Handmade Sketchbooks A semester-long exploration of bookbinding & screenprinting sketchbooks Kelsey Rowley
Table of Contents
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Introduction................................................................................................... 5 Part One Introduction/Analysis.................................................................................... 6 The Adventure............................................................................................... 8 Part Two........................................................................................................ 10 The Screenprinting Process.......................................................................... 12 Quick Tips...................................................................................................... 20 Part Three...................................................................................................... 24 Bookbinding basics....................................................................................... 26 Cutting & Gluing............................................................................................ 36 Part Four........................................................................................................ 38 Book One....................................................................................................... 42 Book Two....................................................................................................... 46 Book Three.................................................................................................... 50 Book Four...................................................................................................... 52 Book Five....................................................................................................... 54 Book Six......................................................................................................... 56 Book Seven.................................................................................................... 58 Book Eight..................................................................................................... 60 Book Nine...................................................................................................... 62 Book Ten........................................................................................................ 64 Conclusion.................................................................................................... 67
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Hello!
My name is Kelsey Rowley and I’m a graphic design student who likes to create things. I specifically love teaching myself new techniques I find cool and interesting. This time around, I’ve decided to tackle two new forms of art – bookbinding and screenprinting. I have bound a book or two in my lifetime, but I have never screenprinted. Therin lies the adventure! This books is going to take you through my epic journey of all my glorious failures and each one of my victorious victories of screenprinting and bookbinding. I’ll take you through all the steps I took to get there and share with you what I’ve learned through this process.
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Part One
Introduction & Analysis
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Screen printing/Serigraphy/Silkscreen A printmaking technique that utilizes a mesh fabric stretched across a wood frame (the screen) that is then coated with a photo emulsion substance where an image is exposed onto it. The area with the exposed image acts as a stencil where ink is forced through the mesh onto the desired surface. Bookbinding The art of bookbinding originated during the first century with Buddhist monks to protect religious manuscripts. The type of hardcover bookbinding most commonly seen today was established by Westerners in the fifth century. It’s mostly seen as a practical craft but has many different styles that reveal a true artistry in craft.
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Part One
The Adventure
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The project will consist of atleast ten different sketchbooks books that will be boundby hand in ten different ways with ten different designs on their covers by means of screen printing in ten different styles. The size, weight, thickness, and material of each of the books will also vary as different materials and formats are explored to showcase the many possibilities of bookbinding and screen printing. The end products will be photogrpahed and displayed on a website.
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Part Two
The Screenprinting Process
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This section will take you through my process of creating a screen ready for print! This is the way I created all my screens for this project. To get to this point, I watched a lot of youtube videos, clicked through countless tutorials and googled a lot–and I man a lot–of questions.
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Creating the Screen You can buy pre-made screens from many art stores, or order them online, but I decided to create my own screens in order to really get a sense of exactly what goes into the printing process and how important a well-made screen is.
Step 1 Cut the fabric to the size of the frame with about an inch leftover on all sides. You’ll need the extra fabric to fasten it to the frame.
Step 2 Spread out a line of wood glue on top of the fabric on one side and wait for it to dry. I usually started with one of the longer sides if I’m working with a rectangular frame – less push pins you have to use later. 12
Step 3 Once one side is dry, pull the fabric taught on the opposite and begin pinning it down with the push pins. The fabric should be as tight as possible with no sagging in any places.
Step 4 Spread the wood glue on the rest of the edges of the frame and wait for it to dry.
Step 5 Pull out the push pins and trim the excess fabric. Viola! You have just created a screen!
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Prepping the Screen for Exposure Make sure once you start working with the photo emulsion, you do it in a dimly lit room. Once light touches the photo emulsion, it begins to expose and then it becomes useless.
Step 1 Stick a push pin on each corner of the screen on the side where it’s glued (this is so it has something to rest on while it’s drying so each side has enough air passing through).
Step 2 Mix together the photo emulsion according to the directions in the Speedball kit. Make sure you do this in a dimly lit room!
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Step 3 Once it is fully mixed, pour a line of photo emulsion near the top of the screen. You will need less than you think, but exactly how much is something you just learn by practicing.
Step 4 Drag the emulsion down the screen with the squeegee until the screen is evenly coated. Flip the screen over and do the same, scraping away any excess emulsion back into the bottle.
Step 5 Immediately place the screen, push-pin side down, into a box (I use a large bin to hold multiple screens covered with a thick blanket) to keep it out of the light. Let it dry over night.
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Exposing the Screen This is where the magic happens! Exposing is tricky at first. How long you expose your image depends on how strong your light source is. Some people use lightbulbs and a lamp (like me), some use a light table, some use sunshine.
Step 1 Lay down black t shirt on a flat surface with lamp over it.
Step 2 Place screen on top of tee shirt (push pin side down).
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Step 3 Flip the transparency over so it is backwards and placed on top of your screen.
Step 4 Place piece of glass on top of transparency to keep it flat against the screen. Remove the pushpins at this point if they get in the way, like they do here.
Step 5 Turn on lamp, making sure it’s directly above the artwork. Let it expose for about an hour.
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Step 6 After the hour is up, wash the screen in the sink under lukewarm water. You should see a faint imprint of your artwork against the photo emulsion in a lighter shade of green.
Step 7 Ideally, you would use a stronger hose, but since I don’t have one I have to scrub the screen with a small wash cloth to get all the photo emulsion out.
Step 8 Once all the photo emulsion is washed away, dry off the screen with a towel and let air dry for a few minutes until it is no longer damp. After that you are ready for printing! 18
Awesome ! A screen has been born
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Quick Tips
How does photo emulsion work? Photo emulsion is a thick, light-sensitive liquid, meaning when it’s exposed to light, it hardens and clings tightly to whatever material it’s dried to. When artwork is placed on top of a screen with photo emulsion applied to it, the emulsion will only harden where the light touches. The light-blocked areas can then be washed away since the light never touched them and they never hardened.
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Quick Tips
Types of Screenprinting Fabric Plaine-weave monofilament polyester mesh fabric is the type of fabric used by professional screen printers. Variations of this fabric are measured by mesh count. The lower the mesh count, the wider the holes in the mesh. The wider the mesh, the less detail it allows.
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Quick Tips Types of inks
Basically there are two different types of inks – Fabric and Acrylic. Fabric ink tends to be thicker and more ideal for fabric with larger holes and printing onto materials like fabric (obviously)and wood. The acrylic inks tend to be slightly thinner and more ideal for paper. I use fabric for almsot all my prints because I print with wide-holed fabric and on a variety of surfaces. DickBlick has a chart fully explaining the specs behind types of inks. www.dickblick.com/info/screeninkcompchart/
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Quick Tips Types of Frames
Typically there are two types of frames used in screenprinting - wood and alluminum. I’m using wood because it’s easier for me to find, it’s cheaper, it’s comes in a wide range of sizes and styles to experiement with, it’s easier to glue the mesh to. However, many professional screenprinters use alluminum screens because they don’t have a chance of warping like wood does. Being made out of a material that doesn’t warp allows the mesh to stay taught for optimal printing results.
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Part Three
Bookbinding Basics
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This section will take you through my process of creating a hand-bound book! There are countless ways to make different styles of books. In some ways, it’s much easier than you would think and in other ways, it’s much more difficult than I had anticipated.
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Binding Types
This is an iluustrated compilation of all the stitches I’ve explored in this project. There are many, many more than this. Just try googling “japanese stab binding” and you’ll see what I’m talking about. These are just a few I thought were either interesting, or saw often while searching, or found a very good tutorial on.
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LINK Stitch Difficulty: Medium This stitch is one of the prettiest stitches I’ve done but it’s also very tricky. Link stitches are very difficult to get tight enough ofr first-timers. Even after a few times of doing it, I still haven’t been able to get it as tight as I like. That’s why link stitches are great companions to other stitches like the coptic stitch that can be tightened easily so your book doesn’t slide around in your hands. Adding ribbon underneath the stitches over the spine is also a popular way to dress up the spine of your book. Adjust the length of your link stitches to accomodate for different lengths. pasticheknits.blogspot.com/2010/02/frenchlink-binding-tutorial.html
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Long Stitch Difficulty: EASY Long stitch I’ve found is one of the more simplistic stitches. It’s very self-explanatory and has many possibilities depending on where you place your holes. This is an ideal beginner stitch. www.youtube.com/watch?v=a_LZ-BWhH_Q
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CROSS Stitch Difficulty: Medium Like the long stitch, this stitch is also open to many possibilities depending on how far apart you place the wholes. It’s tricky, though, because you have to work with two signatures at the same time, so you might get confused sometimes or your thread tangled. www.youtube.com/watch?v=3lwirYjkBmk
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LONG/LINK COMBO Difficulty: Hard The tutorial for this stitch does a much better job explaining this than I ever will. Combining stitches is great and I think this is a very sophisticated and effective way to do it. It’s not as intuitive as some of the other stitches so you have to pay very close attention to the tutorial. www.youtube.com/watch?v=a_LZ-BWhH_Q
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SADDLE STITCH Difficulty: EASY There are a variety of different ways saddle stitching can be down. One of the most common forms of sabble stistching is using staples. Saddle stitching is ideal for soft cover books with a very small amount of pages www.youtube.com/watch?v=aWHkY5jOoqM
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COPTIC STITCH Difficulty: Medium Coptic stitch is one of the most common types of hand bound stitching. It’s unique in that it allows a book to lie completely flat when it is open making it ideal for certain types of books such as photogrpahy books. www.youtube.com/watch?v=S2FRKbQI2kY
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Tortoise STITCH Difficulty: MEDIUM This is a fun, japanese stab style stitch. I found the japanese stab stitches to be less intuitive than other other types of binding, so you’ll want to watch the tutorial very closely. With practice, the japanese stab becomes more intuitive and much less confusing over time. www.youtube.com/watch?v=_TIo5s8yF8A
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ASA-NO-HA TOJI STITCH Difficulty: Hard This stitch is very similar to the tortoise stitch. It sort of looks like the toroise stitch in reverse, with more stiches. Doing everything in the correct order to get all of the stitches correct is the hardest part of this stitch. Halfway through I would usually get confused and have to backtrack because I would go through the wrong hole. www.youtube.com/watch?v=aPmNakh2nGU
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Marionnette STITCH Difficulty: VERY HARD This is the most difficult stitch I have done yet. I really wanted to do this stistch because, 1. It looks really cool, and 2. I wanted to challenge myself. Boy did I challenge myself! The tutorial is list of written instructions but I coudn’t get past the first few without becoming confused. I ended up just trying to replicate it from the picture and go from there. http://beccamakingfaces.com/2011/06/06/ japanese-stab-binding-tutorial-marionette/
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Covering & Gluing
In this section I’ll talk about all the wonders and woes of covering your books! It’s much harder than you think it is, trust me. Suggested Materials • Canson paper or other decorative paper • Scotch Suoer 77 spray adhesive (Walmart) • Ruler & pencil • Chip board • x-acto knife with extra blades
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For Covered Spines: Leave an inch of space around the entire piece. Cut the corners at a 45 degree angle. Leave 1/4 inch space on either spide the the spine piece. Spray both sides with spray adhesive and fold the paper over. Place a piece of paper over both inside covers.
For Japanese Stab Books: Leave an inch of space around the entire piece. Cut the corners at a 45 degree angle. Leave 1/4 inch space on the side of the spine piece closest to the cover piece. Spray both sides with spray adhesive and fold the paper over. Place a piece of paper over the inside cover.
For Exposed SPines: Leave an inch of space around the entire piece. Cut the corners at a 45 degree angle. Leave 1/4 inch space on the side of the spine piece closest to the cover piece. Spray both sides with spray adhesive and fold the paper over. Place a piece of paper over the inside cover. 37
Part Four The Books
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This section will show you each of the individual books I’ve created in their final form! I’ll talk about what it was like making each of them and a few things I learned from what what went wrong while making them.
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Part Four TEST SUBJECT
It works! And it works better than expected! I created a test screen with a small 99 cent frame form Walmart and a piece a handlettered for this project. It translates to “let’s go” in French which I feel is very fitting for the start of this project.
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That “Screen Printed” Look Something that quickly became apparent once I printed with this screen is that what makes the worn down “screen printed look” is when some of the holes in the fabric where the design is aren’t completely washed away of the photo emulsion, leaving gaps where the ink cannot pass through. Instead of being bummed the screen didn’t turn out perfectly, I’ve decided to embrace the “screen printed look.” 41
Part Four Book BookOne #
The first book is complete! It looks very nice from the photograph and it turned out a lot better than I expected. The only thing about it, which you can’t tell from the photo, is the stitching is very loose which makes the cover and the spine slide around a lot, which isn’t what you want. I also did not glue down the fabric to the chip board, I just folded it over the board and glued it down in the back, so the fabric on the front is also very loose.
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Binding Specs
Screen printing SPecs
MaterialS
Coptic/French Twist Hard Cover Exposed Spine
1 color White Fabric Ink Multifilament Polyester Screen Fabric 6xx
Cotton fabric Chip Board 8.5 x 11 computer paper Embroidery Floss Canson Paper PVA glue
Death of a Screen Your frame for your screen is important! I bought a small, cheap chalkboard from walmart thinking I could easily remove the frame, but I ended up breaking the wood in the process. I managed to glue it back together with wood glue, and I thought it was fine until I started cleaning the screen and the wood expanded as it got wet.
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Part FourO
D E Book One R
This one has some very nice improvements, but also some flaws as well. The stitching is much tighter than the last one and feels less fragile as far as the binding is concerned. I skipped the french twist because it’s a loose stitch by nature and was very difficult to get tight. I also tried glueing down the fabric and the spray glue bled through the fabric so the whole cover was a sticky mess and left a stain on the front. It also picked up a lot of dirt at the covers, so I don’t think I’ll be glueing down any more fabric for these books.
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Binding Specs
Screen printing SPecs
MaterialS
Coptic Hard Cover Exposed Spine
1 color White Fabric Ink Multifilament Polyester Screen Fabric 6xx
Cotton fabric Chip Board 8.5 x 11 computer paper Embroidery Floss Canson Paper PVA glue
Glue. Glue Everywhere Instead of using spray mount to glue down fabric, there are a lot of other ways to use fabric to bind your books! Special bookbinding fabric is sold with an edhesive backing already on it so you don’t have to worry about any kind of messy misshaps. Colors can sometimes be limited and it can be expensive, but you can buy your own fabric and a sheet of double stick ahdesvie paper and make your own bookbinding fabric! 45
Part Four Book TWO
This was a very different stitch compared to the coptic and french link stitches from the last two books. This is a type of Japanese stab binding called the tortoise stitch. Instead of going through the fold of each signature, you just go through the entire stack of pages. It took a lot longer than I anticipated becuase I didn’t puch the holes through the paper or my covers prior to binding. It’s hard to tell, but the pages are all askew as a result of improper planning
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Binding Specs
Screen printing SPecs
MaterialS
Japanese Stab Tortoise stitch Hard Cover Exposed Spine
2 colors Black Fabric Ink Red Acrylic Ink Multifilament Polyester Screen Fabric 6xx
Canson Paper Chip Board 8.5 x 11 computer paper Embroidery Floss Spray Adhesive
OOPS I had a feeling this was going to happen to me at some point. I wasn’t paying attention at all and I accidentally bound the back cover on completely backwards. When you’re binding, make sure to double check everything thing is facing the correct way, or make the inside cover a distinctly different color from the cover.
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Part FourO
D E R Book TWO
Pre-punching each of the holes made the process go by much smoother the second time around. The back cover is also facing the right way this time.
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Binding Specs
Screen printing SPecs
MaterialS
Japanese Stab Tortoise stitch Hard Cover Exposed Spine
2 colors Black Fabric Ink Red Acrylic Ink Multifilament Polyester Screen Fabric 6xx
Canson Paper Chip Board 8.5 x 11 computer paper Embroidery Floss Spray Adhesive
Screen techniques There are a lot of different ways to use your screen other than using photo emulsion. For both of these flower prints, I cut out the shape for the red area out of computer paper and placed it on top of a screen that I hadn’t put photo emulsion on yet and printed on top of it. This technique didn’t come out quite as clean as a normal screen because the ink tends to bleed out the sides of the computer paper. However, if youre short on time, it can work! 49
Part Four Book THREE
This was an experiment with a covered spine and I thnk it’s my best one so far. Wrapping the canson paper around the chip board is quite tricky and can easily get very messy with the spray glue.
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Binding Specs
creen printing SPecs
MaterialS
Coptic Stitch Hard Cover Covered Spine
2 color Black Fabric Ink White Fabric Ink Multifilament Polyester Screen Fabric 6xx
Canson Paper Chip Board 8.5 x 11 computer paper Embroidery Floss Spray Adhesive Hot Glue
Screen Failure Sometimes experiments work and sometimes they don’t. For this screen I tried using the same technique I used for the the flower screen except instead of computer paper, I used a heavier stock paper. Since it was a heavier stock, it was slightly thicker and the screen was raised slightly and was not pressed against the cover like it should be so the ink pooled in places and didn’t even show in others. 51
Part Four Book FOUR
These were so quick and easy, I decided to make two! I like these because they really take almost no time, but they still look very nice and I feel like I would give them away as a gift to someone.
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Binding Specs
Screen printing SPecs
MaterialS
Saddle Stitch Soft Cover Covered Spine
1 color - Gold Fabric Ink 3 color - Blue & White Fabric Ink Multifilament Polyester Screen Fabric 6xx
Canson Paper 8.5 x 11 computer paper Embroidery Floss
Patterns Mixing inks is a great way to get a range of colors without buying every color under the sun. I wanted to try using different colors on one screen instead of using multiple screens and having one screen per color. And I see why you would only use one screen per color. It’s much more work using only one screen and it’s much harder to spread the ink evenly on the design. It may save you a bit of time to make just one screen, but your final print will definatel suffer. Make multiple screens!
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Part Four Book FIVE
The look of the chip board is probably one of my favorite textures. That texture mixed with printing ink is so appealing to me, so I decided not to wrap the book this time and let that texture has its moment in the spotlight. I chose the quote “Progress not Perfection� because I feel it is a very accurate representation of my project. My books are not perfect, nor do I ented for them to be perfect, I intend to learn.
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Binding Specs
Screen printing SPecs
MaterialS
French Twist w/ ribbon Hard Cover Exposed Spine
2 color Black Fabric Ink White Fabric Ink Multifilament Polyester Screen Fabric 6xx
Chip Board Ribbon Embroidery Floss 8.5x11 paper Spray adhesive
Accents Ribbon is something I’ve seen a lot of in the bookbinding world. It’s a great way to add a small pop of color to the side of your binding. You can also glue it to the spine for some extra support. It works great for the french link sticth because I’ve found it’s very difficult to get the french link stitch tight enough and the ribbon makes up for that.
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Part Four Book SIX
Most of the books I’ve made have been hardcover, and I loved the soft cover ones so much I decided to do a kind of hybrid between the two. I really enjoy the look of a covered spine as well as an open spine and I feel like this is a nice compromise between the two.
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Binding Specs
Screen printing SPecs
MaterialS
Long stitch & link stitch Soft Cover Covered Spine
1 color Black Fabric Ink Multifilament Polyester Screen Fabric 6xx
Ribbon Embroidery Floss 8.5x11 paper Canson Paper
Warping Working with soft covers can get very tricky. After I glued the ribbon to the inside cover, I noticed it warping a bit. The glue and the canson paper were not agreeing . It’s best to steer away from using glue directly on the paper. Instead, the ribbon could be looped around and glued to itself rather than having it glued to the paper.
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Part Four Book SEVEN
This is a stitch you can very easily manipulate to make some really cool patterns simply by placing the holes farther or closer apart. You have to work with two signatures at a time, however, which can be tricky towards the beginning becase the paper tends to want to slide around all over the place on you. Endless possibilties with this one!
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Binding Specs
Screen printing SPecs
MaterialS
Cross Stitch Covered Spine Soft Cover
2 color White & Yellow Fabric Ink Blue Fabric Ink Multifilament Polyester Screen Fabric 6xx
Embroidery Floss 8.5x11 paper Canson Paper
Faded Screens Sometimes when all doesn’t go as planned it’s not the end of the world. The orange screen turned out to be much more faded than originally intended but it ended up giving the piece a nice subtly that I ended up really liking. Keep in mind you have some control over the opacity of a screen when you’re printing - press a little lighter and use a little less ink for a more faded look. 59
Part Four Book EIGHT
This book is slightly wider than all the other books. I wanted to try a slightly different format to accomodcate for more printing space. As always, the screen did not go as planned. I ended up cutting the screen out of the frame which is a big NO, don’t ever cut your screen out, because the ink ended up bleeding out underneath it. I salvaged it by covering it up with another screen, so it ended up working out in the end. The great thing about printing is you can just keep putting layers and layers of screens on top and it usually turns out pretty interesting!
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Binding Specs
Screen printing SPecs
MaterialS
Japanese Stab Marionette Exposed Spine Hard Cover
3 color Blue Fabric Ink White Fabric Ink Red Acrylic Ink Multifilament Polyester Screen Fabric 6xx
Chip Board Canson Paper Embroidery Floss 8.5x11 paper Spray adhesive
Good Tutorials are Important I had to redo this stitch quite a few times before I got it right. The problem with it was, the directions I found were insanely confusing so I was really trying to figure it out mostly on my own. It turned out alright in the end by it made me really appreciate the video tutorials and detailed instructions people put on the web to avoid situations like this.
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Part Four Book NINE
This one brings me back to Book Six where it has that covered spine, but still has the exposed stitching. Like I mentioned with the sisxth book, I really loved the look of the feel of having a covered spine and the look of the stitching so I combined them again, but this time with a hard cover instead of soft.
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Binding Specs
Screen printing SPecs
MaterialS
Long stitch Covered Spine Hard Cover
4 color White, Yellow, Blue Fabric Ink Red Acrylic Ink Multifilament Polyester Screen Fabric 6xx
Chip Board Canson Paper Spray Adhesive Embroidery Thread 8.5x11 Computer Paper
Signatures The right number of signatures is sometimes tricky to get at first. For this book, I gadrupled the amount of pages per signature so I was using 16 pages per signature. It proved be slightly too much because the cover pops up a little bit when it’s lying flat. So, there is such a thing as too many pages, and it’s all in relation to how wide your spine is.
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Part Four Book TEN
I love mixing and matching my screens! There’s so many different way you can re-use a screen and have it make a completely different impact. The flowe screen is from my second book, the triangle screen is from my eight book, and the square is from my fourth books. With different colors, placements, and orientations, they look completely different than any of the other books I’ve created.
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Binding Specs
Screen printing SPecs
MaterialS
Japanese Stab Asa-No-Ha Toji Hard Cover Exposed Spine
3 color White Fabric Ink Yellow Fabric Ink Black Fabric Ink Multifilament Polyester Screen Fabric 6xx
Chip Board Canson Paper Spray Adhesive Embroidery Thread 8.5x11 Computer paper
Biiger is Better When working with Japanese stab binding, always make the holes much bigger than you think you need to. It will make your life much easier. I ended up breaking 6 needles trying to push them through all those signatres and two covers. Once I widened the holes, the needle had a much easier time goign through.
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Thanks! Congratulations, you’ve reached the end! Despited the many failures and mishaps, this project has been an overwhelming success in my eyes. I have taught myself a lot about two very important crafts and gained two new skills out of it. And, hopefully, I have also taught you a little something along the way. So, I encourage you to try this yourself! You can use my guide to make your own screens or books or you can find something else you’re interested in and teach yourself!
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