365: Make a Book a Day

I'm Donna Meyer and this is a Daily Journal of a Challenge: to make a book a day for a year, to stretch my imagination, creativity, skills and discipline. Inspired by Noah Scalin's Skull-a-Day. Why books? A book can be made of almost anything, and I can stretch its definition. Some will be fancy, skilled and take time. Others will be quick-&-dirty, maybe just images, or ephemeral, disappearing books. Follow along. We'll discover together how to create a book a day for 365 days.

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.

Showing posts with label handmade bookhelen keller. Show all posts

Saturday, July 9, 2011

Book 163-A Helen Keller Accordion Book

Well, I didn't make a book yesterday, so here it is today. I was just exhausted from not enough sleep and no matter what I tried to decide to do last night, I just got more confused. I finally fell asleep at the table.

So today I made this pretty little accordion book full of quotations from Helen Keller along with some photographs of her. What an amazing woman!

I spent way more time on the content of this handmade book than on the structure. This kind of accordion book is pretty easy and quick. But the page layout took awhile, first finding the photos and quotes, then getting the measurements exact, then laying it all out in PageMaker. And of course, after measuring it three times and talking myself though the mountain and valley folds OUT LOUD three times, I got it wrong and had to tweak it and reprint. But it's a nice little book and I'm pleased with it.