Altering books or creating books?

Altering books is one of my favorite activities. Take an old book, take out the pages and start altering it according to my own theme or style. It is fun to do and I have notices that lately I like to work on this small scale.

But, making books which are adjusted to your own needs (size, thickness, paper etc) is very fulfilling too. Some years ago I did a bookmaking course and so now and then I like to make my own sketchbook or book to be collaged.
See these entries in my blog for some pictures from books that I have made:

These were the first books that I made:
http://exploringart.blogspot.com/2005/10/binded-books.html

This book was made with watercolour paper for the signatures, very stiff paper to fold. But I could work in it with watercolour without the paper wrinkling:
http://exploringart.blogspot.com/2005/10/signs-and-symbols.html
I designed all kind of symbols and painted these in this little book.

Of course I wanted to make some little books as well. All were made with a sewn binding and hard covers. The paper that I use for the signatures was pastepaper:
http://exploringart.blogspot.com/2005/12/three-little-books.html

Another book that I made especially for a Round Robin was also made with pastepaper as signatures:
http://exploringart.blogspot.com/2006/03/new-book-binded-for-next-round-robin.html

These are all books with sewn binding, but on YouTube I found at last a video that explains how to make a book with a coptic binding. Most instructions that I found on the internet were not always easy to understand. I think this is going to be one of my new projects!




Hope you enjoy it!