Eels .. a start.

I am completely fascinated by these slippery, mysterious creatures and their extraordinary life cycle. They are one of the subjects in my very long, 2015, to-do list. I have drawn some eels before, long ago to illustrate Philip Gross’ poem “Sargasso”. I had been thinking about another interpretation of the poem for a small book.

eels Sargasso

But meanwhile I am playing with all sorts of printing methods and wanted to make a simple concertina book for a bit more simple bookbinding practice.

I started with some sketches:

eels-2

eels-1

ell-head-sketch

They do have teeth… awesome!

Then made a couple of simple plates cut from card. I had made some card plates for the moon project but they were not terribly successful. Now I have made up some of my own shellac which I think will help.

eel--plates

Sketch and plates

eels4-bg

Trials with different weights of ink

first-eel-bg

A first folded print Then I made a small simple case for the book. I say simple but it is tricky to get everything square, to stop the ink smudging and to keep everything clean. I printed some foliage for a quick cover, wrestled with some old wood type for the title and printed the back of the eel to tidy that aspect up a bit before pasting the print to the front cover.

cover

The case cover

back-bg

The back
eel-book-1-bg

Opened book There are a million things wrong with this but it is a small triumph for me and number two small book form for this year. I am trying to make one a week.   Last week I used an old frog print, folded it and made two separate boards.

frog booklet 1

The folded book

front and back

The front and back boards

open frog

The opened out print.

I have to consider this an experiment .. but good practice. See more here.