Paste Papers

As you probably noticed by now, I'm very curious and experimental when it comes to my art. I'm also in permanent danger of getting hooked to new and new hobbies. I have flirted before with the idea of making my own papers to use for book covers and endpages and it was always such a fun. Yesterday I tried making paste papers for the first time. I won't get into details as to how they are made, as there as plenty of tutorials on the internet but briefly, making paste paper is an historic method to decorate paper by applying a paste made of starch / glycerin / methyl cellulose mixed with colors. The possibilities are infinite - the use of different backgrounds to work on, any type of colors such as ink, paints, pigments, various paper textures and tools, basically anything that can create a pattern - combs, stamps, fingers, etc.

Here are the results of my trials from yesterday. I chose a more 'vintage' color pallet as I want to use these with my old leather books. An overview of each paper sheet (around 12 x 19 inches) at the right and a close-up view at the left.

Book Clasps: getting better

Encouraged by the results of my first experiments with brass and by your wonderful excitement and feedback, I went on with the idea of making my own book clasps. If to the first ones I had to apply some patina as I found the color of new brass too shiny for my vintage leather books, this time I used some pieces of old brass recovered from a broken coffee grinder. I bought it long time ago at a street fair, unfortunately crushed and incomplete, hoping that one day it will be possible to recover or reuse it. I don't want to sell these clasps as they are among my firsts and I don't have much antique brass left to make many more. Honestly, I also fell in love with the book that's wearing them so I decided I'll keep this one to my (selfish) self. 

 

        

   

Making Book Clasps

Here's my latest addiction: making my own book clasps! I've been searching for them for ages, craved for those in old books, but never actually tried to make my own until now. Obviously, I have absolutely no experience with metal work and it wasn't that easy until I got the first one right. I only had available some basic tools like scissors and rasps for metal so everything is really handmade :) But I was dreaming of trying this since some time now and meanwhile I kept collecting every bit of metal that I thought might come handy one day. So here are my first trials, made of brass.

    

Blog Feature

I had a wonderful surprise yesterday! My shop was featured on Gilliauna's blog - "The Meandering Musings of a Consummate Shopper". She wrote a very nice post about my work, I feel flattered. Thank you so much!

 

 

In the Studio

I've been waiting for the best moment to make some changes to my studio. It was never properly organized as when we moved to this house a year ago we made everything in rush and that's how it's been ever since then. Now I'm hoping I can finally do this in March. It's a good time for me as I have some new plans for my book shop too, and a change always makes me feel so refreshed. Meanwhile I'm planning and searching for ideas in what inspires me the most: supplies, and textures and patterns... Last week I've made a little trip to London and visited one of my favorite stores. I got a few papers, new bone folders and some beautiful headbands. But my latest acquisition of which I'm really proud is an old book press that I bought right here in Porto from a bookbinding workshop that was closing. I'm actually the third owner of this press, which initially belonged to a graphic arts studio. I love that it's wide and tall and I can use it for more books at the same time, something I wasn't able to do with my very old, little nipping press. The less exciting part is that it's extremely heavy, it took two man to lift it on the table and I wish I've done this only after rearranging my workshop!