Gromit's Adventures in the Land of Bookbinding

For those who did not recognize yet this character, I introduce you to Gromit, very intelligent dog and companion of Wallace, famous creation from the great comics of Nick Park. Originally they were made of plasticine and filmed with stop motion clay animation. My Gromit here, on the other hand, is made of polymer clay and is an expert in bookbinding inventions. It measures 27 cm from head to toe and it was a present for my boyfriend who is a huge fan. It was custom made by my sister who makes beautiful polymer clay dolls.

So today I got bored of the classic photo set up for my books and Gromit here helped me out with it. I think these are the tiniest books I've made so far!

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 :)

  Details

The Silver Book

Very rarely I make a custom order in Etsy. It’s quite difficult because I like to have my liberty of creating and most of the times it’s the vintage materials that I work with that define the aspect of my books. But I do agree to make a custom book when I really like the idea of the customer. In this case, the request was quite a challenge as I never made such a big book before: 9 cm. thickness, a book with black leather cover and silver fittings and lock.

The owner is such a wonderful person who totally trusted my choices and suggestions, so I really enjoyed collaborating with her on this joint project. I’m really glad that the book is in such good hands as hers – just take a look at the pic below, how wonderful it looks arrived at home!

New Experiences

I've always loved books with gilded edges. Their fineness, elegance and preciosity fascinates me. So a few time ago when I received as present a book on how to do it I immediately had to try. It took me a few days to gather the tools and find a workshop that agreed to cut my book blocks with their guillotine, but I was all set up and ready to go. As you imagine, the experience was not at all as I expected.

After a day of work I end up frustrated by several unsuccessful trials but I decided if I can’t gild edges, at least I can paint them. That’s how these two vintage fabric journals came into existence. Now they are two of my favorite books.

The funniest thing is that in my frustration I went to the net to search for more info that could help me with the gilding. This is what I found (first hit in Google!). Hilarious!

Gilder's Lament
By Unknown Gilder ca. 17th Century

My size is prepared,
The leaf is laid out,
My agate is polished and smooth.
The press, it is loaded,
The edge has been scraped,
I feel like I'm in the groove.
I put on the size,
I lay on the gold,
My confidence reaching its peak.
I polish the edge,
Till I see by its shine,
The edge of perfection I seek.
I take the book out,
Fan open the leaves,
My heart stops still in mid-beat.
Where has the gold gone,
I look all around.
As the leaf flakes onto my feet.
Oh, where did I err,
I did everything right,
But the gold, it just didn’t stick.
I love the gilt edge,
But the process is such,
That it leaves me feeling quite sick.

So gilding book edges has been a pain in the ass for more than 3 centuries. Why would I even be surprised by my first experience?!

Front Page Treasury

I was so happily surprised this morning to find out that my "Dream Library" Treasury was featured on the front page of Etsy last night. It's the first time one of my collections makes it to the FP and it feels incredibly nice to know that I was able to give some very talented artists the opportunity to sell their work. Congratulations to those that did sell their items -- and I promise I'll try harder for the others too :)