Die NIBELUNGEN. Tooling to the back board.

Traditional tooling to the back board.

Die NIBELUNGEN. An idea of work so far.

so far, so good.

Cyrano De Bergerac... saying goodbye to an old friend.

Cyrano is going home. It is a long way from the studio and will be Fedexed.


I beef-up a box to take the knocks and bumps of the journey.



Goodbye.....

The Liverpool Doors Project, work nearing completion.

For more information search.... Roger McGough Mark Cockram Liverpool doors. The exhibition is on till October in the Museum Of Liverpool.

Die NIBELUNGEN. The back panel, cold gold tooling.

Cold gold tooling for the back panel.

Cyrano De Bergerac... the 2 tray drop back box. Finished.

Detail of the outer tray... inner pad.


Spine detail.


Simple label.

The Liverpool Doors Project, Studio 5 work and on site at J M U.

Words begin to appear on the doors... Not as simple as one may think, what goes where ? how are the words to be applied ?


Visualisation and format.


Size...


... and texture.

The Liverpool Doors Project, Special doors from a cherished place, The Everyman..

Liverpool boasts many well know land marks. Perhaps one of the most cherished was the Everyman Theater and in the basement the so popular Bistro run by the equally well known and popular 'Paddy' Sadly the last time I saw the Everyman it was a huge whole in the ground. Some elements have been kept to be included in the 'new' Everyman.... time will tell.


Some of the doors inside are iconic, used by many........




Some seen by many..... and we got them....

Cyrano De Bergerac... the 2 tray drop back box. Making the Lip for the outer case.

With the trays covered I move on to the outer case. Nothing special about this ... but I do like a bit of Lip.

The lip is made from 1mm board and is adhered to the inside edge of the boards at head, tail and fore edge. Only at the head and tail of the spine piece. The components are then covered in the usual way, turn ins etc...

The resulting lip ( bottom image ) here showing the inner tray and space between it and the lip for the outer tray to go into, creates an additional dust trap and helps to support the trays.

Cyrano De Bergerac... the 2 tray drop back box.

I first start as many binders do when making a box with a series of measurements. Height, width and depth. Then make up small compensation pads for the lining material and start chopping.
I cut the walls and then line the board with 240 gsm water colour paper, trimming the water colour paper to leave a flange the same width as the board (in this case 2mm ) Making a half lap joint.

I consider it a stronger joint than just butting the board together and saves on having to masking tape all the components together.

Covering is with simple angles and book cloth.

Cyrano De Bergerac... a book from the past..

Cyrano De Bergerac.
Printed in a limited edition of 1000 copies (1998) at the presses of Jean- Francois Manier, in Chambonseur - Lignon on behalf of the Cercle de Relieure d'art a Ciboure.

Bound in 1998 by me...

Bound with a double hollow in black goat skin and hand dyed French Parchment ( by binder ) with inlaid panels of egg shell ( by binder ) to both front and back boards. Title to spine in black ink. Hand sewn end bands in blue and red Japanese silk. Head decorated in graphite and gold leaf.
Leather jointed end papers and doublers of hand dyed ( by binder ) in a French hand made paper.

The present owner ( USA ) has requested a new box.... This means that the original box has done the job it was made for.. eg.. to protect the book, which it has as the binding, text block is in the exact same condition as the day it left my studio some 14 years ago....

Over the next few days I will show some of the aspects of one style of box I make.....

Week starting Tuesday the 13th

After some time... the studio will be back to normal hours and days..........

YIPPEE

Through the Looking Glass.

The Liverpool Doors Project, work begins.

With over 20 doors to work on the space and time required was always going to be an issue. The size alone made the task of moving them a reason to take up weight training and visits to the physio a regular thing.

We began by deciding what text, imagery and object would go on each 'page' easier said than done. When I say 'we' I mean that Roger would consult a book (One I had made) with all the poems etc that he had decided would be used, with our sketches, plans and thoughts added, while I would prop the page (door) up I was able to look at the surface and think of methods of being able to make our ideas work.

As we worked ideas came and went, some were explored to destruction whilst ideas we had from the very beginning of the project worked without any problems.

As with a lot of creative work it looked like very little was being done, but let me assure you tons was being done.

The Liverpool Doors Project, the doors begin to arrive.

With the space sorted out next was to get the doors.
From the beginning we wanted this project to be as representative of Liverpool as much as possible. As previously discussed we were to use doors as the medium. We were let loose on the local BBC radio to make an appeal for doors, any doors. Loo doors, front doors, back doors. You name it ....

We also contacted John Moores University, Art and Design Academy... they let us have studio space... more of this later....

Within a few days the doors began to arrive and the work began.....