Palettes

I made some pages for a handmade book. I painted large sheets on both sides before tearing down and folding into pages. First step, applied gesso using stencils. This made some almost invisible motifs that would show up in different ways under the paint. Then I applied some color – walnut ink, sumi ink, and copper acrylic paint, with large brushes and swooping brush strokes, Lastly, some sprinkles of white dots using white acrylic ink, applied with an eyedropper and a syringe.

It’s a new paper to me, Biblio. It performed pretty well. Took layers of paint easily without showing through. It tore easily, leaving a white feathery edge. Soft paper. I like it.

And I like the palette – walnut, black, and copper, accents of white. This makes a good November-y palette. On the first side, I allowed myself to apply a lot of paint, to getting pretty dark. On the back side, I was more restrained, thinking I might want some neutral spaces to draw or write on. This is the “edge” for me in bookmaking – I’ve been struggling with what I could add to give a book interest, make it a page-turner.

After preparing these pages, it turns out we didn’t bind this yesterday. My bookmaking friend and I focused on a coptic binding instead, in my case for a book that’s been sitting around waiting to be bound. So I still have this November-y binding to look forward to.

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And moving on to a totally different palette, I finished my garden quilt top. I think the colors go together, although there are a lot of different colors in there. I want to say it’s khaki and purple, but also that’s it’s blue and yellow. There are splashes of pink and orange too. And plenty of moons.

Wow, it feels good to have this complete to this stage. Next step is to determine what the backing will be and what material will be used for the interior layer. Maybe a flannel sheet. It’s going to sit in a pile of quilts for awhile though. There’s other things that need more attention. Thanksgiving is coming. Grocery shopping today.