Sumer is icumin in

We have gone from Winter, through Spring, and into Summer in a very short time this year. I define Spring as the time between the last snow and the first mosquitoes. We now have the bugs (mosquitoes and ticks) and after April’s temperatures running about 10 degrees below normal, forecast temperatures for the next week are about 10 degrees above normal.

I hardly had time for Spring Fever, but I have been sidetracked again. After all that paper folding, I am now designing paper toys for possible inclusion in an exhibition and sale in Montréal next autumn.

Friday Night Flicks: Divers

Tonight’s flick is a short — 3 minutes and 12 seconds— animation by Paris Mavroidis with
music by Kaki King. It combines elements from diving, synchronized swimming, and dance with geometric and kaleidoscopic pattern play.

 

 

Since it is turning to summer (or already is summer) in many places, some of you may get a chance to go diving this weekend.

How To Make A Paper Sheath For Scissors

I mentioned a while ago, when writing about my knitter’s version of a Zhen Xian Bao/Chinese Thread book, that I made a paper sheath for my little scissors. That’s the main subject of today’s post.

Friday Night Flicks: Making a traditional Chinese hanging scroll

Tonight’s flick from The British Museum shows senior conservator Mrs Jin Xian Qiu applying her 43 years of experience to mounting two large paintings as traditional scrolls. I found the idea of getting an absolutely even coat of starch paste on a surface that large rather intimidating!

 

 

If you are backing some cloth or paper this weekend, this film has some nice images of the various consistencies of starch paste and shows where they are appropriate. (If you want to learn how to back cloth or paper, I have some instructions here.)

Little Star Books 3

Today’s post features the third and final little star book for you to make. It’s the one at the bottom of the picture below, and is a variation of the one I posted as one of my star posts for Advent 2017. That one was made from a circle. Today’s star book is folded from a square, then has the corners trimmed.

Friday Night Flicks: To Fold Paper

Today’s flick is another look at origami, this time from the perspective of master folder Quentin Trollip. The works Trollip produces go beyond the average geometric abstractions of animal forms that occur in many origami folds, with the addition of smaller, more free-form details that turn the finished pieces into portraits of real animals.

 

 

I liked the question Trollip asks near the beginning of the video: what is the first thing you notice when you look at an elephant? Perhaps you can look at an animal this weekend, and decide what its most striking feature is, even if you don’t fold an origami version of it.

Little Star Books 2

Today’s post contains the instructions for making the second of three little star books. The one being made today is shown in the upper left corner of the picture below.

Friday Night Flicks: Documentary of a HK Craftsman

This YouTube video by HotPot features some lovely footage of Hong Kong bookbinder Siu Yue/TT at work. It includes some shots of her backing cloth with paper at the beginning, and there are also some detailed shots of her decorating the spine of the book with sections of weaving.

 

 

Perhaps you will spend some time adding decorative touches to a binding this weekend, or at least appreciating the extra care and attention that someone else has put into their work.

Happy World Book Night

World Book Night is a British event promoting reading and literacy. Under the auspices of The Reading Agency, books are given by publishers, printers, libraries, booksellers, private donors, trusts and foundations to organisations including libraries, care homes, hospitals,  prisons, and homeless shelters. April 23 is also (possibly) the birth and death date of William Shakespeare, and the UNESCO International Day of the Book.

World Book Night is also a special event at the University of the West of England. This year the World Book Night United Artists sent out a call: participants were asked to read China Miéville’s short story Their Eyes Were Watching God (from the collection Three Moments of an Explosion) and produce a work in response.

All works are on display until April 30, 2018 at Bower Ashton Library, UWE Bristol, in an exhibition called Found on the isthmus. An artists’ book entitled Their Eyes Were Watching God has also been produced and can be ordered here.

If you would like to look at all of the contributors’ works, images can be found here. Do click on the images for a larger picture, though they have all been cropped to fit the Instagram format. (The image at the beginning of this post is an uncropped scan of my contribution.)

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Little Star Books 1

As you may have guessed from the title of today’s post, I have decided to spread the instructions for the three little star book variations over three posts. At the end of three weeks, you will know how to make these: