One of the things on my to do list the past few weeks (umm…years?) has been to make some of my own sketchbooks with all of the nice paper I had imported from London’s Faulkiner Fine Papers. They used to sell the BEST sketchbooks, the “Rivoli”, when I studied in London back in the early 90’s. At some point, the fellow who made them went out of business, and they haven’t been seen since.
My efforts to recreate the glory of these sketchbooks have been mocked for years…But now that I have been schooled in the foundations of flatback case bookbinding (Thanks Nancy Loeber & CBA!), and I am in possession of a large stock of Rives’ “Artist” paper (the successor to the famed Rivoli paper used in Falkiner’s sketchbooks), the moment is soon approaching.
I am making a batch of these sketchbooks, as kind of a “beta” release to see how they hold up in the field. I’m reasonably sure that I screwed all of these up to a certain degree by gauging the paper grain’s direction wrong. Any errors in these sketchbooks will be corrected in future versions!
These books currently consist of a series of signatures of paper stitched togerther (Herringbone stitch), with the endpapers and book-cloth hinges sewn on. The next crucial step is a meeting with the mighty and unforgiving guillotine at CBA, where they will all be chopped into neat, flush proto-books. Then I need to build their cases with binder’s board and cover them with bookcloth. Then these neatly chopped text blocks will then be glued into their cases, ready for finishing.
I was quite delighted to see so many posts late on a Saturday night, that I had to post a shot of these books in their naked, pre-case state. When importing the photos, I thought it wise to make an alternating “poor-man’s-3D” view of the books, as I am fairly drunk after returning from a neighbor’s fun party. Enjoy.

Been fascinated with flies for some time now. Such low lifes. But in their minds, death and decay is so irresistible.

I’ve been playing around with tree-hugger imagery such as this; emphasizing textures and silhousettes.
A couple nights ago I caught Jeff Tweedy perform in Tribeca with my brother/invisibleman/superpal Jamie. Percussionist and wilco drummer Glenn Kotche opened the show and joined Mr. Tweedy and Jim O’Rourke for a short encore set (those 3 form the band/sideproject Loose Fur). They played a tune about a crack-smoking, sidewalk-surfing messiah and it was an all around amazing show.

A follow up here to Keegan’s post… it was beers, bongos and bohemia on east 63rd st. Being the mecca for illustrators, its an inspiring place to hang out.

Tonight fellow Invisibleman PA and I hoofed it up to East 63rd and Lexington to the Society of Illustrators to attend one of their storied Tuesday night drawing sessions. It’s quite a cool scene there, though it may be a bit shocking for those used to more serene drawing environments. Grab a cold beer or a glass of wine from the raucous bar, then grab a chair and start drawing. There is always live music, and we’ve read reports of burlesque dancers as life models. One red feather boa was about as burlesque as it got, but both models were excellent and looked quite nice posing against the original artworks of some of the greatest illustrators in American history (NC Wyeth, LC Leyendecker, Norman Rockwell, et al). Drawing is every Tuesday night from 6:30 – 9:30, $15 at the door. There is also a session on the third Thursday of every month as well.
So on the right, I’ve posted a small sketch, done in the last 2 minutes of the evening, which I kind of like the most. And on the left, we have a rotund and jolly police officer, which is a sketch from my moleskine (further work done in the Lab), drawn from a picture i snagged somewhere on the web.
Why are they together? What’s the story between them? Is she whispering something in his ear that’s making him smile?
Click on the photo for a larger image of the cop. Sorry, no more of the lady to see.

This is a found photograph I picked up on a curb in Long Island City. Good condition too.
We get a free glimpse of lost progeny. Or at least a lost photograph. I was drawn to this one because the girl looks so undecided.

here are some pictures from “excerpt”.
i am waiting to get some better pictures which were taken by my friend olivia, but in the meantime here is a little preview of what was installed. i hope posting them here will inspire me to continue working with the apartment and their contents…
see the images here