* it is so hard to photograph books… but here’s my somewhat distorted solution 🙂
* this is my 30th “official” sketchbook since starting count in 1995. the cover uses imagery inspired by my “5 senses” prints. for this image i just played around with the images on silkscreens and i only “registered” where i wanted to.
* the binding is a coptic binding / single needle link stitch.
* for the inside pages, i used a variety of graph papers as well as some english and japanese alphabet practice paper.

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.

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

these are images from my “i believe in coffee” book
and this is my first gif animation 🙂

here i am super busy in grad school. our show opens tomorrow! if any one is in philly. 🙂
(i’ll post some pix of my works after i take them. my circle is the 1st one on the bottom row…)
ps i saw chip kidd, chris ware and charles burns speak at the philadelphia free library tonight. good stuff…

Well I just finsihed up my first ten-week course at the Center For Book Arts. The CBA was recommended to me by the master book artist herself, Barb Zuckerman (make sure you check out her TRULY amazing books).
I took Bookbinding I with Nancy Loeber, and I thoroughly enjoyed the class. Bookbinding is one of those step-by-step crafts that requires an enormous amount of first-hand observation of someone who knows what they’re doing (and my instructor Nancy clearly does…she was very helpful and patient

You can now pre-order “The Lambkins” by Eve Bunting on Amazon. This is the HarperCollins-published book that I did my first book cover for (Click here to see a large version). I also did a few black and white spots for the interior. Good for young teens, shrinking children and crazy old ladies with dollhouses.

Also, I have posted my ill-fated illo that was killed at finish just the other day.