design as a family photo album to display during the holiday visits. Its all gathered into one place without using a lot of frames. Easy to fold up when ever you want, not that we wouldn't want to look at them all the time...lol...

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