The 4 Gospels, the boards, leather and collage. St Matthew.

Progress on the first set of boards ( St Matthew) the initial guide lines have been worked out and the collage has begun to take shape over both boards. The theme is the birth of Christ, pretty obvious with the Madonna and Child. We begin to see the three wise men from the east.


Detail of one of the wise men. There is still more to do but things are taking shape, fun.

The 4 Gospels, the boards, leather and collage.

The boards have been covered in fair goat skin with the key lines for the design being worked on to all 8 boards.


Using a variety of techniques the design begins to take shape.


Detail of the front board of Matthew.


Detail of the hand traversing both front and back boards.

The 4 Gospels, leather jointed end papers and doublers, first design of the 4 done.

Now that the turn-ins have been done the first design is complete. The text carries on from the first doubler to the last and reads as follows... IN THE BEGINNING WAS THE WORD AND THE WORD WAS WITH GOD AND THE WORD WAS GOD
All the words are imperfect apart from the last GOD as nothing is perfect but God!


With a normal book the doubler is usually applied towards the end of the binding and finishing. In this case the doublers are in place half way through.... the phase is to attach a second set of boards.


This second set of boards will support a third set of boards, sounds complicated? Yes I think it will be.

The 4 Gospels, leather jointed end papers and doublers.

Leather jointed end papers and full wrap round doublers. The leather joints have been inserted and the boards in-filled to create a smooth finish (no lumps or bumps) The doublers have been cut to size, allowing for a healthy turn-in at the head, tail and fore edge and the spine edge has been edge pared. Using a small paint roller with a short pile roller the adhesive, a 50/50 mix of paste and PVA was then applied to the back of the doubler.
I prefer to use a roller for this sort of job as there are no hairs and one can work quickly giving you more time to position the work.


Pitching the doubler in place. Patience and a keen eye. As the doublers and the endpapers had been printed and there is only one of each, this was not the time to make a cock-up!


Once in the correct position the whole surface was rubbed over with a Teflon folder to ensure that all air bubbles and wrinkles were eliminated. Then tins in and pressed. The turn-ins will be done later when the doublers are dry.

Buried Book.

The 4 Gospels, leather dyeing, leather on the spines.

The leather (fair goat) is cut to size and pared down to 0.5 mm with the turn ins to 0.4-0.3 mm.
The dye stuff is then applied, in this case a spirit dye. The paring is done first as it can stiffen the leather.


The spirit dye is allowed to dry (evaporate) for 24hrs.


The leather on the spines of the $ Gospels. I used a mixture of PVA and paste (50 % of each)


Spine detail.