Wines in my Garden....

 Though there are many beautiful decorative and constructed papers available to buy, it is nearly always the case that there is never one that hits the nail on the head when working with an a particular design in mind.
For Wines in my Garden I wanted to use use tomatoes.

 In particular... Tomatoes on the vine. I wanted to simplify and to narrow the colour printing down to just 2 colours per end paper. First I mixed my inks and rolled out the base colours. A rich red and acid green/yellow. I then made a simple lino cut of the stem and leaves of a tomato vine and over printed. The end papers were then allowed to dry.

 I have been sharing with Erin Fletcher, a book binder from Boston, Massachusetts, some of my decorative techniques. this has been very cool as I have been able to use the woskshop demonstrations as a test for the design for the outer boards. The "Swiss Roll" technique (above) will provide stylized flowers.
Whilst the "Dicated" work (below) will provide the wine....

Wines in my Garden is a miniature book printed by the Whittington Press.

The 4 Gospels, final leather paring.

Final leather paring.

The leather is creased and given a memory along the joints with gentle strikes with a hammer.  

 

Then the joint area of the spine is pared down ... not to much as we still want to keep the strength but allow for flexing.  

 

Then more paring at the head and tail of the spine area, this is to allow for the leather that turns in... basically to keep the spine as smooth as possible.  
 

   

The final cut... a single cut to scollop and feather the turn-in at the head and tail. All simple and not a spoke shave in sight.

The 4 Gospels, the boards, leather, collage, colour, tooling and the boards are on. The Clients

The clients for The Four Gospels have seen the books, handled them and liked them..... which is good.

Box making now.... something with a twist.

The 4 Gospels, the boards, leather, collage, colour, tooling and the boards are on. The first images.

The 4 Gospels, the boards, leather, collage, colour, tooling and the boards are on. The first images.

In the back ground is the box, taking shape with the help of a young and gifted French Bookbinding student.....

The 4 Gospels, the boards, leather, collage, colour, tooling and the boards are on !

The 4 Gospels, the boards, leather, collage, colour, tooling and the boards are on.

The 4 Gospels, the boards, leather, collage, colour and tooling, nearly finished.

Nearly there!......

The 4 Gospels, the boards, leather, collage, colour and tooling.

The collage work is finished. With black line work giving us the memory of stained glass the tooling can begin. The reflected light from the tooling reminds me Byzantine wall mosaics. By knocking back the collage I hope to give the impression of aged fresco work.

The 4 Gospels, the boards, leather, collage and colour..

Progress, having cobbled together a very long desk easel it is easier to see the whole design taking shape. The colours will be blended and with heavy black line work I am aiming for a sort of Icon look. It has taken me a while to sort this out but I realise that I am making four separate design bindings........