Making Hand-Made Artist Books Workshop

I have just completed two Saturday workshops with Irmina van Niele, making books and gaining so much practical knowledge and loads of inspiration; below is a link to a site where you can see some of her work.  She is a lovely person and so helpful when you need to be shown a technique.

http://www.artroom5.com.au/archive/Exhibition2/vanNiele.html

This workshop was enjoyable for the experience of being with others who love books and making books.  Irmina is a person who teaches clearly, also the value of her as a teacher was in the inspiration she gave, the knowledge she impartated, the encouragement to know the rules but also to know you could break them if you wanted, and the encouragement to make it your own way and not just the same as someone else's.  Her enthusiasm was inspiring and gave me a lift just when I needed it, at the end of my Cert 4 work.

I found from making the concertina "Meditation Book" in last week's post, that this format gives a very broad view as it opens up, yet can be a confined view also when closed or partly open, so it is usable for complex themes or concepts.  One of the important points when folding a concertina is to make sure the creases are at right angles to the sides, otherwise the book will not stand straight.  

Book Arts

I've always been passionate about books; love reading them, holding them, looking at them.  Bookshops, libraries, second-hand bookshops, rows of old books in charity shops.  Often used to feel guilty about "just sitting reading".  Last year for Cert 3 Visual Arts (Textiles) I tentatively started exploring making books - both with textiles.  This year for Cert 4, I have fully embraced Book Art, researching, learning new techniques, becoming confident about my own style and my own artwork.  I have been using a lot of paper materials and techniques.  I have been to the first of two workshops on hand-made books and here you see the Meditation Book I made.  It is a concertina style with pamphlet inserts.  The front cover shown is artboard, with my hand-dyed fabric glued on.  The concertina is made from card covered with layers of my hand-dyed papers, with the addition of pastels used in areas.  Pastels are new to me but they are like very soft crayons or coloured wax and give lovely depth of colour to any area.  The papers that I dyed are white tissue paper (as in gift wrapping), greaseproof paper, and paper towels used as mop-up cloths in dyeing.  The running stitch is naive-style to echo the random effect of the colours.

I have developed into this unexpected direction after studying at Marden Senior College, with Suzanne Gummow , Cathy Boniciolli and Sarah Bell Smith in Visual Arts - I recommend them heartily for anyone wanting for expand their artistic horizons.

Next time I will tell you about the workshop.