A Clockwork Orange, work in progress.

 Starting with the back board the first layer is applied. Hand coloured and manipulated. In a way this is rather like a canvas artist taking the white off a canvas. In all probability very little of this first layer will be visible. However, I know it is there.

 Though book binding is perceived by many as a traditional craft there is art to be found. As a Fellow of Designer Bookbinders I do not let tradition get in the way of a good idea.

Working with a double board construction allows for far more freedom and scope for manipulation and experimentation. As the work is squeezed out of my head, cut and pasted (not on a computer) the colours and textures working together with the imagery the chaos, brutalism and despair materialise on the surface.

A Clockwork Orange, edge decoration. Work in progress.

STUDIO 5

Rounded and backed case binding

and book-cloth making 

Section folding ☞ sewing ☞ rounding and backing

☞ secondry sewing ☞ and much more 

Saturday 31st of May 2014

10 to 5 

☞ One hour for lunch

Full cloth case binding in Kimono Fabric 

Limited to 5 places.To book your place or for

more details please contact Studio 5 e-✉ 

studio5bookarts@aol.co.uk

A Clockwork Orange.

A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess. This is a second edition with a signed tipped in plate signed by the author.

A Clockwork Orange is the scarifying autobiographical confession of Alex, a juvenile delinquent of the unspecified but very distant future, who tells the tale of his own criminal excesses and his 're-education' in the peculiar slang of his generation. It takes the reader to understand this expressive language called 'nasdat'; after he falls into the world of Alex.

A horror comedy, a fable of good and evil. Make of it what you will but for the faint hearted it is not.

I have wanted to bind iconic this book for ages and now feel ready to tackle it.

 Halfway through the application of colour to the endpapers. 

 Dribbles of orange.

 Front endpaper with a series of prints from a collage.

Back endpaper.

Peter Blake Alphabets. Finished.

Peter Blake Alphabets.

Starting with the back board and after collecting many, many letters.

Colour is the key.

Once the back board was taking shape I could start on the front board. All lino cuts have been hand coloured.

I feel that it can be important to link the various elements of the book design, that the front works with the back, the back with the spine etc.

Blake is known for his liking of Elvis Presley (The King) Hence the gold E.

Covered in 23½ C gold and distressed.

A hand dyed Scrabble board for the double hollow.

Now the hunt for the Y.

SIMON BRETT An Engraver/s Progress. Binding finished.

I really, really like this.

Rubbish books.

For the last few weeks I have been working with rubbish. I do not mean the content of some books that cross my bench, more the concept of making standard books from recycled materials.

Living and working in London has many benefits if one is looking for rubbish. The streets are no longer paved with gold. Pizza boxes and delivery boxes from a well river in South America, crunch underfoot like beige snow.

I am as much of a fan of recycling as the next person. We sort out the plastic from the paper, the metal from the glass, wait for the dilly cart to take it away to be pulped, mashed, sorted and made into new plastics, new bottles, new cans and new paper. All good stuff.

However, it is in my nature to think, to ask why?

Why pulp corrugated packing boxes?

Having immersed the side of a packing box in a vat of water for 15 minutes I was able to de-laminate the corrugations leaving, me with a number of sheets of paper. Simple stuff. No mashing, no pulping etc.

While the new sheets were drying sections were folded and pressed. 

Sections sewn.

After the end papers were tipped on rounding and backing.

After secondary sewing, spine linings, bonnet (both with paper from the de-laminated corrugated board) and a bit of this and that we end up with......

Welcome to my Rubbish Books. I love the graphics and they appear to be very popular with my friends.

SIMON BRETT An Engraver's Progress. Barbarian Press MMXII

Waiting for the doublers to dry on the Alphabet book.

Sanding down the doublers for Blake's Alphabet.

Endpapers for Peter Blake's Alphabet book.

Lino cut with hand coloured paper. The back end paper is slightly different, being the other half, or there a-bouts of the alphabet. The Leather has gone onto the spine and is drying. After ages I have managed to come up with a design that will be fun (I hope)

Up - date on things in the studio soon.

New book on the block.

My next binding will be for the truly magnificent...  PETER BLAKE ALPHABETS.
Limited edition of 600, signed by Peter Blake and Mel Gooding.

To say that I am a fan of Peter Blake would be a true understatement.

I am going to enjoy every moment.

The final result.