Sometimes you must do something a little different. Well, I ventured out into making journals. With each one I learned quite a bit. Starting out I wanted to work with leather. I found 'Montana Leather' in Billings Montana. They have some beautiful soft leather in the thin weight I needed. The color is a nice dark brown, but next time I think I will go with a tan or some lighter color. I took a few small oil paintings I had around and made those into covers. Experimenting with some relief or embossing, I used all leather for other covers. The text pages I hand bound which I think is the hardest part of book making. Later I bought already set text books with lined paper. Making paper from recycling other used paper is fun. That is another learning experience. The inside covers are covered in my handmade paper.
Below are my first attempts, most sold right away.
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| The largest one, 8" X 8", oil painting front cover, copper covered in leather back cover and spine. |
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| The green apple painting I sliced in half and made the leather spine in the shape of an eaten apple. |
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| Experimenting with embossing. |
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| These were plain leather covers, jazzing up with JCB metal closures. |
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| Plum painting for covers; this and the above were all hand bound text pages. |
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These next set of books are my latest. With these I took I would create some illustrations for the first inside page. The closure is my attempt at enamel on copper. The bird shapes were difficult working so small. I used a propane torch to melt the enamel on the copper. These are available, I just haven't put them out there yet.
