Wednesday, March 25, 2009

Oh my, oh my, oh my

Yes, there's been more of that top secret stuff going on, and also prepping for my class this weekend. I'm teaching my 2nd bookbinding class this weekend. As it turns out, the class is completely filled (12 people), they want to do 2 books, they want to gocco, and my materials budge is only $100! !! !!!

Now that's pretty tough, since the gocco supplies alone is $3.5/person (=$42), which leaves me $56 to spend on paper for 24 books. I spent 1 afternoon just looking at a variety of paper, trying to figure out how to do that. Ended up going with Tyvek & Canson Mi-Teintes for the pocket books, and Tyvek and just basic text paper for the Japanese stab binding. And even at that, the inks, paints, and linen thread will just be coming out of my own pocket.

[Oops, upon reviewing all the emails exchanges, looks like I have $100 plus the $50 gift certificate, so yay, I have a bit more room to maneuver. Good thing I checked!]

Plus, I've spent a whole afternoon trimming paper—they'll barely have enough time to gocco & dye the paper on the first day, and bind 2 books on the 2nd day, that I have to pre-trim the paper.

So I'm learning more and more about teaching book binding. That's fine...it took me a couple of gocco classes before I figured out what could really be done in a reasonable amount of time for a reasonable amount of fee.

Oh yeah, I tried this new brand of gesso, Art Boards gesso, which Art Media now carries because of request from icon painters. I figured, hey, if it's good enough for icon painters, it's good enough for me. I tried it, sanded it, and it looks absolutely gorgeous! Now I just have to paint on it too.

2 comments:

Michael5000 said...

I didn't even know we had icon painters.

fingerstothebone said...

Now you know. But you know, there are all those monasteries here, and a lot of orthodox churches!