Envelope Book

Our September meeting saw us making an envelope book, led by Chris. Small and with a square format this was not a complicated book to make but required patience and time; the former of course all book artists have in abundance!

We did some planning for the months to come, and spent time discussing the upcoming Liverpool Book Arts Fair which takes place on October 5th and 6th, and coincides with our monthly meeting, which will take place as planned. The Fair is almost next door to us at the Bluecoat in Liverpool city centre, so if you are reading this and fancy finding out a bit more about book art, do come along and meet us and lots of other makers. 

 

Further details will be emailed to members in good time later this month.

There is also an opportunity to individually show off our work in Chester.   Please follow the  link below:
https://www.artinliverpool.com/opportunities/calls-archive/call-to-artists-the-grosvenor-museums-15th-open-art-exhibition/

Waterfall Book

This month Frances led us in making a waterfall book, which we all completed successfully. This style lends itself well to photographs and semi-hidden text, and is a very satisfying alternative to a flip book.

We also enjoyed seeing books on the theme of 'poetry' and other completed books or works in progress. 

Our theme for the next two months is ‘inked or inky’.

Marilyn has booked a table for the Liverpool book arts fair in October. We will have our meeting first whilst Alan looks after our table, and we will then take turns to keep things going. Marilyn will stay on for Saturday if needed, and she and Jac will look after things on Sunday. Timings etc to be explained at our September meeting.

Tea Bag Book

The NWBA meeting on Sat. 6 July 2024,  was well attended and members warmly welcomed the return of a former member from 2018.   The members enjoyed the challenge of making a new book structure based on the adaption of a "Teabag" book, delivered by Julie.

The "Show and Tell" moment revealed 3 inspiring pop-up Kirigami mechanical structures  created by Frances.  

Next months  "Waterfall" pop-up card was agreed as the format for the next workshop on Sat 3 August 2024, to be delivered by Francis.

Creating textured Papers

 

 We had a really good session at our June meeting, courtesy of Chris, who was as ever very generous with her time, expertise and materials. We experimented (played!) with tissues papers, oil pastels and waxes for pseudo leather book covers, and used embossed designs which we embellished with various gilding and acrylic waxes to great effect. A fun time, learning new techniques, including uses for those brown sheets that Amazon seem to send out and which none of us can bear to throw away.

We also discussed the 'Makers Market' and our participation in it, although it clashed with our July meeting.  Subsequent conversations with Simon Ryder means that we will no longer participate, although we will of course be part of the Liverpool Book Arts Fair this Autumn. There is an accompanying exhibition, but we have not submitted a piece this year.

 

 
Works completed or in progress included some lovely pen and digital townscapes from Jac, a Telling Tales book about foot binding and an elegy for ash trees from Marilyn. 

Our theme for the next month is Poetry, 

works in theory due in July.

Brain Fog - Generating Ideas

Our May meeting was down on numbers for all sorts of reasons, not least the ongoing train stoppages and our change of date.

 

Those of us who could make it enjoyed the session led by Jac    ' Generating Ideas '  which aimed to be a help and inspiration to anyone suffering from book or artistic block. This probably applies to most of us from time to time. Even if only used for book making when time is short, we all felt that it would be useful

We also managed to come up with ideas for at least two more sessions. Always a good thing.

We shared our work on Telling Tales, the theme for April and May, including works in progress, and were as ever impressed with the breadth of work on show.

The theme for the next two months

 is ‘poetry’, chosen by Joyce.

Our June meeting returns to its usual time of the first Saturday in the month.