My photo/essay handmade book project continues to move forward
Little by Little.
I’ve discovered that I seem to work in spurts of furious activity followed by avoidance, anguish, and procrastination. Then after a week or more, one day I tire of my angst and drama about the project and begin thinking about it again, watching my two book-making online classes, and planning. I procrastinate a little longer and then finally begin working furiously on the next right steps.
This week I decided to use some cotton hand-made watercolor sheets that I had on hand, as pages for my first sample book.
After doing some calculations I decided to make my two-page book spread the same width as the watercolor paper, 16 inches. Since I want my final book to be 8 inches tall by 12 inches wide, I chose a page height that gave me a 3 x 2 ratio. Then I searched online for instructions on how to cleanly tear large watercolor paper.
Then finally, tore each of my two remaining sheets of watercolor paper into 3 long strips.
Each strip folded in half creates a 4 page spread in my book (a folio).
The page size was slightly larger than 5×7 inches, so I decided to use 5×7 inch photo paper. For two of the prints I used my remaining samples of Canson Infinity Baryta Photographique II Matt paper and then I switched over to using Ilford Galerie Washi Torinoko paper. I’ve decided to use the Baryta paper for the images in my final book but I wanted to experiment with printing book text on the Washi paper.
I also decided to use Washi paper for the remaining prints in the sample book as well rather than using the more expensive Baryta paper I plan to use in the final book.
To create pages with text and pages with photos and text, I created a 5×7 inch template in Photoshop. Then I used Photoshop to add text and place it, and place photographs as well. I printed each “page.” Then I glued the photos (just applying glue to the outside edges of the photo to the heavy watercolor paper pages.
Today I completed three folios. I made one placement mistake, gluing a photograph on the wrong side of a folio and had to adjust text and layout to make it work even with the mistake. It taught me how carefully I need to pay attention to layout when I glue photos or text to the folios.
Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new.
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My next step is to complete four more folios (4-page spreads). Then I plan to sew the pages together and work on the binding. I’m not sure if I will bother with a cover for this sample book. But I probably will, just because I have so much to learn. The trickiest part is whether this 7 folio book will give me enough information to predict whether I can use the same techniques to create a 20 folio book.
I’m looking forward to seeing these pages in book form. I’m not quite sure I like the gluing of photos and text onto the base pages. I might decide that I need to figure out a way to print each page individually and then join the pages together in the center (another option from one of my online book making classes).
This process has been such fun. Each day I learn something new. I feel very fortunate to have the luxury of time to create something just because I want to create it.
The fact that I get to spend my life making objectively useless things means that I don’t live in a post-apocalyptic dystopia. It means I am not exclusively chained to the grind of mere survival. It means we still have enough space left in our civilization for the luxuries of imagination and beauty and emotion—and even total frivolousness. Pure creativity is magnificent expressly because it is the opposite of everything else in life that’s essential or inescapable (food, shelter, medicine, rule of law, social order, community and familial responsibility, sickness, loss, death, taxes, etc.). Pure creativity is something better than a necessity; it’s a gift. It’s the frosting. Our creativity is a wild and unexpected bonus from the universe. It’s as if all our gods and angels gathered together and said, “It’s tough down there as a human being, we know. Here—have some delights.”
― Big Magic: How to Live a Creative Life, and Let Go of Your Fear
What projects are you inspired to create? Is a “little by little” approach one that works for you too?
May you walk in beauty.
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