Persistence - task completed

©2019 Barry Smith - Soft leather bound journals

Over the weekend time was spent on the block getting jobs done - like hedging the camellias and oiling one of the 'bridges' across the rock river. But it has been too hot to do too much outdoor work.

On Friday I gave myself the goal of using up the journal blanks and the leather. Much of the leather was brown hence many of the journals are a soft brown as you can see from the photo above and other photos. Great that this work could be done in the cool of the studio.

In all I have boxed up twenty good journals.

©2019 Barry Smith - Twenty in a box

The leather had some imperfections so this resulted in six journals with a bit of character.

©2019 Barry Smith - Lovely imperfections

©2019 Barry Smith - More imperfections

A few photos of the process.

©2019 Barry Smith - Leather scraps on the studio floor - gathered up and boxed

©2019 Barry Smith - Stash of covers ready for attaching

©2019 Barry Smith - Glueing the final cover

Lovely looking stash - I made 15 today.

©2019 Barry Smith - Looking good

A sense of satisfaction on completing this task and using valuable art resources.

Leather covered journals

©2019 Barry Smith - Journals with soft leather covers

The end of the year seems to encourage me to do a bit of sorting and culling of art resources. In fossicking through one of my cupboards I came across a number of packs of journal blanks - about 30 to be more precise. I also rediscovered a small box of soft leather which had been purchased with covering journals in mind. The blanks are 13cmX9cmX1.5cm. Very good fine and strong cream archival journal paper - some lined and some blank.

So today I decided to get stuck in and make as many as I could. As you can see from the photo at the end of the blog I got 10 done.

A few photos of the process follow.

©2019 Barry Smith - Cutting a stash of covers

©2019 Barry Smith - Applying leather book binding glue - including glueing the leather thong tie in place

©2019 Barry Smith - Plastic sheets to ensure the glue only goes on the cover sheets

©2019 Barry Smith - Leather in place ready for the journal to spend some time in the book press

©2019 Barry Smith - Out of the book press, trimmed and tied

The completed 10 look pretty good.

©2019 Barry Smith - A good stack of journals that will fit nicely in a travelling bag

I will keep going until the stash of journal blanks or the leather runs out.

Leather and leaves

Creativity took a couple of directions over the weekend: making a stash of journals from leather and blank journals discovered as part of the clean and cull; and making a leaf for a new baby.

There was quite a bit of leather - seconds from a tannery on the coast.

I managed to make seven journals in all - mainly pairs - except for the one with some fish leather decoration.

The baby's leaf includes the name and peace and love stamped on it. Of course IO made some love and peace give away leaves as part of the process.

I will continue to make the journals until I have used up the leather.

Day full of art

Yesterday was a day full of art in the Dempster–Smith household. As you know from earlier posts Fiona, and to a much lesser extent I, had been working to produce a body of work for display and sale at the ArtsConnect Market at Montville. Fiona had been invited to be one of a group of writers and book makers etc exhibiting and selling in the old church hall.

We hit the road for Montville at 7.45am (after a coffee in town of course) and were set up ready for action by 8.30am even though the Markets did not officially start until 9.30am.

There was a great show of artists on the green outside and in the hall; but we think the tourists and locals were at the air-conditioned shopping centres doing Christmas shopping as the was not much of crowd. Still we sold a few pieces; and it was good experience for Fiona and myself in preparing for and participating in an artists’ market.

After the mad pack up we bolted back home to get ready for the opening of the COMA exhibition Maleny Image 6 – Mapping the range; and also the celebration of the Paris end of Maple Street Maleny.

The COMA exhibition has resulted in some great works and there was a really good vibe to the evening. It was good to hang out with some of our fellow artists and share a few bubbles before Christmas. It is worth a look; and there are some good art bargains to be had.

I was fortunate that Mini Deep Red sold – always good if some of your work is picked up.

Leather wrapped and bound journals

As Fiona indicated in a recent post she is off to market – at least to the ArtsConnect Market at Montville on 12 Dec. As artist extraordinaire, as she is described by Pam of ArtsConnect, she is displaying, selling and demonstrating hand stitched and bound artists' books and journals. In days gone by I used to do a little book binding – so I thought I might join Fiona in the Market endeavour. But of course as it goes in our household whilst we share a theme we generally do our own thing.

So I decided to make a series of soft bound journals using some high quality bookbinding blank books we bought in London last year as the internals; and a stash of soft leather we had bought some time ago for covering or binding books.

The studio table ended in the usual clutter.

But I have managed to turn out 13 journals – 7 are 12cm by 15cm by 1.5cm thick; and 6 are 7cm wide by 12 high by 1 cm thick. As you can see some pretty modern colours but also traditional. If they don't sell at the Market I know what friends and relatives are getting for Christmas.