making a new sketchbook

Sometime back I ordered samples of the paper sold by Legion Paper. Lovely larger-than 8.5x11 inch samples perfect for all kinds of drawing and painting.

I pulled out some of the lighter pieces, 250 gsm or 90#, and make a sketchbook of 7 signatures, 2 papers per signature. I left the labels on the paper so I can identify the ones I like best.

I simply folded the papers in half, only one was not folded with the grain. The pages are roughly 6x8. Super easy and fast!

The cover is done with layers of acrylics, collaged tissue papers, and light molding paste.

Bookbinding book 2

This is called the "Long Tall Skinny" book in Julie's bookmaking class. In mine the pages are 4.5 inches wide and 10 inches tall.

We collaged the pages with random or (in my case) a themed set of pieces. I had a lot of maps in my collage pile, so used colored, tans, and black/white map pieces.

Then other pages were covered in papers with blues, greens, and browns. I also used mulberry papers, commercial scrapbook papers, and pages from old books.

For the cover, I painted masa paper with layers of acrylic and glazes.

Making an easy kind of sketchbook

Accordian, concertina, or zig-zag are names given to one type of sketchbook that's easy to make. I've tried the method of cutting long strips of paper and accordion-folding them, but to get larger pages out of the source paper, pieces have to be glued together at the edges of the folds.

I'd done that by folding a tab under and gluing it to the next strip--my own idea of how it could be done, but difficult and not really satisfactory. Vivien has posted a link to Lindsay's method that is so much easier!























I painted these covers (7 inches by 11 inches) on 140# paper, folded 90# paper for the pages, and used lighter sketchbook paper for the vertical binding strips.

Glueing didn't work for my first attempt--lots of mess, juggling, and leakage onto the painting area.

Then I tried double-sticky tape--placing pieces along each edge of the two pages to be joined together, then setting down a binder strip to straddle the seam, over the two tape strips. Soooo easy and fast, with no gluey mess!

Thanks to Vivien and Lindsay for great posts on this construction method. Visit their blogs and enjoy their art!