Flattening the book

I was thinking of making this book so that it could be wrapped to make a star book with three cut out layers; the landscape,the ruin and the words on separate sections.

After putting layers together in Photoshop in order to show here how the sections of the book might look I’m beginning to change my mind.

I'll see what they look like printed at the right size but I think I may go back to a straightforward accordion.

Back to Digital?

OK, after spending the last week making landscape monoprints I think I’m going to have to give in and print this book digitally. (Does anyone have a printer that they’d recommend? I’m going to have to give in and invest in a new one.)

I’ve managed 6 landscapes that work but they all have many more layers of paint than the original experiments. I don’t think that they will crease cleanly to make an accordion structure, especially when I want to add two other layers to give a sense of depth to the piece.

I’ll still use the monotype process to generate the images though I’m thinking of making each valley into a separate time of day/weather (I can cut and paste scans of the prints to achieve this).  But I also want to try and get a variety of colour changes across the face of the ruin to add interest to the middle layer of the book.

These images are the 84x21 landscapes. The colours don’t come out too well in these photographs; I’ll post more detailed segments when I’ve scanned them.

Experimenting with structure

I started by thinking about structure.

I decided that I didn’t want to digitally print this book edition (partially because the printer is having a real strop, banding everything - I think it might be time for it to retire). But I also wanted to make the print seem relatively seamless so several separate blocks were probably not going to work.

My solution - monoprints. I decided, on the basis of having so far made 22 tiny alphabet prints for ALAW, that the obvious solution was to use a 25x20cm gelliplate to create 84cm long monoprints.

The first experiments. Exploring landscape...

And  masonry.

This prototype is only 3 segments long but if I add a fourth it will make an accordion which can be formed into a star book.

I'm still not sure abut the covers or what to call it.

Clearer image

I’ve developed the drawings into two monochromatic paintings.

And I’ve joined them in Photoshop.

I’m still not sure how they’ll develop into the book. This image will give me a book with 4 valleys which means it needs to be 84 cm long. This is far too long for my press but I don’t want to create a set of separate plates. I don’t want to see the joins and I’m not at all confident that I could make and print them seamlessly.

I’ll think about it a bit longer