Drumleaf Bookbinding Workshop

 Today I attended a workshop for Drumleaf Bookbinding. For this workshop I was required to bring a metal ruler and Scalpel. I felt like it would be beneficial for me to attend this workshop as I hope to make my own books in the future.

 I started out folding 2 coloured pieces of paper and 14 pieces of cartridge. This method of binding works best with arouns 10-10 sheets. I then used a bone folder to flatten the creases.

 

We then alligned our sheets, with one coloured sheet in the front and one in the back. When the sheets were alligned, we placed them on the edge of the table with 1cm overhang, and then put weights on top. We then covered the edge in PVA and left it to dry for 30 minutes.

We then used japanese tissue paper to cover the spine. We cut the paper with 2cm extra to fold over.

 We then bagan to make the drumleaf. Starting by leaving both the front and back pages loose, we beagn gluing together every 2 pages. These pages were those that were seperate sheets at the beginning of the process. We did one from the front, gluing a 5mm line on the edge of the page, and then flipped the book and did one on the other side, and continued doing this until the entire book was done. We were using rough paper to keep the lines clean.

 We did this to every set of pages until the whole book was done, and then set a weight on top to flatten.

 Then we began making the spine. Using a piece of card the length and width of the spine of the paper, we glued it to a sheet of bookmaking fabric, with a 2cm border, and then folded over the top and bottom flap.

 Taking care not to put glue on the card, we glued a thick line of PVA on the fabric, covering all but the card.

Then we set our books under the weights again, with the spine overhanging and the weghts putting pressure on the glued section. 

 

The next step was to cut out the front cover from a sheet of cardboard. For this. we had to measure the front of our books from spine to the end of the cover, taking 1cm away to allow for the spine, and adding 1mm extra, so my original width of 15cm became 14.1cm. I then measured the height and added 2cm, making 21.2cm.

 I did the same to make a cover for the back.

 

  The next step was to cover the front and back with my chosen design. For this. I chose my 'Doggy Do's" pattern that I painted in gouache last year. To make this fit the cover, I draw an outline around the card and added a 2cm border, to which I cut slanted edges to make folding easier.

 I then lined up my card with the box I had drawn, and folded the flaps down, gluing the top and bottom first and then doing the sides after the others were stuck down. I did this on both covers.

I then measured 1cm from the spine of my the back of my book and marked it. I then covered the whole back sheet in PVA and stuck on my back cover, lining it up with the 1cm marks I had made. I then turned the book over and did this on the front.

 I then put the book under some weights to allow the glue to dry. I left the spine overhanging the edge of the table to ensure that maximum pressure was applied to the covers.

The finished book!