Making a New Journal by Hand

from the cover of my new handmade book

I recently attended a book making class that Cari from Art for the Soul organized and taught. She modeled how to make a simple 5" x 5" book.

In less than 2 hours we were able to do the following:

1. dye rice paper for the book covers and set aside to dry,  
2. use clips to hold the cut pages together
3. punch three holes into the clipped pages using a hammer, block, and awl
4. re-cut strip of material from a piece of Sari cloth to use as thick thread for binding
5. glue dyed papers to front and back substrates to create the front and back covers 
6. glue inside face pages to front and back covers
7. clip front cover, pages, and back cover together
8. re-punch holes making sure that each hole is large enough for binding materials
9. thread needle with the strip of sari cloth 
10. bind the book, using a Chinese-wrapped binding method. 

I took photographs as I was working so I could remember the process.  Some of those images can be seen below.

When I got home I opened the journal to the 2nd and 3rd page (I never start painting on page 1) and created the two images below by adding gesso to each page. Next I made two very quick sketches in pencil.  Then I shaded and painted the two faces using  Stablio pencil, Tombow markers, and thinned acrylic paint.

Pages 2 and 3 from my new journal