https://www.facebook.com/fold.stitch.make/
Above is the new 'Facebook'
link created by Estella. It only gives access to NWBA members so please sign up and use it for posting interesting snippets. It will be given a live feed to the blog once it is in use.
We met on the 1st May at the Central library to enjoy a meeting facilitated by Mellie Lane, an artist from the Marches Book Arts Group, who specialises in cutting, and cut books.
Nearly all members had brought books along to share at this session, some from previous themes and some from the jeans/genes theme. All were fascinating in their various ways and members were congratulated on how good the work was. Some of these books no doubt will make it to the Liverpool Fair. Some were very much more personal memory works and will probably be for exhibition only.
 |
| Mellies workshop samples |
We then had a workshop session with Mellie. She began by explaining the background to her book art, and her particular interest in cut books which stems from time spent in New York and seeing the work of Beatrice Coron.
She talked us through some of the tools that she uses, including X-Acto blades, Swiss silhouette scissors, (Tweezer scissors on Amazon) and Swann Morton blades, of which she prefers either blade 10a or 15a, usually found on eBay. Marilyn uses Fiskars finger cutting tools for small details and again these are available online.
Mellie works freehand, and doesn't use rulers or templates, but it is possible to use them if this suits your working methods better. We all made a folded book from a sheet of black A4 paper, which we were then encouraged to cut into thinking about background colour to be used to highlight detail. The possibility of putting cake lights behind the paper to show through and light up details was explored. Everyone managed to make a book during session, or the beginnings of a book, and the results were certainly inspiring.
Mellie also introduced us to the work of Rob Ryan and his books, which are available quite reasonable 2nd hand.
 |
| Members workshop results |
