IFJM Ends and Summing Up

Here are catch-up spreads in my Fake Journal.

Unlike last year, I got an idea two weeks before April 1 but felt I couldn’t start in it yet. It might have helped if I had, at least gotten some of the design clients decided and some color swatches and magazine samples done ahead of time. Because by the time I started, my enthusiasm began to wane.

However, some good things happened in keeping a Fake Journal this month:

I experimented with a new medium: Inktense pencils with stamp pad backgrounds.
I discovered a way to make a “stamp” with the pencils and had fun playing.
I learned about steampunk, which knew nothing about.
I enjoying using a larger version of the Hand Book (just the second; 2009’s Fake Journal in a smaller green was the first). I liked the way the paper took gel pens, gel brushes, Inktense pencils with water. It’s still too scratchy for Micron pens, though.

With muted enthusiasm, I almost quit early but I still had a few more spreads in Sydney’s book.

Crafting a Coptic Book

A few weeks ago, I attended a Coptic Art Book class at a local stamp and scrapbooking store. Completing my first Coptic stitch recently, I was curious to see bookbinding from a crafting point of view.

The three-hour class was taught by a cheerful and enthusiastic lady and it was well attended—11 students. Assorted book covers, already with designs on them, were in a package from the company 7 Gypsies. Boxes of distress ink pads and chalk colors were passed around and everyone promptly began inking up their covers. I tried some sample stamps--one with wheat stalks and one with an oval vine--but since the boards were a bit warped they didn’t take the impressions well. I wondered if book board was underneath and if they’d cause problems later when we did the stitching.

Instead of finding the grain and tearing down large sheets of paper, we collected 16 sheets of colorful cardstock. I chose 4 colors each of light gray, light tan with deep chocolate inside, dark green, and deep purple. Folding each page in half, we nestled two together to form one signature, and using paper cutters we trimmed those to 5 ¼” x 6 5/8”.

The last hour we spent doing the assembly and stitching. To punch four holes on the covers, there was a scissors-like tool I’d never seen before, probably a scrapbooking item. Using an awl, we punched four holes in each signature, too. With two pieces of waxed linen thread and four needles, one on each end, we started sewing from the back cover and last signature upward.

At the second or third signature, our teacher called out “Whoops--I forgot to mention you hook back to the previous signature! But you don’t have to pull out what you’ve done so far.” Everyone was a little confused after that, especially me since I began doing a double stitch (going back two previous signatures as well as the one above). So, I ended up with a much thicker but kind of cool stitch. I ripped one signature a little and promptly remembered to sew and pull the direction of the sewing and not straight up.

The good-natured teacher went over any question patiently, checked everyone’s progress, and stayed afterwards helping anyone wanting to do the signatures the correct way. She even pointed out my unique stitch to everyone, calling it the Mitsdarfer stitch! It was fun going to this class. Bringing some drugstore magnifying glasses to wear over my contact lenses, I was able to keep up and finish the project (something that bogged me down in previous bookbinding classes). Afterwards, I browsed the shop and one of the owners demonstrated a form foam that, when heated, can press into any firm material and become a stamp, something I’d read about in Maggie Grey’s book Paper, Metal & Stitch. It looked like printmaking on a small scale and something I want to investigate further.

It will be interesting to see how this book functions and what kind of medium to use on the dark cardstock pages.

More Fake Journal Spreads

Sydney reveals more of herself, her clients, her life in her journal.

More Fake Journaling

Here are more of Sydney's mix of daydreams and client designs, part of the fake journal I'm keeping for International Fake Journal Month.

Fake Journal

In commemoration of this year’s International Fake Journal Month, we peek into the journal of Sydney Greene, a 30-something interior designer living in Santa Fe. In this journal, Sydney keeps track of her many and diverse clients as well as occasionally sketching and trying new art media. It’s her catch-all for ideas, inspirations, designs, elements, thoughts, and daydreams. She doesn’t use this to give presentation for her clients; it’s for her eyes only.

Misty Dream Time

Nothing quite beats the combination of a trip to a used bookstore and a little time off work. Although I love the convenience of buying books online, the tactical quality of taking tomes off the shelves and handling them, bending, reaching, and squatting at various subject areas, and the sheer joy of looking at books is something best done in person.

All weekend, I’ve been in a dreamy state of mind. I recall other times leaving bookstores—with or without purchases—feeling so awed by all the knowledge and wonder and possibility wrapped up between two covers. Tingling with that familiar brain-buzz happiness, I came out of the store on Thursday afternoon and saw trees green-yellow with new growth and an overcast blue-gray sky, giving a mythical wash to my thoughts. My choice of books only added fuel to that fire.

Driving home, the city awash with bursting colors of wildflowers, budding trees, and swooping birds, I felt such a connection with Nature and yet also cautious to distance myself from pollen and allergens. I felt so much a part of the Elements around me and also, paradoxically, a longing for ancient places across the sea.

This push and pull reminds me of things I wanted to express while trying to be a writer and not knowing art techniques. So, I may delve into that as well as continue my Fake Journal book (soon to be unveiled). A large painting is also beckoning.

So many paths, so many interests, so many means of expression. I wish you a happy Easter, a lovely spring, a wealth of possibilities. What is pulling you these days?