MORE SHOW & TELL

 

Many thanks to Laurie Moorhead for sharing her journey through several art media with us. It was very enlightening to hear about her progression from simple sketching to painting with oils and watercolors, carving stamps and cutting paper, and binding her work into zines and books etc. What a journey it has been and we appreciate hearing about it.

This is a great time to continue sharing some of the beautiful work of our members. Mary Elizabeth Nelson (aka Emmy), one of our members from Pennsylvania, recently completed two boxes commissioned by an Interior Designer. 

In February Emmy first started sourcing suppliers and figuring out what type of box to construct for storing 50 to 75 8 x 10" color photographs. The photos were to be mounted on a complementary color background. She found two new (to her) paper sources; Lessebo Colours from Sweden and Colorplan from England. Both carry a wide variety of colors and weights.

After ordering samples, the designer decided on Sahara from Lessebo. The 300 gsm (110 lbs.) weight was heavy enough for the 8 x 10 photos making the finished size 10 1/2 x 12 1/2". Archival mounting corners were ordered from Lineco. Binders board and Jade 711 PVA were ordered from Talas. Emmy already had navy blue linen book cloth for the spine of the boxes that looked good with her wet-cyan prints and Madeleine Durham's paste paper. 

Lots of wet-cyan prints!

Early in March Emmy started making wet-cyan prints using dried leaves and flowers on quarter sheets of Newcomen paper that she already had on hand. A quarter sheet is 17 1/2 x 22". This vintage paper, in a light tan color, has a high cotton content and holds up well with multiple lengths of wet time. She's previously used it for paste paper and now the wet-cyans. She can only make two prints a day because of the limitations in glass size and the amount of time they have to sit in the sun (about three hours). Emmy was working most every sunny day while also preparing some short videos of the process of making the wet-cyans for a presentation for the San Diego Book Arts Guild. 

April and May brought an increase in the amount of fresh plant materials, but she still used some of the dried leaves she had on hand. Many of these dried materials have become "old friends" because she uses them over and over. Fresh delicate flowers are used only once since they tend to bake after three hours in the sun. In total, Emmy made 30 sheets of wet-cyans by mid June.

Early construction of the first clamshell box. 

Covering the box with the wet-cyan prints. Each

gluing step required that the pieces had to sit over-

night under weights.

The navy book cloth was used for the spine of the box.

The photographs were mounted

on the card stock with archival

mounting corners. 122 photos

with four self-stick corners each.

Because each step in the construction had to sit
under weights, Emmy had two extra tables set up
in her studio.

The finished size for each box is 12 1/4 x 14 1/2 x 3 1/4"

What a beautiful way to store photographs! Well done Emmy and thank you for sharing the process with us!!

SINGLE PAGE POCKET BOOK & MORE

 Our August workshop, taught by Emmy Nelson, was great fun. Not only was this a quick and easy structure to make, but we discovered multiple ways to personalize it. Here's one variation of the structure (see the previous post for the originals).

Bonnie Julien added decorative paper 

behind some pages with a pamphlet stitch

to keep the pages aligned.

She also added a single stitch to keep the pockets closed.

Thank you Emmy for an excellent workshop.

This month's featured artist in the kiosk at the Humboldt County Library is Lynne Gurnee.  If you're in Eureka, be sure to check out this great display.

Thank you Kenzie Mullen for arranging this display.

Notes from the Art Lab 

by Bonnie Halfpenny

The Treasure Chest

In a recent NORBAG newsletter, there was a mention of public domain sites listed by Bel Mills at Scrap Paper Circus. Maybe you are very familiar with these websites, but I was not. Now that I've peeked into them, I realize I was missing a real treasure chest! Some of the great sites mentioned include Old Book Illustrations at https://www.oldbookillustrations.com which covers everything from plants to individual illustrators. Next head to Vintage Ephemera when you need that look at https://vintageephemera.blogspot.com.This site has an extensive subject listing, so you don't have to look through so many things to find something useful.

Over the years, the Smithsonian has been collecting everything they deem important; now they are busy removing copyright restrictions from their digital images. Smithsonian Open Access lets you in at https://www.si.edu/openaccess.

The Biodiversity Heritage Library has over 100,000 images available to download at https://www.flickr.com/photos/biodivlibrary/sets/.

While I have received emails promoting The Public Domain Review, I had never taken a serious look at this site. Browsing there is well worth your time, at

https://publicdomainreview.org/

I'd like to thank Bel Mills at https://www.scrappapercircus.com/ for making this information available. For these and all public domain websites, please take note of any caveats they may list. And if you have a favorite public domain site to share, please let us know through the blog. Happy browsing!

SINGLE PAGE BOOK WITH POCKETS

 This clever little book is made from a single sheet of paper. It's a wonderful structure that can easily be enlarged, reduced, or even changed in configuration depending upon how you fold and/or cut it. The version pictured below will be taught by Mary Elizabeth Nelson (aka Emmy). Emmy suggests that you first print out the PDF on regular copy paper in black and white to make a mock up during the workshop. Afterwards you can print it on better paper in color. After you RSVP for this workshop you'll receive the pdf to make the book shown below.

Emmy's beautiful calligraphy is featured
on this friendship book.

Tools Needed:

• Black & white printout of Emmy's pdf design
• Cutting mat
• C-THRU gridded ruler 2" x 18" or 2" x 12"
• Bone folder
• Pencil with eraser
• X-Acto knife
• Scoring tool

Here are more photos of the structure using different paper/designs.

In these examples plain paper is used for the book
 with different papers placed in the pockets.

When:    Saturday August 12 at 10 a.m. PDT
Where:   On your computer, tablet or smartphone via Zoom
RSVP:     Dolores Guffey by August 7
Workshop Questions:  Mary Elizabeth Nelson
Zoom Questions:  Bobbie Hayes
Contact information for everyone is in the newsletter

SHOW and TELL with EMMY

 According to Wikipedia, "the hobby of collecting includes seeking, locating, acquiring, organizing, cataloging, displaying, storing, and maintaining items that are of interest to an individual collector". The May NORBAG workshop will feature Mary Elizabeth Nelson, aka Emmy, sharing her collection of artists' books. She began collecting books back in the early 1990's. After starting out as a calligrapher she quickly added bookmaking to her art projects. Working with many of the creative ways of embellishing papers and the various methods of folding and binding them into books led Emmy to collect as well as to make books. She will share some of her special books that have been created in a wide variety of print media and issued in all types of book formats. Here is a preview of some of the books she will be sharing with us.

The May workshop does not require you to have any supplies handy as this will be a "Show and Tell" event.

When:   Saturday May 8 at 10 a.m. PST

Where:  On your computer, tablet or smartphone via Zoom

RSVP:    YES, to Dolores Guffey by May 3 to receive the password and instructions

Workshop questions: Mary Elizabeth Nelson

Zoom questions: Bobbie Hayes

Contact information for everyone is in the newsletter.

PIANO-HINGE ACCORDION ALBUM

 Our East Coast member, Mary Elizabeth Nelson, gave a wonderful workshop this past weekend. She led us through the steps to make a variation of the piano-hinge album shown in the book The Art of the Fold by Hedi Kyle and Ulla Warchol. Forty-three NORBAG members participated via Zoom.

Mary Elizabeth Nelson (aka Emmy)

This is one of the example books Emmy
 made using her cyanotype papers.

Examples of Emmy's pages

Preparing the accordion spine to cut out the holes
for the stick or dowel.

We were sent a materials list along with instructions to have some of the materials cut and folded prior to the workshop. This book was designed to have four pages with Mylar inserts to showcase flat objects. It was great to see the different items that were chosen, such as dried leaves, papers, buttons, and mark-making designs. A few members also made slight variations to the design by keeping a flap to cover one side of the window or adding a feature that allowed the center of the page to spin. Below are examples of some of the books that were completed.

Dolores Guffey used antique buttons in her book.

The covers were marbled by Dolores.

DJ Gaskin

DJ used various leaves in her windows.

Edge Gerring

Edge used leaves as a background for the words of a poem.

Michele Kamprath

Michele showcased her mark-making
techniques in the windows of her book.

Bonnie Julien

Bonnie left the flap to cover the front of the window,
but cut out the entire part of the back window so you
 can still see the leaf print of the paper in front but the 
leaf shows against a plain background in the back.

Margaret Beech made her book with window inserts
that would rotate within the space.

A Gallery of Gods by Betty Steckman

Many thanks to Mary Elizabeth for presenting a great workshop.