I’ve been creating my own sketchbooks lately and thought perhaps I’d try my hand at making some boxes for photographs or perhaps books for gifts. Arches text wove is a great paper for watermedia. It takes a lot of abuse so there’s never an excuse to throw that paper away, just paint over it and see what happens.
With that in mind, I’ve been working on quarter and half sheets until I accumulated a rather large stack of pages with interesting designs such as the one here.
Some have lent themselves to artistic or calligraphic interpretations. These were done with Daniel Smith watercolors. The writing is either sumi ink or a mixture of W&N permanent white gouache and with Dr. Martyn’s Bleedproof White.
Arches text wove is also a brilliant paper for gluing onto Davey Board to create end boards for books and boxes. The black and orange box here consists of two 4×6 boards and a 3/4″ wide board. Glued together first with bookcloth and then adding the text wove using PVA, the inside is a folded structure made from Arches Text Cover. It could hold photos or small pieces of art, even a soft covered book.
I also made a cover for a coptic bound sketchbook I made several months ago. When the sketchbook is full, I’ll mount it permanently to the cover, until then I’ve kept it separate so it can be opened flat for easier painting.
Boxes, portfolios, wrappers, all these are arts to complement the book, and small engineering projects. These are wonderful to see.
Thanks so much Cari. It’s so much fun and such a stress reliever to take a break from writing and such.