While waiting for the gilding adhesive to dry, thought I'd share some more details.
The book text behind and to the left of Shelly's portrait sketch is a page from The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, which I heard tell was one of Shelly's favorites. The dark material behind and to the right of his head is some cunning calligraphic mass-printed paper I found in the scrap-booking aisle of a chain art supply store.
I drew his sketch on tracing paper with an ink bottle stopper-dropper, and the ink has a shine where it pooled.
On the page where I've written out parts of his interview, the white glue-looking substance on the red square (watercolor) is gilding glue.
As I type these words, I'm waiting for it to dry enough so I can apply more gold leaf. The white streaky line on the black paper to the right is also gilding glue, drying so it can receive more silver leaf.
I'm sketching in Rachel's face with a pale watercolor wash. The collage portion is mostly Japanese paper with various fibers, dyes and metallic threads/powders spangled in. I've also used ribbon, metallic thread, and a variety of metallic and non-metallic pens on both page spreads.
You can see the white leaf adhesive on some of the Rachel layout text page watercolored insets...waiting for them to dry so I can apply more metallic leaf.
My apologies for the totally abysmal lighting on all these snapshots -- I haven't learned yet how to diffuse my camera's flash indoors, so I get harsh shadows when shooting with flash. Most of the photos have a very warm yellow cast. If you can imagine the base paper as being bright white, you can understand how dark the snapshots are.
Making these pages is a very "touch and go" process. I touch the materials, do a few things, then must go away until things have dried or set.
And I must go in search of fresh photos today...I am running low on new things to share on Chatoyance, and it's supposed to rain tomorrow.
7 comments:
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Just exactly what I needed to see today. I love being able to see the process of your project!
It is great to see the building growing up. And it seems a wonderful building!
Your work is exquisite! The snaps remind me of pages from the illuminated books at the Morgan Library in NYC.
Incredible! Thank you for sharing this not only with your class but with your blog readers.
Oh, Lori. This looks amazing.
This book looks so beautiful. I recognize the sketch of Shelly from his picture on his blog. The sketch has such heart and soul, like Shelly's personality. I am fascinated by artists who are making books. I'm so intrigued by the process of combining the written word with visual art. Yet another thing I would love to learn how to do, for the fun of it, but there is only one lifetime per person, or at least that's what I believe. I haven't read your older posts yet about what you plan to do with the books, where they will be exhibited. What an exciting project. I look forward to learning more.
Simply gorgeous!
Warmly,
Baraka
www.rickshawdiaries.wordpress.com
this is more fun than attending a master chef's cooking class, I swear...
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