Jacek's Book: The Cover

By now Jacek's book is long finished. But I'm still behind on posting about its making...

Day four

For the covers I thought to make something simple, using natural leather, not dyed, and to apply only a bit of patina on it in the end. The only decoration that would give it a precious aspect would be a detail of a Byzantine manuscript which I would paint myself on golden leaf.

Preparing the boards, the spine stiffer, mounting them together and cutting out a recessed rectangle shape in the front cover where the painting will later be placed.

Mounting the clasps using "hinges" made of thick wire and covered in leather.

 

Mounting the clasp into the cover by cutting out the shape to avoid creating a relief on the inside. This is followed by fixing it with epoxi glue (for metal).

Preparing the leather for the covers - paring it at the edges

Tooling the cover

And painting a detail of a bestiary with egg tempera on golden leaf, followed by varnishing.
    

Books with Painted Edges

These days I was playing a bit more with painted book edges. I thought I'd show you a few pics during the process. I really like painting them, it's fun and relaxing.

 The first thing to do is fixing the book with clamps. It must be as tight as possible so that the color stays on the edge and does not slip between the pages.

Followed by sanding the edge with sand paper of different size, from rough to fine. I use four sizes. 

After this, I apply a thin layer of egg white which I immediately spread on the edge and absorb with tissue paper, polishing the surface until it becomes glossy. This creates a layer that protects the paper from soaking any color.

Applying the color in different layers. This one here is brown decoration 
painted on golden background.

Getting addicted to it :)

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