Mock ups

I started work on two new books this week. One is for are the ‘you book enough’ challenge. This month’s theme is ‘Break’. I wasn’t going to do one this month but while I was fiddling with ideas for the other book I had an idea.

‘Break in/Breakout’ a sort of dos a dos book. Unfortunately at the moment I envisage it bound in white leather with gold tooling and heavy embossed paper on the inside. This isn’t going to happen.  I haven’t got the skills. A less sumptuous version hopefully will eventually arrive.

The other book is for Artists Collaborative Book 3.0 #22 Isolation. I fiddled with various sizes and arrangements of cells and the final mock up with the figure just arrived.

 Usually I have some idea of how I want a book to look when I get to this stage but I’m not sure at all with this one. I’ll experiment and see what happens. At the moment, because the paper needs to be double sided, I’m thinking monoprint. 

But here is another complication. Normally for a concertina like this I’d  print the pieces in two sheets but I can’t get to Hot Bed at the moment and my press at home is only small so I’m going to have to consider joins which makes the inking/construction more difficult.

And it also has to be editioned.  I usually do about 10 for this group so I need to keep the process fairly streamlined.

Small Etching

I've tried another mock up of the book using a scan of the tonal painting

 I've also tried the last section of the drawing as an etching and I think it’s OK.

I have a plate that’s 42 x 15 cm. On Friday I’m going to go for it! I can always go to Plan B (or should that be D for digital?) if it doesn’t work.

New Ideas

I’ve started playing with ideas for a new book.

I started by thinking about simple folds, considering cloisters and frescos (and I will return to this later)

I’m not sure why, but this structure got me thinking about the work of Patrick Hughes. I wondered if I could translate the idea of playing with perspective and making the images appear to move at a smaller scale in book form.  

I tried a mock up and it seems to work

I’ve developed the drawing and done a tonal study at the right size.

I’m not sure if I want to work it up as painting and digitally print the image or if I want to etch it. The next step is to try etching a section before I make up my mind.