Covering Leonardo; Art of the Book 08

Apologies for the long delay in posting, life intervened.
Having sewn the text block, the next step is to prepare the cover for "Leonardo Dreams"....
          In this binding the cover is made off the book, and laced on afterwards with the vellum slips. 
The first step is to make a template to use as a pattern to cut the leather. When the book is part of an edition I lay it out on the whole skin to make sure that I can cut enough covers to complete the whole edition. It is a mistake to assume that you will always be able to buy the same shade again as dyestuffs are sometimes discontinued or unavailable, as I have discovered in the past! 

          The template is marked up to show the turn-ins and the spine area. I usually cut one cover to make up a proof, and then when I'm satisfied that the binding works, I cut the covers for the whole edition. On this template you can see the projection on one side for the tab that will fold over the fore edge. This tab references the style of a portfolio and with the ribbon ties, protects the fore edge of the book. It will be lined with a thin piece of leather.

          On the cover itself I have marked out the turn-ins, the tab and the spine area. The shaded area will be cut off before I start to pare the leather. Leather for bookbinding, even on small books needs to be sufficiently substantial not to tear, so I don't use skiver leather. When the leather in the spine area is pared correctly it will fold over neatly at head and tail. The tab will be blind tooled with a double-line fillet wheel before the boards are adhered to the leather. 
          A note about book boards: binders board is hard-rolled and dense, and in the UK is called mill board and in the USA called Davey board. The boards need to be thick enough that they don't bend or warp when the leather is applied. I usually use not less than 1.6 mm thickness. Of course, for larger books heavier boards are necessary. After cutting the boards, on small books I often bevel the edges so that they look less heavy, but that is purely for appearance.


The Art of the Book 08 - CBBAG's 25th Anniversary Exhibition
          If you are anywhere near the University of Victoria on Vancouver Island between now and January 5th, be sure to check out this exhibition. It is in the McPherson Library, in the Maltwood Gallery, and is a juried international exhibition of books and the book arts. The exhibition is a five-yearly event staged by the Canadian Bookbinders and Book Artists Guild, (known as CBBAG, pronounced 'cabbage') and includes fine bindings, fine printing, paper making, calligraphy, artists books, and  paper decoration. Entrance free - I highly recommend that you see it.


The exhibition opened in Toronto in October of 2008, and has travelled to many different venues across Canada, finishing at UVic. It is an extraordinary achievement, largely due to the hard work of two dedicated people, Shelagh Smith and Susan Corrigan, who have been organizing this for twenty-five years. 

"Softly whispering their siren-song..."

Silvestri's verse for this next illustration is as follows:
"And as he's dreaming the heavens call him, softly whispering their siren-song: Leonardo, Leonardo vieni á volare!
(Leonardo, Leonardo come fly!)
Silvestri imagines Leonardo being tortured in his dreams by the entreaties of the sirens, to the extent that he decides to make a flying machine and fly.
          I researched 'sirens' and found that the early ones from Greek mythology were malevolent bird-women, portrayed as seducers who lived on an island surrounded by rocks and cliffs. Ships were lured onto the rocks by their enchanting music and singing, and became shipwrecked. They were depicted on statuary and on vases as women with wings, with birds' feet, something like rather dumpy angels. In later stories they became aquatic and mermaid-like. For this work I thought it more appropriate to have them airborne, and made them a little more visually tempting. Wiki tells me that: In his notebooks, Leonardo Da Vinci wrote of the siren, "The siren sings so sweetly that she lulls the mariners to sleep; then she climbs upon the ships and kills the sleeping mariners." Oops! Leonardo is evidently aware of the dangers of flying, as he comments in his notebooks that it would be best to try out a flying machine over water, with inflated wine-skins for safety, in case of wing malfunction. 

  I work on illustrations in what is undoubtedly a very old-fashioned way. I start by making many thumbnail sketches - actually about the size that the finished image will be. Then when I've found something I like, I draw it out on tracing paper twice the size of the finished image, so that when it is resized down the detail and line quality look neater. As the drawing progresses I scan it in and reduce it from time to time to keep track of how it will look in the finished size. Tracing paper erases extremely well and it saves time in repositioning elements of the image if I need to. The tracing is then used to transfer the outlines of the image to a bleed-proof paper, where I work on it in ink with a technical pen and then scan it into Photoshop Elements to erase unwanted 'blips' and generally tidy it up, and finally put it in the right mode and file type for the platemaker. At the top of my wish-list is a Wacom tablet Intuos4, which would probably make my life easier. If anyone out there has used one of these, please tell us about it!
          I recently discovered a good and reasonably priced bleed-proof paper, Pen Sketcher's, made by Bee Paper. I have countless pads of so-called bleed-proof, this is the best paper I've found to date.
          The tracing paper method was advocated years ago by Marie Angel, the very accomplished calligrapher and artist, in her book "Painting for Calligraphers," and I subsequently read that the great illustrator Edmund Dulac used the same working method, but before he died destroyed his tracings as he didn't want people to know that was how he worked.
          Here is a great resource for design and print-making blogs. 

Releasing Purchased Pigeons.....

            I've been working on the illustrations for "Leonardo Dreams of His Flying Machine". The libretto is very graphic, even cinematographic, every sentence contains many images and yet....my concern is that I don't want it to look like a comic strip, or let it descend into the banal. This choral piece is so dramatic yet sensitively nuanced and I'm trying to strike the right note. So here is my interpretation of "Releasing purchased pigeons one by one into the golden Tuscan sunrise...." This drawing will have a final tweaking and then be made into a polymer plate and printed on one of the coloured Bicchu Torinoko papers as shown in a previous post. 

          My drawing relates to Leonardo's studies and notes on the flight of birds, and Tony Silvestri's interpretation, where Leonardo buys pigeons from the market, and releases them so that he can study and sketch the movement of their wings. It's difficult for us to imagine what a problem that would be for a pre-photography era. We can slow down and study film of birds' flight, but Leonardo had to observe and record in real time. 

          I have to get all the illustrations ready, and the text, before sending to the plate maker, otherwise it becomes very expensive, so I have to be patient. This drawing may have a gilded sun, as per previous experiments. I'm awaiting arrival of the new size from France, to replace the one that got frozen in January and was unusable, and will post the results of experiments with that as and when.  

The Real Leonardo Da Vinci

Leonardo Dreams of His Flying Machine          For newcomers to this blog, or those who have forgotten what it's about, here's a link to "Leonardo Dreams of His Flying Machine" on Vimeo, performed by the Brigham Young Singers  and made to advertise their concert last year. I love their enthusiasm.  There are lots of other versions on Youtube, the BYU singers is my favourite. 
          Looking through the facsimile pages of Leonardo's notebooks for his early studies of wings, I came across a page fragment with four separate sketches of different types of winged creatures, none of them birds. I reproduce it here, you can see a dragonfly, insect (? moth or fly), flying fish and a bat. 

The pen-strokes are rapid but controlled and sometimes don't quite join up, and he doesn't bother to complete the opposite wings of the fish and the bat, they are taken as read, being the mirror images of the first side. They are notes on his observations, aides memoirs. The dragonfly's legs are haphazardly drawn, but they are of no concern to Leonardo, it is the wings that interest him. 
      I find the sketch of the bat particularly fascinating as to me it reveals Leonardo the man, enjoying his own joke, his old retainer holding out the wing of this enormous bat, the wing being almost the size of his retainer's cloak, the body of the bat being the size of a large lamb. 
      The retainer's expression is one of comical earnestness, he's holding the bat's voluminous wing and the quality of the drawing is such that one can almost feel his grip on it. The hooded cloak is drawn in some detail, almost as though Leonardo couldn't help reproducing the folds of this garment. I love this drawing for its immediacy, skilful execution and its humour, it brings the genius that was Leonardo Da Vinci to life.
      I will use some of his early sketches for the preliminary pages of the book, to lead the reader in to the text of Tony Silvestri's poem. To help set the mood, I decided to colour the paper (Griffen Mill's handmade-see earlier posts) to emulate the pages of the notebook. I stained down a couple of trial pieces, using tea. I made it fairly weak, and applied with a large soft brush to damp paper which was taped to a formica-faced board with masking tape to keep it flat. It took three applications and dryings to get the colour and I made it a little uneven. Of course, it stretches and bubbles up when wet, but dries back flat. You can use a hair-dryer to hasten the drying process. I was quite pleased with the result and will try printing on it when I next have the press inked up. 

Paper Trail II

After a wonderful three day workshop, (of which more later), I'm back on the paper trail. The image left (courtesy of Griffen Mill), shows hand papermaking. So, handmade, mouldmade or machine made? It's 'make your mind up' time.

This book involves three outstanding men, the legendary Leonardo Da Vinci, the brilliant composer Eric Whitacre, and the multi-talented poet and artist Charles Anthony Silvestri. To me, there is no better paper for this purpose than a handmade paper, because it not only looks and feels beautiful, it has no grain, it is strong and durable, and is archivally sound. It takes letterpress well (they were, after all, made for each other), and will contribute towards the character of the book, without taking centre stage.

Having decided on a handmade paper, I then went back and leafed through the samples from Griffen Mill again, feeling them between my fingers and trying to decide which to choose. Like Goldilocks, I found them "too this" or "too that", not enough of the other, or just plain ho hum. My paper had to have star quality. In the file I found an envelope containing a few pieces of a very nice paper, warm toned, and quite opaque for its lighter weight. Looking at the post-mark, I remembered receiving them a few years previously, and the colour didn't suit the project I was then working on. Now, I thought, it looked just right. I conditioned (dampened) a few pieces of it for a printing trial, and tried it out the next day. It printed beautifully. Now to see if it was available, as it was not one of the stock papers.

After a couple of emails, I found that no, this had been a Special Making and there was not enough left over to make my book edition. But if I wasn't in a hurry, I could commission a Special Making and they could perhaps improve on the opacity by adjusting the fibre content. The minimum quantity for Special Making is around the amount I need for this book, 25-30 sheets, and the price about the same as the average of their papers of this weight. What did Chris mean, 'if I wasn't in a hurry'? It transpired that the paper has to mature or condition over a period of twelve weeks after being made, and "during this time the stresses and strains dissipate and the surface closes up" to quote Chris. Well, having some months work ahead on illustrations and the rest of the book, waiting twelve weeks was no problem. Game on.

One slight hitch: they were not sure exactly which paper I was talking about, as they had made two or three similar papers around that time. Could I send them a sample of the paper I wanted? So that went off in the post. After posting the sample (of course), I discovered that I had sent it to the previous address. Luckily the postman knew them, and it was delivered a few days later. That done, it was plain sailing, for me at any rate. Mike collected some fibres from the U.K. and a few weeks later, the paper was made, and on its way across the Atlantic. Yesterday it arrived. Wow, what a beautiful paper, even better than I hoped, it is a creamy colour, with a soft smooth surface, like a hen's egg. It is now under the bed, between boards, relaxing and maturing. I can hardly wait to try it.

I asked Chris to write a few words about Special Makings and handmade paper, here is what she wrote:

"Paper is a one of the major elements in book construction and as such its character, or lack of, can have a major affect on the way a book functions. For example, a well constructed book should be able to open easily and its pages turn and lie flat. With miniature books in particular, many problems are more apparent and so the correct choice of paper is vital. The appearance of the paper in a miniature book is also more striking simply because the visual elements are stronger.

The way that a paper functions is also critical when it comes to book restoration and con-servation. Here the aim is to match the character of the original paper in a sympathetic and ethical manner.

Despite thousands of different papers being available today sometimes the only way to obtain a paper that works in the context of a particular project is to have one made. If one wants a small amount of sheets only then the sole recourse is to approach a handmade paper mill where paper can be made in relatively small quantities.

"Leonardo Dreams of his Flying Machine" will be made using just such a paper, commissioned from Griffen Mill in Ireland. The wove paper is made from a mixture of jute, cotton and hemp fibres and has a subtle “antique” tone that harks back to the colours of the handmade paper used by Michael Angelo. The paper is of archival quality and is unique to this edition."

So the Paper Trail for a text paper ends here. Chris Laver-Gibbs will be making a presentation to the Conference attendees at the Society of Bookbinders Conference at the University of Warwick, UK. If you get the chance, I recommend that you go, you don't often get the opportunity to listen to a handmade paper expert.

I'm happy to have found the right paper for this edition. It is such an important element and once decided upon, sets the tone for the whole book. The next element that has to be decided, also very important, is the font which I will use to lay out the text. This also makes a vital contribution to the feel and character of the book, and will take some research. The photo below shows my paper. I'm sorry that computers haven't yet managed 'feelies', so you will just have to content yourself with looking. See how nicely it drapes?

Leonardo Dreams of his Flying Machine

Starting a new book is always fun, there's an excitement, the feeling of beginning a journey, the opportunity to try new things and to use ideas that have been fizzing around in your brain waiting for the chance to erupt. I will be documenting my journey with this new book, there will be ups and downs, thrills and spills, and eventually, there will be...a book:-)

I am embarking on a book entitled "Leonardo Dreams of his Flying Machine", based on a choral work by the American composer Eric Whitacre, with libretto by Charles Anthony Silvestri. These very talented men collaborated to produce an unusual and stunning work, full of action, exploring the concept of Leonardo da Vinci dreaming of his flying machine. I first heard this piece sung by the National Youth Choir of Canada in 2006, a magical performance which inspired me. From this beginning, I began to research Leonardo's notebooks (and along the way filled a few of my own).

Check out Eric's website and scroll down to the 'BYU Sings' entry for March 29 2009 for a sample of Leonardo Dreams of his Flying Machine. (No, I'm not getting a cut.) BYU = Brigham Young University Singers.

In my next post I'll be talking about choosing the paper for this book. So many types of paper.....where do you start? And why does it matter?