This month I decided to try a couple of different binding forms, but for my first attempt neither the printing or the binding worked. But rather than totally write everything off I made a simple concertina book from the images.
I had found some old lino cuts of grasshoppers which I had never used and thought I could make a quick book form with them. I am very fond of grasshoppers. They always cheer me up but a “quick book” is something I have never really mastered and everything that could go wrong, went wrong. Also I had decided to use a different paper which took an age to dry and then every set of prints had at least one mistake. None were really good enough for binding. So I threw away 5 days of work. Sad but really the only thing to do.
A few of the OK prints! Each grasshopper had three printings so the margin for error was high.
But I am nothing if not dogged so I scanned the OK ones, corrected the mistakes in Photoshop and printed them, then teamed them up with some digitally printed text, a little grasshopper poem by e.e.cummings.
I have forgotten why I originally had the grasshoppers playing with letters (which spell “BOING”).. but the cummings poem also plays with letters and word order and jumps about … like its subject. So it was a good match.
Anyway it was an interesting and useful exercise in that it is all digitally printed, cover, prints, text everything. It is the first time I have made a book this way. There were some problems with the inkjets not being waterproof but I just had to be more careful with the binding. I joined the single sheets with some of the cover paper and managed to keep the backs clean. A concertina may look very simple to make but getting the folds regular and all in line is difficult.
As a bit more practice, I decided to make a cover which contained an aperture. It was horribly tricky to cover with the digitally printed paper. Possibly more patience and care would have helped but by now I was a bit fed up with the whole thing!
However as usual I have learnt more about papers and tricky bits of binding and it’s all good practice. But, for me, because I had to digitally print the images it is not as satisfying as the hand printed ones.
The next one will be a combination of two… I hope.
I also hope you are all well and keeping sane! I am well… sane? Possibly not !:)
I have often wondered if a “fixative” or maybe an acrylic medium would fix the inkjet?
Lovely as always, thank you for continuing to share your experiences
Hi Louisa. Many thanks for your comment. It’s an issue because it would be nice to use the printer a bit more sometimes. There is spray you can buy..I think I might give it a go!