The Serpent's Books
04/03/2011 07:50 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
izmeinaFor many moons now and especially since reading a certain novel by one Walter Moers about one amazing town called Buchheim, the serpent has had a notion in her little green cells that actually making a book from scratch would be an interesting adventure
Drooled over handmade books at various market and craft stalls, visited Biblio Folio as part of a heritage festival and borrowed various books on the subject from assorted libraries. Even accumulated lots of pretty papers and bits of ribbon and leather as ingredients for this grand project
But as usual, without external motivation, the inner procrastinating python ruled supreme and this bookish stash just gathered dust along with all those other "one of these days' projects
That was until a day in January when picking up the latest edition of a certain arts centre courses and classes. They had a four week bookbinding course starting on Thursday 10th February. Three hours a week for four weeks and a price tag of 115 silver sickles.
Seemed expensive at first but doing the sums - just under $10 per hour is very reasonable indeed. So we had the money and the time. There was no excuse not to sign up
All the stars were aligned for serpent success - all but one. Never counted on the weather being such a downer. Had a monster run of icky sticky hot and humid days which started on Friday 4th and just kept on going.
So what should have been five years worth of excitement and anticipation was replaced by exhaustion and minor annoyance at missing out on a Thursday morning snooze after a hot sticky sleepless night.
The first week with the bus was not too bad. Got the first one just after 8am and arrived in Fremantle about ten minutes before 9am. The class was starting at 9.30am so that was pretty good timing
The list of things to bring was a mile long and Izzie decided to second guess what would be needed for the first week. Guessed wrong by not getting our paws on a couple of second hand hard covered books.
They were not just for looking at and taking apart but we would be using the covers to make a drill book and the contents to make baby books and paper ornaments
Lucky that the teacher anticipated this and had a few spare books for 50 cents each.
Izzie had a fit of the giggles when peeking at our prize. It was a book with a blue cover all about the riveting topic about income tax preparation in England. There was an golden logo with an eagle in the centre - just the thing for a Ravenclaw book
Did not take long for Izzie to stuff up. Glued pretty paper to the inside of each cover after separating them and then cut them near the spine so that they be opened properly. But ended up cutting on the wrong side which meant the poor old eagle got relegated to the inside instead of strutting its stuff on the cover. Well at least that was one mistake that we would never make again
Was really struggling with cutting paper and pages. Even with a stainless steel ruler, still managed to get the cutting knife running up off the page and onto the ruler.
In the meantime was looking around at the beautiful crisp and crunchy edges that the other students had. Some books had horrid covers with ugly pictures on them and so ended up being adorned with beautiful paper turned perfectly
The serpent in her usual abnormal state would just simply potter on and perfect her own project instead of developing a terminal case of pretty page envy
But that would have been too rational and sensible. Spent the time feeling like a clumsy klutz and village idiot and getting further and further behind
The following week we were finishing off our paper apples - once again struggled with cutting and then the glued spine fell apart. Had better luck with the folded fabric book. Pity we brought along shabby jute string to tie the paper to the page rather than ribbon or beautiful leather string
Was gawking at the woman who had brought along a big fat piece of red leather as a cover along with the matching 'string'
Then there was the pop up book. Got the covers on that all nice but much less luck with getting the paper to fold all nice and neatly.
So much for those years spent studying technical drawing many moons ago. Should have been able to produce the most perfect crisp and crunchy square folds.
The inner bitch was still running the show. Week three was a bit of an improvement. Helped largely by not needing to stop in Officeworks on the way in order to get paper and other supplies and by having a good 40 minutes to sit in the gorgeous gardens of the old lunatic asylum sipping coffee and nibbling apple pie and recovering from the craziness of the rush hour traffic
This was the big one when we would finally be starting on a real proper book. The teacher did this during the first lesson the last time she held classes and realized that it was not a good idea to jump straight in the deep end
This was the week with the handout with the famous illustrations of the complicated art of sewing the stacks of pages (signatures) together. Had seen these diagrams in various books and it looked like total gobbledygook. That was the inspiration to see it done for real and the ultimate example of how the map is not the territory
When seeing the procedure demonstrated in real life it suddenly made sense but it also made us realize just how difficult it is to explain some things on paper even with diagrams
So even though the serpent still managed to stuff up the sewing, was finally getting into the swing of things. The teacher said that it was easily remedied and was not a major matter as most of it would be hidden behind glue, gauze, cardboard and covering fabric.
One proof of progress and finally getting into the zone was when the class ended. Went downstairs and out into the garden. It was like being crushed by the clouds. A crisp and crunchy morning had transformed into a most vile icky sticky and humid afternoon. There was good air conditioning upstairs but that would not be the only reason for not noticing the change in the atmosphere
Escaped to a cafe and the library to get away from the oppressive awfulness of the humidity and picked up a book about making handmade books
And there was the immortal line that the sensible serpent knew all along but that the zombie bitch constantly ignored and dismissed "You cannot buy experience"
Some folks are naturally more nimble, neat and precise but the only way to get good at doing books is constant never ceasing practice. So no more beating up and bitching. No more pathetic pity parties. Had at least kept plodding and pottering along and did not quit after the first week like one critter did - incidently the only male enrolled in the course.
And now this week while drooling over the beautiful books some of the students have produced, it turns out that three of them have already done one or more courses in book binding and other hand made books
While it's a bit tricky doing covers with no cutting mats or decent craft knives or scissors in the lair, there is no excuse for not doing very crisp, crunchy folded square inserts for pop up books or stacks of signatures nicely sewn together ready for class next Thursday
Will save the saga of the Book of Blood for next week. In the meantime, got a pretty piece of red leather for next week to make a folded wrap around book. The leather shop had large pieces of sheep leather treated to look like green scaly serpent skins but they were decadently expensive and certainly not for sale by the metre. It was all or nothing
A bit scary this vegetarian serpent's obsession with leather bound books ;)
Got two weeks now to make up for all that ridiculous misery of the last four.
The serpent is already planning the darkest of Dark Grimoires. And that gorgeous tarot deck is full of beautiful spooky tomes well worth imitating
Drooled over handmade books at various market and craft stalls, visited Biblio Folio as part of a heritage festival and borrowed various books on the subject from assorted libraries. Even accumulated lots of pretty papers and bits of ribbon and leather as ingredients for this grand project
But as usual, without external motivation, the inner procrastinating python ruled supreme and this bookish stash just gathered dust along with all those other "one of these days' projects
That was until a day in January when picking up the latest edition of a certain arts centre courses and classes. They had a four week bookbinding course starting on Thursday 10th February. Three hours a week for four weeks and a price tag of 115 silver sickles.
Seemed expensive at first but doing the sums - just under $10 per hour is very reasonable indeed. So we had the money and the time. There was no excuse not to sign up
All the stars were aligned for serpent success - all but one. Never counted on the weather being such a downer. Had a monster run of icky sticky hot and humid days which started on Friday 4th and just kept on going.
So what should have been five years worth of excitement and anticipation was replaced by exhaustion and minor annoyance at missing out on a Thursday morning snooze after a hot sticky sleepless night.
The first week with the bus was not too bad. Got the first one just after 8am and arrived in Fremantle about ten minutes before 9am. The class was starting at 9.30am so that was pretty good timing
The list of things to bring was a mile long and Izzie decided to second guess what would be needed for the first week. Guessed wrong by not getting our paws on a couple of second hand hard covered books.
They were not just for looking at and taking apart but we would be using the covers to make a drill book and the contents to make baby books and paper ornaments
Lucky that the teacher anticipated this and had a few spare books for 50 cents each.
Izzie had a fit of the giggles when peeking at our prize. It was a book with a blue cover all about the riveting topic about income tax preparation in England. There was an golden logo with an eagle in the centre - just the thing for a Ravenclaw book
Did not take long for Izzie to stuff up. Glued pretty paper to the inside of each cover after separating them and then cut them near the spine so that they be opened properly. But ended up cutting on the wrong side which meant the poor old eagle got relegated to the inside instead of strutting its stuff on the cover. Well at least that was one mistake that we would never make again
Was really struggling with cutting paper and pages. Even with a stainless steel ruler, still managed to get the cutting knife running up off the page and onto the ruler.
In the meantime was looking around at the beautiful crisp and crunchy edges that the other students had. Some books had horrid covers with ugly pictures on them and so ended up being adorned with beautiful paper turned perfectly
The serpent in her usual abnormal state would just simply potter on and perfect her own project instead of developing a terminal case of pretty page envy
But that would have been too rational and sensible. Spent the time feeling like a clumsy klutz and village idiot and getting further and further behind
The following week we were finishing off our paper apples - once again struggled with cutting and then the glued spine fell apart. Had better luck with the folded fabric book. Pity we brought along shabby jute string to tie the paper to the page rather than ribbon or beautiful leather string
Was gawking at the woman who had brought along a big fat piece of red leather as a cover along with the matching 'string'
Then there was the pop up book. Got the covers on that all nice but much less luck with getting the paper to fold all nice and neatly.
So much for those years spent studying technical drawing many moons ago. Should have been able to produce the most perfect crisp and crunchy square folds.
The inner bitch was still running the show. Week three was a bit of an improvement. Helped largely by not needing to stop in Officeworks on the way in order to get paper and other supplies and by having a good 40 minutes to sit in the gorgeous gardens of the old lunatic asylum sipping coffee and nibbling apple pie and recovering from the craziness of the rush hour traffic
This was the big one when we would finally be starting on a real proper book. The teacher did this during the first lesson the last time she held classes and realized that it was not a good idea to jump straight in the deep end
This was the week with the handout with the famous illustrations of the complicated art of sewing the stacks of pages (signatures) together. Had seen these diagrams in various books and it looked like total gobbledygook. That was the inspiration to see it done for real and the ultimate example of how the map is not the territory
When seeing the procedure demonstrated in real life it suddenly made sense but it also made us realize just how difficult it is to explain some things on paper even with diagrams
So even though the serpent still managed to stuff up the sewing, was finally getting into the swing of things. The teacher said that it was easily remedied and was not a major matter as most of it would be hidden behind glue, gauze, cardboard and covering fabric.
One proof of progress and finally getting into the zone was when the class ended. Went downstairs and out into the garden. It was like being crushed by the clouds. A crisp and crunchy morning had transformed into a most vile icky sticky and humid afternoon. There was good air conditioning upstairs but that would not be the only reason for not noticing the change in the atmosphere
Escaped to a cafe and the library to get away from the oppressive awfulness of the humidity and picked up a book about making handmade books
And there was the immortal line that the sensible serpent knew all along but that the zombie bitch constantly ignored and dismissed "You cannot buy experience"
Some folks are naturally more nimble, neat and precise but the only way to get good at doing books is constant never ceasing practice. So no more beating up and bitching. No more pathetic pity parties. Had at least kept plodding and pottering along and did not quit after the first week like one critter did - incidently the only male enrolled in the course.
And now this week while drooling over the beautiful books some of the students have produced, it turns out that three of them have already done one or more courses in book binding and other hand made books
While it's a bit tricky doing covers with no cutting mats or decent craft knives or scissors in the lair, there is no excuse for not doing very crisp, crunchy folded square inserts for pop up books or stacks of signatures nicely sewn together ready for class next Thursday
Will save the saga of the Book of Blood for next week. In the meantime, got a pretty piece of red leather for next week to make a folded wrap around book. The leather shop had large pieces of sheep leather treated to look like green scaly serpent skins but they were decadently expensive and certainly not for sale by the metre. It was all or nothing
A bit scary this vegetarian serpent's obsession with leather bound books ;)
Got two weeks now to make up for all that ridiculous misery of the last four.
The serpent is already planning the darkest of Dark Grimoires. And that gorgeous tarot deck is full of beautiful spooky tomes well worth imitating
